Of
whom should I ask this grace but of Thee? To whom should a loving son
go but to his beloved Mother? To whom the weak sheep cry but to its
divine shepherdess? Whom seek the sick, but the celestial doctor?
Whom invoke those in affliction but the mother of consolation? Hear
me then, Holy Queen!"
The statues of the "Queen of Heaven" are often of great magnificence,
the dress of one which I know having cost $2,000. In the poor Indian
churches a bag of maize leaves, tied near the top to make a neck, and
above that an Indian physiognomy, painted with some vegetable dye,
serves the same purpose. The Bishop of La Serena, in Chili, has
received as much as $40,000 a year for keeping up the revered image
in that church, and these images are worshipped. Bequests are often
left to them, and a popular one will receive many legacies annually.
To be just, I must mention that in the arms of this "Mother of God"
there is, almost invariably, the child Jesus, but I must also state
that to tens of thousands this baby never grew to manhood, but went
up to heaven in His mother's arms. What a caricature of Christianity!
Paul said: "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and
your faith is also vain." "Make Jesus a perpetual child, and
Mariolatry becomes lower than Chinese ancestral worship." If He, as a
child, was translated to heaven, then He never died and rose again.
Mary is, to them, the Saviour. The child Jesus happened to be her
son, and, as she was the great divine one, He, through her, partook
of divinity. La Cruz, a weekly paper, published in Tucuman,
Argentina, in its issue of September 3rd, 1899, had the following
article:
THE BIRTH OF MARY.
"Chroniclers say that such was the fury that possessed the devils in
hell, at the moment of the birth of the Most Blessed Virgin, that
they nearly broke loose.
"There was sounded in heaven the first cannon shot in salutation of
such a happy event. Lucifer gave such a jump that he got his horns
caught in the moon, and there, it is said, he remained hanging all
the day, like the insignificant fellow he is, to the great amusement
of the blessed ones above, who laughed to see such an uncommon sight.
"The other devils, who could not jump so high, remained below
screaming and kicking!, and tearing their apology for beards, when
not otherwise occupied in scratching and biting and burning the
unfortunate condemned ones.
"And all this because... it had been foretold that... a woman, yes, a
woman, should one day bruise their heads... and, according to all
appearances, this was the woman... and that she was that bright and
morning star that announces the appearance of the Sun.
"Why should we not therefore rejoice, as the angels in heaven
rejoiced, over that moat happy event - the birth of Mary."
From this it is clear that in Tucuman, at any rate - and this, by the
way, is an important city, of at least 75,000 inhabitants - they
believe that Mary, not Christ, came to bruise the serpent's head.
