Page:O'Donnell - Hail Holy Queen 02 - Less of the Sun-Worship.djvu/5

 would object to the title, but in sober fact there is little substantial difference between them and the sun-worshippers of old. Like the pagans, they offer their bodies to the sun, in the hope that the alchemy of its titillating rays will somehow enhance and ennoble them. In performing the rite, some get well browned. Others, we might say, go so far as to give their bodies to be burned—and coconut oil is no soothing ointment. Now, doctors have long recognized the therapeutic value of the sun, and in certain ailments advise sun-bathing as a restorer of health. Within reason, the practice is good. But what concerns me is that so often the sun-bath is prolonged into a moon-bath accompanied by bodily pleasures that are ruinous not only to the body but also to the soul. Sin in some of its various aspects follows. The tragedy is that such cultists confuse the means with the end: in glorifying their bodies through obeisance to the sun, they are losing their souls by not recognizing the Creator of the sun, God Himself, their last end. For God sent His only Son to redeem men in order that they might become sons of God. Instead of sun-worship, mankind must return to the worship of the Son—of God.

From Mary is learned the lesson of the body as the repository of the soul, the image of God. Recall the words of the Archangel Gabriel: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee:" That is, Mary's conception of the Incarnate Word was brought about by the Holy Spirit, Who also supported and strengthened her through all that the Incarnation implied. The very life of mankind dwelt within the body of the Blessed Mother, who was the Vessel of Honor, the Vessel of Singular Devotion. This portrays more clearly St. Paul's reference to the body as the "temple of the Holy Ghost." "And the Lord God formed man out of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7).

Without the soul the body is a lifeless thing—"for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return" (Genesis 3:19). But the philosophy of the world does not believe in the soul. The philosophy of materialism takes many forms, ranging from the hedonism of the sun-worshipper to the pragmatism of the utilitarian, and all forms have this fault in common: they see man as a soulless automaton, self-made, sufficient unto himself, coming out of nothingness, and to nothingness returning.