Is it a wrong thing for Christian dogma to “live loudly” within us? A few years back the late Senator Dianne Feinstein thought so. During the interview process for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing, the senator indicated that she was concerned that Judge Barrett’s Catholic faith would influence her discernment as a federal judge, saying, “The dogma lives loudly within you.”
As Catholics, we should allow the dogma to live loudly within us. What we hold as divinely revealed truths should make an impact on the way we think, the way we judge, and the way we act. If it didn’t then we honestly couldn’t call ourselves “Catholics”.
Among the dogmas of the Catholic faith that should live loudly within us, for those of us consecrated to Mary in filial slavery of love, it is especially the Marian dogmas which we should testify to loud and clear.
As Fr. William Most argues in the first part of Mary in Our Life, Marian dogma and Marian devotion should go hand-in-hand. He writes,
“Our devotion must be solidly grounded on the firm rock of dogma; otherwise devotion will be shallow. But [at the same time] knowledge of dogma should deepen devotion; otherwise we may become hard.”
What Fr. Most is trying to help us avoid at the outset of his book are the pitfalls of a superficial and a critical devotion to Mary. Both of which are false devotions that we have discussed already in this blog using the wise teaching of St. Louis de Montfort. That being said, allow me to expand a little more on his insistence that we wed dogma to devotion in living out our consecration.
Dogma and devotion
First, dogma gives substance to our devotion. As we briefly mentioned in our last post, the more we learn about Mary, the more motives and motivations we find in loving her and being faithful to her. Now, among the dogmas of the Catholic faith, only four deal with Mary: she is Mother of God, she is the Immaculate Conception, she lives in perpetual virginity and she was assumed into Heaven.
Each of these truths of faith have been solemnly defined by the Church and are thus guaranteed by the Lord’s promise of infallibility. This means that every Catholic can and should hold these truths with fullest assent of faith. And as Fr. Most will present to us later on in his book, they are also truths of faith which must “live loudly” within us, so that we may live a “sound Marian spirituality”.
Devotion and dogma
As dogma gives substance to our devotion, so also devotion feeds our hunger and thirst for dogma. In other words, it is love for Mary that should urge us forward in learning more about her. When love inspires our search for truth, then the difficulty of learning new truths will find a powerful antidote.
I don’t know about you, but studying for me is hard work. Finishing a book is hard work. Committing truths to memory and thinking through them is hard work. But when one loves what he studies, then that work becomes easy. And not only easy, but also fruitful.
We should want to learn more about Mary not only to grow in love for her, but also to spread her devotion. Teachers that love what they teach are much more effective in spreading that truth and inspiring adherents to it, than those who simply restate the facts. Being a slave of Mary means not only loving her completely, but also spreading her motherly love to others. We will be more faithful in doing the latter, the more we wed dogma and Marian doctrine to our devotion.
Until next time…
Seize the day and make it all Hers!
…and let Mary live loudly within you.
