I recently unfollowed a celebrity Catholic speaker for her mean spirited post defending the song "Mary Did You Know. It wasn't just a defense of the song that really got me though, it was that she called out all those who hated this song and find it quite correctly - heretical, haters. That really took me back. I found it very sad that someone who supposedly loves that Catholic Faith and should therefor love our Blessed Mother and Jesus, would so vilify those of us who defend her Immaculate Conception and how that says more about Christ than about Mary herself.
I know, it's a nice song, it's sentimental. What we must understand though, is that the lyrics of this song is a direct attack on Mary's Immaculate conception and questions her Yes, to God. Asking if Mary knew, diminishing Her role in salvation history. Mary knew that Her yes would change the universe forever, Gabriel to her that. Mary knew that her son would be God, Gabriel told her that also. Anything else that she might have known is really not revenant and its trivial to what is really taking place and happening at Christmas. Who cares if she knew that Jesus would walk on water. And Mary was delivered at the time of her conception, not by the cross. It has to be that way, because she was the tabernacle of the new and everlasting covenant. The holy dwelling place of God, a place that was very restricted to anyone other than a high priest until Jesus. Also, Mary's yes is a big deal. Mary's yes is what saves us. Without Mary's yes, we would not now have access to Jesus.
So, yes, I will defend the Blessed Mother and my Catholic faith. There is a reason for the erosion of Christianity as a whole in todays society, and it it because we embrace ignorance in favor of the sentimental. I left midnight Mass feeling a bit flat this year. Unfortunately I was not so much moved emotionally by the celebration. The congregation was more of a romper room crowd. There was a total lack of reverence and piety. My husband even returned from communion to find someone in his seat carrying on a conversation with the people behind us. it was very disappointing and sad. I know though, that an emotional response is not the point of me being there. I know that the Mass is Heaven on Earth, whether I am moved to tears or not. This is the reality though and the state of our Church. We crave that emotional high, and rever it more than what transpires on the altar. Our reverence has been lost to Satan's delight in part, because of these sentimental songs sung, like this, in the secular world and even in Catholic Churches that attack ever so subtly major points and dogmas of our Faith. The bigger problem is that we don't even recognize it or worse yet, find it not that big of a deal. After all, these songs make us feel good!
Jesus Christ is a big deal, the biggest. We must strive to get Him right, and get right everything that the Church teaches. Our salvation and the salvation of others depends on it. If we become so enamored by the secular that are willing to deny little by little the divinity of Christ and Mary's willing and brave role in that mission, then we reduce everything we should be living for, and therefor threaten what we will one day die for.