Mary, Mother of God, The Greatest of all Her Titles

http://www.catholicchristiananswers.com ^ | August 12, 2015 | Jessie Neace

[Kolokotronis]

"Must have gotten started somewhere before the SPLIT."

Oh yes, long before. The celebration of the Dormition of the Theotokos started in the 7th century at the latest, long before the Great Schism. Writings about her death go back as far as the 3rd or 4th century. St. John of Damascus, one of the Fathers of The Church, wrote three magnificent sermons on her dormition in the 7th or 8th century. Here's a link to his first one:

http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-dormition-of-theotokos-by-st-john-of.html

The Holy Traditions surrounding the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos have been around for a very long time. It is only really within the last 175 years or so that there has been much controversy about it so far as I know.

[kinsman redeemer]

The Holy Traditions surrounding the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos have been around for a very long time.

Who knows what the "official" version is (Who cares?) But here's an interesting outtake from THIS SITE.

Once, when She [Mary. In this article, they capitalize her name and all pronouns that refer to her.] went to the Mount of Olives to pray, Archangel Gabriel appeared and spoke of Her approaching departure from this world. Upon returning home, She told Apostle John all that the Archangel had said to Her and started preparing Herself for Her final day on earth. Friends and relatives gathered, and eleven of the apostles were miraculously transported from various parts of the world to Her deathbed. They were all amazed to see each other there. When Apostle John explained that the Mother of God would soon be departing this world, they understood why God had brought them together and became sad. But She comforted them, saying: “Do not cry and darken My happiness with your sadness. I am going to My Son and your God, and you will bury My body and return each to your work.” As the time of Her death neared, the room shone with a divine light, the roof disappeared, and a wondrous sight appeared before all: the Lord Jesus Christ descended from heaven surrounded by many angels. All looked upon this wondrous sight with awe and reverence, and when they approached Her bed, the holy body of the Mother of God shone radiantly, and a fragrance of incense pervaded the room.

Oh! My!

[ealgeone]

And John writes not one word about this.......amazing.

[ealgeone]

And now they've got Mary being buried and resurrected after three days!! A stone is rolled away to find an empty grave??!!

. No wonder they want the Fifth Marian Dogma so badly.

. The whole thing mocks what we celebrate as Christianity.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

And now they've got Mary being buried and resurrected after three days!!

They do?!!! Run!!!

Who are they?

[Iscool]

The whole thing mocks what we celebrate as Christianity.

Their religion uses the name of Jesus but their religion is completely foreign to the bible and bible Christianity ...

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“She’s given names of God. She’s given attributes of God. She’s given characteristics of God. She’s given power of God. She’s prayed to, bowed down to, and had plenty of people dedicate their lives to her.”

Instead of the humble servant of God, who was graced by being chosen to bear messiah, she is idolized as a demigoddess that is positioned between people and God - she herself perfect. All false and idolatry.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“And John writes not one word about this.......amazing.”

Bears repeating.

[Springfield Reformer]

This phrase:

“... lest ye reprove thee ...” (from Proverbs 30:6)

... exists in no English language version that I can find. Nor does the Hebrew support such a nonsensical translation. The “ye” should be a “he.” Which leaves two possibilities:

1. You miscopied it from a correct version, or
2. The version you copied it from was misprinted

Of the two, the first is easier to believe than the second.

Having said that, this little subplot does nothing to advance the understanding about the authority of Scripture over competitors for that role. The idea embodied in “Sola Scriptura” has much deeper roots than the Reformation, though, like so many Christian doctrines, it needed a good crisis to foster a more complete articulation.

Peace,

SR

[ebb tide]

Uh; because we are a bit; shall we say; averse to having a Central Authority

So you make The Word up yourselves? Like Luther did?

[Kolokotronis]

Yes, that story is the one I was told as a child. It was around at the latest by the 9th century. Though the site you chose was Russian, the origins of the story are Greek/Antiochian.

Please understand that none of these stories/beliefs are “dogmatic” for the Orthodox. They are what are called theologoumenna, pious opinions which we can hold or not as we are lead by the Holy Spirit.

[BipolarBob]

Yeah, I was off a letter. I’m no transcriber. So which of us does God condemn? Me for a honest transcription error or the Samaritan for willfully ignoring the text altogether? or both?

[kinsman redeemer]

You say "they've" - but to be fair, what I quoted was from a Russian Orthodox church site. I was careful to say, "Who knows what the 'official' version is...?"

However, THIS is from CatholicEducation.org that addresses The Dormition of Mary:

So did Mary die first before being assumed? Did she fall "asleep"? Was she buried? The Church does not bind us to a particular answer because the tradition is not clear. In an apocryphal collection of stories called Transitus Mariae (The Passage of Mary), attributed to Bishop St. Melito of Sardis (d. c. 200), Mary died in the presence of the apostles in Jerusalem, and then depending on the story, her body just disappeared, or was buried and then disappeared.

St. John Damascene (d. 749) also recorded an interesting story concerning the Assumption: "St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven."

