Note 808 — Chapter XXV

Luther must have known that in Catholic worship the Divine Son is more honoured by the veneration of Mary than she herself. That adoration was paid to God alone and not to Mary he could see from the text of the prayers of the ancient Church. Luther, for instance, was acquainted with the Invitatories of the Office for the Feasts of Mary’s Nativity and Assumption, the first of which commences with the words: “Let us celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary,” and then at once adds: “Let us adore her Son Christ our Lord”; while the second sets Our Lord in the first place and says: “Come, let us adore the King of Kings Whose Virgin Mother was to-day assumed into Heaven.” Thus in the Liturgy which he himself had celebrated, the leading thought, that Christ was honoured in Mary, ran through the celebration of all her Feasts, from that of her entrance into this life to that of her exit. The Hymns to the Mother of God in Luther’s day concluded as they do now: “Jesu, to Thee be glory, Who wast born of a virgin,” etc. Any adoration of the Blessed Virgin as of a “goddess” was so alien to the people that it would have been rejected with indignation.