Our Lady's Nativity, and what is the Gospel? The very first verses of the New Testament, being a long genealogy of ... her husband! Always recognised as clearly stylised, with three kings omitted and Jechoniah counted twice in order to give fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian Captivity, and fourteen from Babylon to the Nativity of Our Lord, fourteen being the numerical value of the three Hebrew consonants for David. Truly, the Messiah promised to and from the House of David is here, says the most Jewish of the Four Evangelists.
Sacred Tradition has of course always affirmed that Mary was also of Davidic descent, as indeed do her Talmudic defamers in their denunciations of her. Be that as it may, it is notable that only four other women are mentioned in these sixteen verses, and all produced sons who then took their place in the line despite not being the progeny of their mothers' husbands. Either illegitimate or legitimised by the levirate law, they become sons of Abraham and, in the last case, a prince of the House of David, his natural father whom he succeeds and arguably even surpasses.
Our Lady is the new Tamar, preventing the extinction of her people. Our Lady is the new Rahab, rescuing her people by her faith in the limitless power of God. Our Lady is the new Ruth, her Magnificat echoing Ruth's expression of gratitude to Boaz. Our Lady is the new Bathsheba, bringing forth the new Solomon, Whose wisdom is as infinite as His judgement is universal.
And in order to be so, she is placed under the protection of, as Saint Matthew calls him almost immediately after this passage, the "just man" who stands at the conclusion of those forty-two generations of personally imperfect but nevertheless continuous and strictly legal patriarchy and monarchy.
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Firmly in the tradition of the wonderful Essays Radical and Orthodox, which I am now reading for the third time, I cannot put it down. Why have I never heard any of this before? The last two little paragraphs are sublime.
ReplyDeleteThat, although brief, is one of the most eloquent testimonies to Our Lady's greatness that I have ever read. Magnificent.
ReplyDeleteBlessed be She.
You are far too good for the liberal establishment, which would annoy them even if you were not 30 years younger than they are and in line with Papal Teaching whereas they are still lighting candles in front of pictures of Paul VI and wondering why nobody cares about Vatican II any more.
ReplyDeleteI care about Vatican II. There is an entire chapter of Essays Radical and Orthodox about it. That is, about what it actually said rather than what certain people decided to pretend that it had said.
ReplyDeleteThey used to be able to howl down anyone who pointed out their self-serving deceit. But they can't these days, especially now that we have our second Pope in succession.
The next Pope will probably be younger than the Sixties liberals. Their ship has not only sailed, it has sunk.
What really annoys them is that the Milbank preface puts you within the most powerful nexus in English-speaking theology, and probably the most powerful one in Europe too. It's not them any more.
ReplyDeleteOn topic, please.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder you and Joe Cassidy get on so well. He could have written this and he could have written most of your book. You embody the position to which he is returning in his postliberal late middle age. See you both at Ad Proc.
ReplyDeleteSnow permitting. That was what kept me away last year. Oh, and assuming that we have buses on Sunday again by early December.
ReplyDelete