Dear Mr. Swedenborg

As a Roman Catholic that has been deeply touched by the words of Emanuel Swedenborg, Susan writes to him directly. She has been contemplating the reverence for Mary within her church and she's had some new ideas about this. Swedenborg clearly denounced hailing Mary as without sin, but what if he began looking at it from Susan's perspective? Would he feel the same way? -Editor

January 18, 2013

Dear Mr. Swedenborg,

I am one of your biggest fans! I read your series Arcana Coelestia as if I were memorizing it. No idea has ever hit me so hard or so changed my way of thinking. I recognized your truth as just what I had been longing to know. You explained it very well, btw. I loved the flow of beautiful detail and your kindness in taking so much time to make it clear. You had me from,

“From the mere letter of the Word of the Old Testament no one would ever discern the fact that this part of the Word contains deep secrets of heaven, and that everything within it both in general and particular bears reference to the Lord.”

I am exaggerating, of course, when I say you had me from your opening sentence. It took me months to ‘get it,’ but eventually I did.

I should mention that I am Roman Catholic. Oh, now, please don’t wince when you read that; the church has improved since your day. I never took offense when I read what you said about us because...well, because I know historically we had a lot of problems and the criticism helped clear them up. Also, you were engaging in some literary license to make your points by using things we already know about, such as the Catholic Church. In Apocalypse Revealed 631 you said,

“That Protestant Christians constitute the core, and Roman Catholics form the great peripheral area surrounding it, and that spiritual light, which is the Divine truth emanating from the Lord, radiates from the center all around to the peripheral areas, even to the last of them.”

I can only point out that someone has to be in the great periphery, right? We can’t all crowd into the bright light at the center. Maybe the Catholic Church, being bigger and more diverse, fits naturally and geometrically around the outskirts of that circle.

But I digress. I do have a reason to write to you. I want to run an idea past you. When the New Church kept your books in publication, it created seeds that flew all over the world. Some of them took root in Catholic minds. I love both my own church and your ideas. Sometimes I’ll be sitting there at Mass pondering how the two things tie together. Once, I was looking at all the statues and rosaries and prayers about the Virgin Mary and I meditated on: “What is up with that? Why do we venerate Mary so? We are obsessed with Mary. No wonder Mr. Swedenborg thought we elevate her to a god.” However, since I know we don’t really elevate her that far and in my heart I feel that there is something very Swedenborgian about my loving contemplation of Mary...well, I had to dig deeper. And then it hit me. Here is my awesome inspiration from that day. Are you ready? Don’t laugh. Here it is: ‘Mary is to us Catholics almost exactly as remains are to Mr. Swedenborg.’

What I heard your book say about remains is that they are a hook of sorts that the Lord placed in each of us so that, as we grow up and head out on the path to regeneration, the Lord can use that hook to help us.

“According to the quality and quantity of the remains—that is, of the good and truth with a man—does he enjoy bliss and happiness in the other life; for, as has been said, these remains are stored up in his interior man, and they are opened at the time when the man has left corporeal and worldly things behind. The Lord alone knows the quality and extent of the remains in a man” (Arcana Coelestia 2284).

To explain my idea better, I will intersperse my thoughts with the words of the first half of our Catholic prayer, the Hail Mary:

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

You and I probably agree on the awesomeness of that because it is in the Bible and we both know that that is the Word.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with thee." Mary is someone pristine to Catholics, a person conceived without sin herself. She is the best case scenario of a human being. She makes a great likeness of that hook which is directly from the Lord. She had to be conceived without sin in order to represent for us what remains represent to you. She stays virginal, not just to drive Protestants nuts, but in order to represent something that is not exactly the same as us humans. Remains were placed within us. They are not something mundane that can be defiled. Remains can ‘give birth’ to the Lord within our minds without the remains themselves being changed.

“For it is from remains, or by remains, that a man is a man; for without the state of love and charity, and without the state of innocence—which states insinuate themselves into the other states of his life—a man is not a man, but is worse than any wild beast” (Arcana Coelestia 1738).

"Blessed art thou amongst women." The way I see this, Mary, as a female, symbolizes affections. I hear it as, “of all the affections within my mind, this one of wanting to give birth to the Lord is the most blessed. It is my best desire amongst all my other worldly affections."

"And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus." That is my favorite Bible passage. Ever since I read your books, I can feel that the birth of Christ within my mind creates, or encourages, the growth of fruit. The fruit is the works that come forth, not from me myself (heaven knows), but from the Lord. If I am open to it, He can work though me and in spite of me. Good can flow.

Mr. Swedenborg (may I call you Emanuel?), I hope I have you a little bit intrigued. As a friend pointed out, you once said:

“There are two realities which compose the life of heaven with a person, namely the truth of faith and the good of love. The person receives this life from God, and nothing at all of it has a human origin. Therefore the chief feature of the Church must be to acknowledge God, believe in God, and love Him” (Arcana Coelestia 10816).

Well, my Catholic church does acknowledge, believe in, and love Him.

The rosary that we Catholics say is composed of decades of the Hail Mary. We say them in groups of ten! And that made me remember this about remains:

“Peradventure ten shall be found there. That this signifies if there should still be remains, is evident from the signification of the number 'ten,' as being remains” (Arcana Coelestia 2284).

Also, Mary received her announcement from an angel, which put me in mind of this:

“In regard to remains, or the goods and truths stored up in man's interiors by the Lord, the case is this. When a man is in good and truth from affection, thus from freedom, then good and truth are implanted. And when this takes place, the angels from heaven approach nearer and conjoin themselves with the man. It is this conjunction which causes the goods with truths to come forth in the man's interiors” (Arcana Coelestia 5897).

When I say a rosary, I think of your ideas. I think of Mary both as a person who was Jesus’ mother and as a symbol of the remains that the Lord placed in me. The prayers lead me to contemplate what it is to be regenerating. You taught me to look at things less literally and more spiritually. I really think if you look at our devotion to Mary, you might just see that we are echoing a thought that you yourself had, but for which we did not have the same words.

This is getting rather long; I should be considerate of your time and close. Although probably time is no longer a limit for you. Thanks again for all your patience in explaining things!

Sincerely,

Susan Sup

Susan Sup

Susan is a grandmother who lives in the Midwest. She quilts and loves religious ideas.