In his sermon “The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine,” preached on the feat of the purification in 1843 while he was still an Anglican, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) said the following about Mary which I thought was thoughtful and which Latter-day Saints will appreciate:
Little is told us in
Scripture concerning the Blessed Virgin, but there is one grace of which the
Evangelists make her the pattern, in a few simple sentences—of Faith. Zacharias
questioned the Angel’s message, but “Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the
Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” Accordingly Elisabeth, speaking
with an apparent allusion to the contrast thus exhibited between her own highly-favoured
husband, righteous Zacharias, and the still more highly-favoured Mary, said, on
receiving her salutation, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed if the
fruit of thy womb; Blessed is she that believed for there shall be a
performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”
2. But Mary’s faith
did not end in a mere acquiescence in Divine providences and revealtions: as
the text informs us, she “pondered” them. When the shepherds came, and told of
the vision of Angels which they had seen at the time of the Nativity, and how
one of them announced that the Infant in her arms was “the Saviour, which is
Christ the Lord,” while others did but wonder, “Mary kept all these things, and
pondered them in her heart.” Again, when her Son and Saviour had come to the
age of twelve years, and had left her for awhile for His Father’s service, and
had been found, to her surprise, in the Temple, and amid the doctors, both
hearing them and asking them questions, and had, on her addressing Him, vouchsafed
to justify His conduct, we are told, “His mother kept all these sayings in her
heart.” And accordingly, at the marriage-feast in Cana, her faith anticipated
His first miracle, and she said to the servants, “Whatsoever He saith unto you,
do it.”
3. Thus St. Mary is
our pattern of Faith, both in the reception and in the study of Divine Truth.
She does not think it enough to accept, she dwells upon it; not enough to
possess, she uses it; not enough to assent, she develops it; not enough to
submit the Reason, the reasons upon it; not indeed reasoning first, and
believing afterwards, with Zacharias, yet first believing without reasoning,
next from love and reverence, reasoning after believing. And thus she
symbolizes to us, not only the faith of the unlearned, but of the doctors of
the Church also, who have to investigate, and weigh, and define, as well as to
profess the Gospel; to draw the line between truth and heresy; to anticipate or
remedy the various aberrations of wrong reason; to combat pride and recklessness
with their own arms; and thus to triumph over the sophist and the innovator. (D.M.
MacKinnon and J.D. Holmes, comps., Newman’s University Sermons [London:
SPCK, 1970], 312-14)
