**The Catholic mind**

**The Catholic Mind**

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky

The Catholic mind is beautiful. It is capable of carefully defining terms and making clear distinctions. It holds fast to principles and draws thoughtful and precise conclusions. The Catholic mind realizes that faith informs reason and reason buttresses faith.

An exquisite Catholic mind emerges here and there throughout the history of the Church in all its splendor. Saint Thomas More comes to mind, as does Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

A Catholic mind breaking bad has its own peculiar grandeur. The greatest of those minds is that of Lucifer, before the creation of man the most magnificent of the angels. Henceforth, literature is filled with the ambivalent appeal of “evil geniuses.” Today we have very few Catholic intellectuals with nimble and keen minds that rise to the medieval heights. In some ways, it is a sad commentary that even today’s heretics rarely exhibit a finely formed Catholic mind to abuse.

Incisive Catholic minds may not be astute when it comes to the world of politics. Truth and politics at times do not mix. The faithful intellectual prowess of Pope Benedict XVI is elegant, but he is not particularly appreciated by the culture. During his Regensburg Address on faith and reason in 2006, the Holy Father quoted the polemic of a medieval emperor who criticized the violent consequences of Islamic nominalism. The Muslim world responded indignantly, bristling with the Holy Father's characterization of their “religion of peace."

An Islamic extremist group kidnapped priest Ameer Iskander, in Mosul. His body was found three days later, decapitated. His relatives reported that his Muslim captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's comments about Islam.

Despite our best efforts to “celebrate diversity,” the tenets of faith have logical consequences for better or for worse.

Fundamental to the Catholic faith is that man is created in the image of likeness of God. If taken seriously, the consequences of this dogma are inestimable. It is the foundation of the Catholic view of the dignity of man. When faith in man as an image of God is unshakable, there is no room for racism, master races, or genocide. There isn’t even room for hating a next door neighbor.

The Catholic mind of Saint Athanasius was sharp and unrelenting. His zeal by God’s grace saved the Church from the heresy of Arius. Arius held that Jesus was the most special of the “sons of God” but merely human. Some argue that his heresy set the stage for the spread of the errors of Islam. Athanasius responded with vigor: Jesus is true God and true man and Mary is the Mother of God. As a consequence, the Nicene Creed of 325 A.D. forever affirms this central dogma of the faith.

Of course, the Second Person of the Trinity exists from all eternity. But when He came into the world, He did not enter as a partial Person. Jesus, born of Mary is true God and true man. He is one Person with two natures (the hypostatic union). God and man are reconciled in the Person of Jesus. Hence, Mary is necessarily the Mother of God.

When the Word was made flesh, He took on our flesh. And even before Baptism, we became sons in the Son. The Sacrament of Baptism elevates our sonship to union with the Mystical Body of Christ. The Incarnation means that God is not alien to us. All that is Godly is perfectly compatible with our humanity. God is Emmanuel – God with us.

When Jesus says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18), He reveals that we encounter God’s goodness in Himself. “He [Jesus] reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power.” (Hebrews 1:3) So we can count on Jesus to teach us what it means to be good. And we can have confidence that we also can assume the goodness of God in joy because His goodness does no violence to our nature. Indeed, the goodness of God elevates and purifies human nature.

Because of the Incarnation, we know with certainty that God is not distant in transcendence. And He’s not a tyrant. We encounter God in the tender humanity of Jesus: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Cf. Mt. 11:30)

The doctrine of Mary, the Mother of God provides us with confidence in the Real Presence. Christ is present in the Eucharist, body, blood, soul, and divinity. When we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we receive the Son of Mary true God and true man. In our reception of the Eucharist, God and man are once again reconciled, and it’s personal.

Much more can be said. But we need a Catholic mind to begin to enter into the ever-expanding mysteries of God. With Mary the Mother of God to intercede for us, let’s resolve to cultivate and develop a keen Catholic mind. A mind where faith and reason are close friends because God and man are reconciled in the Person of Jesus.