Christian Piatt, on why he prays the "Haily Mary"

[FireDragon76]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christ...otestant-pray-the-hail-mary-and-use-a-rosary/

I think he has some interesting points, paralleled in my own experience (I found the Angelus a very useful prayer, at some point I "outgrew" the rosary). I really do miss going to the local Episcopal Cathedral during Lent and singing the Stabat Mater at the Stations of the Cross. It was a powerful experience.

Like Christian Piatt, I did not, and do not have a good relationship with my dad (he's a somewhat cool, distant, and irreligious man), and this carries over to how I view male authority figures in general. Like him, I can recognize a need to have something of a "sacred feminine", but I realize also that a theology that would just have God as a "she" would be a fanciful idolatry without warrant in the Bible or ancient Christian tradition.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, God's face is obscured. We all have periods of doubt if we are honest. Protestants can harp on about how we always have access to God and we don't need the merit of any saint (which I acknowledge as true), but sometimes it's just too hard to believe. We have deep seated emotional barriers. In that sense, Mary fills a void that I feel that Protestant spirituality does not address.

 

[bbbbbbb]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christ...otestant-pray-the-hail-mary-and-use-a-rosary/

I think he has some interesting points, paralleled in my own experience (I found the Angelus a very useful prayer, at some point I "outgrew" the rosary). I really do miss going to the local Episcopal Cathedral during Lent and singing the Stabat Mater at the Stations of the Cross. It was a powerful experience.

Like Christian Piatt, I did not, and do not have a good relationship with my dad (he's a somewhat cool, distant, and irreligious man), and this carries over to how I view male authority figures in general. Like him, I can recognize a need to have something of a "sacred feminine", but I realize also that a theology that would just have God as a "she" would be a fanciful idolatry without warrant in the Bible or ancient Christian tradition.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, God's face is obscured. We all have periods of doubt if we are honest. Protestants can harp on about how we always have access to God and we don't need the merit of any saint (which I acknowledge as true), but sometimes it's just too hard to believe. We have deep seated emotional barriers. In that sense, Mary fills a void that I feel that Protestant spirituality does not address.

Thank you for the excellent meditation. It reminds me of the exceptionally strong emotional attachment I had with a church I attended. The attachment was based on the architectural character of the building. There is nothing particularly wrong about enjoying architecture and even developing an emotional attachment to it. My difficult came because that particular church was quite liberal in its theology. I left it despite its lovely architecture and because I was impelled by a greater love for truth.

 

[FireDragon76]

Christian architecture is another one of those things that Protestants would probably see as secondary, sure. But that results in a haphazard approach that ignores the importance of aesthetics and symbols and how they relate to our subconscious mind, which after all is where our motivations come from.

At the church I currently have been attending, there's a ceiling that looks like a boat turned upside down. The exterior of the church even looks a bit like a "Noah's Ark", with small windows on the sides near the roof filled with stained glass. It's a powerful image, since that's how the early Christians thought of the Church.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Christian architecture is another one of those things that Protestants would probably see as secondary, sure. But that results in a haphazard approach that ignores the importance of aesthetics and symbols and how they relate to our subconscious mind, which after all is where our motivations come from.

At the church I currently have been attending, there's a ceiling that looks like a boat turned upside down. The exterior of the church even looks a bit like a "Noah's Ark", with small windows on the sides near the roof filled with stained glass. It's a powerful image, since that's how the early Christians thought of the Church.

I am not sure what you mean by "early Christians". We have no surviving church buildings dating from before the fourth century and there are no church buildings which were erected until the twentieth century with a boat metaphor symbolized by the architecture.

 

[PuerAzaelis]

... I realize also that a theology that would just have God as a "she" would be a fanciful idolatry without warrant in the Bible or ancient Christian tradition.

The Book of Genesis
Chapter 1
27
So God made man in his own image, made him in the image of God. Man and woman both, he created them.

 

[FireDragon76]

The Book of Genesis
Chapter 1
27
So God made man in his own image, made him in the image of God. Man and woman both, he created them.

Note the male pronouns, despite the mystery of making woman in God's image. If there's femininity in God, it's not revealed to us clearly or directly.