Our Lady's Lamp

Remember that typology stuff I was talking about? I already mentioned there that Jesus is the new Adam. But if Jesus is the new Adam, as Paul tells us, then who is the new Eve? Mary, of course! No other woman was with Him at the beginning and stayed with Him until the end. But do we  need  a New Eve, you may ask? Well, here is what some of the Early Church Fathers and more modern theologians have said. "Christ was born of a woman so that just as death came through a woman, so through Mary, life might return." ~St. Peter Chrysologus "Jesus became man by the Virgin so that the course of which was taken by disobedience in the beginning through the agency of the serpent might be also the very course by which it could be put down. Eve...conceived the word of the serpent and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the...

Typology is something I am going to be using in many of my posts, so I am going to type this up once and link it whenever I use it. What is Typology? Mister Webster defines it thusly:  "A doctrine of theological types; especially: one holding that things in Christian belief are prefigured or symbolized by things in the Old Testament." St. Augustine talks about this mystery when He says, "The New Testament is concealed in the old, and the Old is revealed in the New." Michael Barber (in his book,  Coming Soon, Unlocking the Book of Revelation and Applying its Lessons Today ) describes typology this way, "God is the Author of all history, which He fashioned for the salvation of the world. When humans write books, we use words to signify realities.... God "writes" the world as men write books - except, instead of using only words, He can use historical realities to signify other historical realities. "An example is the Passover. Th...

If I were to ask what the biggest dividing factor between Catholics and Protestants is, I guarantee you at least half would say "Mary." A few might say "The Pope," one or two may bring up the sex scandals, some may bring up Tradition and Scripture vs Solo Scriptura, and a few who were familiar with Catholic doctrine might say the Eucharist. But the bulk of people would say Mary and the Saints.  Why is that? Some people will claim that it is because we shouldn't talk to the dead, but Jesus told us that God is not God of the dead, but of the living , so many will leave the topic of the saints alone - regardless of their acceptance of it. But few will leave Mary alone. I was listening to a talk by a convert, and he was certain that "Mary would keep him Protestant." Mary was one of my mother's largest hurdles to pass as well, though that wasn't something I had an issue with . But for many of my friends, it is.  So, first, let me clarify a ...

My Desire Totus Tuus - Totally Yours. This, more than anything, is what I desired of my life. One of my first posts, a year and a half ago, was about how God shaped my heart to desire His Glory . God has since changed my desire. Anyone can give glory to someone - think of the soldiers that gave great glory to conquerors like Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, or the Champions that fought in the place of the king to settle disputes. Achilles was one of the great Greek glories.... but he despised the rulers. You can bring glory to someone you don't necessarily love. And I realized that I didn't just want to serve God - I wanted to love  Him. I didn't just want to be His soldier. I wanted to be His bride, His lover. This was a distinction I did not make until after I graduated college and had time to sit and stop being a Martha and start being a Mary. After graduation, I had almost 8 months of no job, so I spent lots of time in the Adoration Chapel, sitting as t...