our mother Mary, and other such topics

One of my current favorite Christmas songs, the Seven Joys of Mary got me thinking. This song is like a mini rosary. When people (Catholics and non-Catholics alike) think of the rosary, they think of Mary. The difference (between Cs and non-Cs for the most part) is that Catholics understand that all praise given to Mary doesn't stop with her, it is given to Jesus because she gives it to him.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;

he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed;

the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.

He has mercy on those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm

and has scattered the proud in their conceit,

Casting down the mighty from their thrones

and lifting up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good thing

and sent the rich away empty.

He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,

to remember his promise of mercy,

The promise made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

So today, the connection between the rosary and the Seven Joys of Mary came to me. The song is called, well, the Seven Joys of Mary. Sounds as if she is the subject of it. Each of the seven events looks at an occurrence in the life of Mary. But!! They all are about her Son. Mary wants to point us to her Jesus.
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The other thing it made me think of was the role of culture in contributing to our understanding of faith. The song was going through my head, the 7th verse:

The next good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of seven,
To see her blessed Jesus Christ ascending into heaven...

Except my mind said "descending" instead of "ascending." That's when it occurred to me that taken literally, both of these words are completely meaningless in this context. The only reason we say "ascending" is because we associate the words "high" "up" "over" etc with superiority and goodness. I ran that by Jon who added the point that it's hard for us to get to things that are physically higher than us; to get to them involves greater effort. We like to say that higher things require greater effort. It strikes me as a really cool thing how that works, the connectedness of our bodies and our understanding and the language we use to convey our understanding.
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And (finalement) I got a new book today! I am now about to start reading it. "Arise From Darkness: What To Do When Life Doesn't Make Sense" by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. and one of the coolest people living on the earth at the moment.

G'night!