Saint Gregory (verse)
Goldman, Marcus Selden
478 THE COMMONWEAL September 23, 1925 Real belief, when it came, was induced by the objective fact itself. Our Lady's reception of the Angel Gabriel's news is our model. The...
...If we accept "something for nothing" it is only when we have become convinced that we are "not worthy the least of His mercies...
...The overwhelming honor promised her is greeted at first with due caution—"How shall this be done...
...So in his book we still mav read How Benedict long walked with God In sanctity of thought and deed, Keeping the way his Master trod, Seeking on earth no other meed, Than thorny crown and scourger's rod...
...Belief, in the full Christian sense, is no cheap and easy acceptance of what happens to recommend itself to us as pleasing...
...Saint Gregory God gave the good Saint Gregory The Fisher's seat to hold with power, And to its pomp of fief and fee (That even saints keep but an hour) Joined of most holy poesie The fragrant and perennial flower...
...be it done to me according to thy word...
...One feels that her attitude would have been the same if the secret divulged had been a sorrowful, instead of a glorious one...
...Then follows the submissive acceptance that made her Mother of God —"Behold the handmaid of the Lord...
...The grace of God has to prevail both over the natural pessimism of the heart which declares it "too good to be true," and over the cheap optimism which says that because it is good, therefore it must be true...
...So highest truths that faith can teach Mingling with legends strange and quaint, That in the peasant's fireside speech Add to the glory of a saint, Drew within shortest human reach, A vision else too far and faint...
...Learn, too, we may how once, of old, A horse, who'd borne the weight of Rome, In no uncertain language told His mistress he'd not stir from home— How a good bear brought sheep to fold, And iron floated light as foam...
...How different from the eager haste with which the devotees of modern cults accept the bidding of their own fancies 1 It is this subordination of self to objective truth and authority which distinguishes faith from the kind of credulity of which we have been speaking...
...Marcus Selden Goldman...
...In other words, Catholic faith is opposed both to unbelief and to the kind of belief we call credulity...
Vol. 2 • September 1925 • No. 20
