The Blessed Virgin… TRULY NOT FIGURATIVELY the Mother of God
Hello to my fellow BOGs and to Father Abe. In the interest of unity within the CFD organization which has been entrusted to our leadership by God, I would like to solicit your answer to the following questions:
1) When the Church teaches that Christ is TRULY present in the Holy Eucharist, are we to understand this in the literal sense or in the figurative sense?
2) When the Council of Ephesus declares that Mary is TRULY the Mother of God, are we to understand this in the literal sense or in the figurative sense?
3) When the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches within the context of the Incarnation of the Son of God that we should profess with the STRICTEST TRUTH that God died, are we to understand this in the literal sense or in the figurative sense?
But what does ‘literal sense’ mean according to the Church? The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal” (CCC 116).
On the issue of “God died” let me share a few comments on why a figurative interpretation has to be rejected as untenable. Let me quote first the wording of the Catechism’:
:“… as according to the rule of Catholic faith we also say with THE STRICTEST TRUTH that GOD DIED, and that God was born of a virgin.” [Catechism of the Trent, Art IV ‘Christ was Really Buried’]
1) The language used by the Catechism “strictest truth” should outrightly rule out a figurative interpretation.
2) The Church here is proposing a truth of faith for our belief and in doing so she does not use the language of metaphor.
3) If ‘God died’ is figurative then ‘God was born’ will also be figurative and Mary would be ‘Mother of God’ only figuratively.
“The other truth we shall consider is that GOD DIED UPON THE CROSS. Here again I am reminded of another street-corner question of about the same vintage: “You say that God died upon the cross; what happened to the universe while God was dead?” The suggestion is made that it was not God who died on Calvary, but the humanity of Christ. But in death, it is always someone who dies, A PERSON; and upon Calvary’s cross, ONLY ONE PERSON hung: GOD THE SON in the manhood that was his.
“The very heart of the doctrine of the Redemption is that the human acts of Christ were the acts of a Person who was DIVINE. Everything that Christ did and suffered and experienced was done and suffered and experienced was done and suffered and experienced by one who was GOD. God’s Son, wholly God, grew to manhood, was a carpenter, rejoiced, sorrowed, suffered, died. These last two words force us really to face the mystery and test our realization of it…
“…Yet IF GOD DID NOT SUFFER AND DIE, THEN NO ONE DID, FOR THERE WAS BUT THE ONE PERSON IN CHRIST; THAT IS, THERE WAS NO SUFFERING, NO DYING: NO SACRIFICE, NO REDEMPTION.” [Frank Sheed. Theology and Sanity. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1946, 1978. p 268.]