I have written a novel and just under the title is the epitaph of Cardinal John Henry Newman, which reads: “Ex umbris et imaginibus en veritatem” (“Out of shadows and images into truth”). Aside from tending to the storylines and themes in the novel, the phrase can also be descriptive of the journey of someone suffering from depression – a journey I have traveled for many years. Without being fully conscious of it, I have been waiting for decades to find good material on depression and Catholicism.
Protestants aren’t the only ones who find Catholic devotion to Mary a bit over-the-top sometimes. A lot of Catholics find other Catholics, including great saints like Alphonsus Liguori and Louis de Montfort, to be a little “much” when talking about the Virgin Mary. I get it. Take the Salve Regina, for example: it calls Mary “our life, our sweetness, and our hope.” How is that kind of effusive flattery theologically defensible? After all, our Life and our Hope is Jesus Christ.