Lyric for Mary Did You Know

The hymn that cancels Christmas

Tin a hymn cancel Christmas? Can the lyrics of a vocal, if true, make Christmas not true — that is to say, un-real? Oh, yes!

Now, information technology is a given that honorable people may disagree most which piece of music is more than suitable to reverence the birth of Christ. (I myself prefer

Handel's Messiah

to "

The Little Drummer Boy

.") And while there are any number of "secular" Christmas songs that ignore Christ altogether, they are but distractions. What I take in mind is a song that, if taken seriously, makes impossible what Christians gloat at Christmas. I might even telephone call that song a "hymn" considering I once heard it sung in a parish at Christmas Eve Mass. I am writing about it now for that reason, and besides considering I've heard so many Catholics speak so effusively about it, especially when information technology is sung at Christmas masses. I'grand speaking of a vocal made pop past former American Idol star Clay Aiken: "Mary Did You Know?"

While the vocal has the merits of prompting its hearers to reflect on Mary beholding her Divine Son, lines from the very first stanza actually bring Christmas to a screeching halt. Here are the problematic lyrics:

"Did you know that your Infant Boy has come to make yous new? This Child that you delivered will soon deliver y'all."

Now, those lines make sense if Mary is another sinner just similar the states, who needs to exist delivered from sin. You run across, if Mary is a sinner who like usa needs a savior, then the lyricist's play on the discussion "deliver" (sense ane: "evangelize" = "requite birth"; sense 2: "deliver" = "liberate from sin") is both clever and theologically audio. But if Mary is a sinner in need of a savior, and then she cannot be the worthy vessel in whom the All-Holy God takes on homo nature as the Discussion-Made-Flesh. In other words the lyrics depend upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception being simulated. If Mary needs a Savior, and then she cannot be the vessel of the Incarnation. And "No-Incarnation" = "No-Christmas." How ironic that a song sung with so much gusto as a Christmas hymn logically precludes what it claims to celebrate!

Allow's take a wait at the Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, promulgated by Pope Pius Ix on December 8, 1854, which defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Pius begins by summarizing this ancient doctrine: "From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only begotten Son a mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world." Mary was not, and could not have been, just any woman, just any sinner, selected by God to exist the mother of His Only Begotten Son.

Pius reflects on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in a fashion that shows that sound theology tin can be eloquent, even poetic:

The Virgin Mother of God would not exist conceived by Anna before grace would bear its fruits; information technology was proper that she be conceived as the first-born, by whom 'the offset-born of every beast' would exist conceived. They testified too that the flesh of the Virgin, although derived from Adam, did not contract the stains of Adam, and that on this business relationship the virtually Blessed Virgin was the tabernacle created by God himself and formed by the Holy Spirit … she is beautiful by nature and entirely free from all stain; that at her Immaculate Conception she came into the world all radiant like the dawn. For information technology was certainly not plumbing fixtures that this vessel of election should exist wounded by the common injuries, since she, differing so much from the others, had merely nature in mutual with them, not sin. In fact, information technology was quite plumbing equipment that, as the Merely Begotten has a Begetter in heaven, whom the Seraphim extol as thrice holy, so he should accept a Mother on earth who would never exist without the splendor of holiness.

How much more than beautiful, sublime, and awe-inspiring is the Immaculate Conception equally the prelude to Christmas — far more so than the well-intentioned but erroneous sentimentality of the lyrics of "Mary Did You Know?"

Pius sums up the dogma of the Immaculate Conception with this definition:

We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the almost Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved gratis from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed past God and therefore to exist believed firmly and constantly past all the faithful.

We are now in the second week of Advent. Prepared or not, nosotros will soon find ourselves in the Christmas season. To find the truth of Christmas, to discover the great souvenir of God which is the real "reason for the season," we cannot avoid, forget or deny the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. No piece of music, not fifty-fifty Handel's Messiah tin can express all of the wonder of Incarnation and the glory of Christmas. Giddy, secular songs can distract us from Christmas. Some songs, similar "Mary Did You Know," even if very affecting in a sentimental way, actually preclude Christmas. This Christmas season, let'due south requite our family and friends the gift of Christmas truth. "O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who accept recourse to thee!"

When I write next, I volition speak of Advent equally a time of forgiveness. Until then, let'southward keep each other in prayer.

***

Meet Fr. McTeigue's column in which he responds to readers' comments to "The Problem With 'Mary, Did You Know?'"

Father Robert McTeigue, SJ, is a member of the Maryland Province of the Lodge of Jesus. A professor of philosophy and theology, he has long experience in spiritual direction, retreat ministry and religious germination. He teaches philosophy at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, FL, and is known for his classes in both rhetoric and medical ethics.

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Source: https://aleteia.org/2015/12/09/the-problem-with-mary-did-you-know/

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