These stories, however, must not take precedence over the theological grounding for our belief in the Assumption of our Blessed Mother. Rather, we must remember that the Patristic Fathers defended the Assumption on two counts: Since Mary was sinless and a perpetual virgin, she could not suffer bodily deterioration, the result of original sin, after her death. Also, if Mary bore Christ and played an intimate role as His mother in the redemption of man, then she must likewise share body and soul in His resurrection and glorification.

It's all pretty clear: The "Holy Roman Catholic Church" is desperate to associate Mary with the life and work of Jesus Christ. It is a process of deification. Metmom pointed that out in THIS POST and we see it in the order and progression of "Marian Dogma." I want to also acknowledge THIS POST from Daniel1212 (my favorite post in this thread, btw).

Also, I have no problem associating the life of a Christian with the "resurrection and glorification" of Christ - but the quote above gives me the impression that the "Patristic Fathers" assign these things to Mary exclusively since it says, "...if Mary bore Christ and played an intimate role as His mother in the redemption of man, then she must likewise share body and soul in His resurrection and glorification." (my emphasis)

[Springfield Reformer]

Yeah, I was off a letter.

Yep, which is why I try to avoid the problem altogether by copying and pasting directly from my eSword. Somewhere it says the wise man sees the pit ahead and walks around it.

As for errors, we mortals are all fallible. That's one of the main reasons we can't rely on any man or system of men to know the mind of God, but must do as Jesus says, be sustained in this wilderness by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Peace,

SR

[MHGinTN]

The whole thing reminds me of Satan's lying tactic Yes, we hear the voice of satan in too many of their posts ... and we note that a virulent little platoon of catholic apologists use the same tactics satan inspired Alinsky to enumerate: to shut off opposition, ridicule, and mock and drip sarcasm from phrases, turn phrasing upside down to fix the target and ridicule it.

Satan has captured too many souls through the institutionalized religion of catholiciism, with blasphemous rituals and sacrilegious repetitive prayers to dead people appealed to for intercession, immediately proclaiming through their behaviors that God is not sufficiently with us or hearing every one who calls upon the Lord, reverting to pagan practices such as eating the actual and real presences of the pagan god manipulated from its godhood by the power of the religion's priesthood.

These blasphemies bind the adherents to serve the ridicule and remain deaf and dumb to The Truth in The Word and thus The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us is not sufficient so the adherents must strive within the institutional power to obtain, by earning THAT WHICH GOD PROMISES ONLY BY HIS GRACE through faithing in The One He Has Sent for our salvation and new life in the here and now.

Jesus came into the world to save sinners, to put His life in those who are of a broken and contrite spirit. The religion of catholiciism teaches its adherents to be proud of their working for eternal life, and in so doing cuts them off from eternal life as Promised by God to be afforded ONLY by faithing in The One Whom God has sent to be the propitiation and Lord, our Great High Priest in the Holy of Holies in Heaven, never in a wafer on earth or a cup of wine.

In the very sacraments catholiciism insists must be followed for eternal life to be 'obtained' this paganize religion mocks God's nature and seals off the adherents from Truth by directing their faithing to these works which fund self pride. We see the result of this pride in the mocking tones and ridiculing voices steeped in the blasphemies of catholic ritual and catholic pride.

A soul so puffed up in the pride of works cannot be a broken and contrite one and every participation in the blasphemous ritual of Mass amplifies the pride of doing to be worthy. Every session in the confessional elevates the pagan priesthood to power that is the antithesis of what Jesus Himself taught His disciples, as recorded in the Word God has given to us for our growth and edification.

We read ne or two of these servants to this blasphemous religious institution telling us this institutionalization is required for God to be in them. Yet if God is in them, ever, they are no longer striving to obtain or retain eternal life for it would be int hem making a new creation of them. Yet they teach others that this life in them must be renewed when a sin is committed, as if God comes and goes with their spirit like a yoyo. This is a direct contradiction to the Bible and what Paul by the inspiration of God's Spirit wrote concerning eternal life in the believer.

As we read their posts, it is as if they have never read the Book of Hebrews or the letter to the Romans, have never seen the proclamations in Titus, Peter's letters, or the letters Paul wrote to the bodies of believers his evangelizing established in Thessalonika, Ephesus, and Corinth. Every time a catholic apologist spittles the notion that it is the catholic church which has give us the Bible, that spittlist has proclaimed God in need of human works, as if The God Who Created the UNiverse is unable to dirtect the survival of the written message He has sent for our needs, spiritually.

The works of satan done through the catholic magicsteeringthem are evidenced in the subtle changes of particular words in the Bible, twisted to support lies such as Mariology, to counter the protestations against such blasphemies, such as changing the 'apostasia' from reading departure to rebellion (2 Thess 2:3). And the servants of this blasphemous religion fashioned to look like Christianity but having only the power of satan in it exhibit the most telling feature of the perishing who are full of religiosity, they are so prideful int heir membership devotion tot he cult.

[af_vet_1981]

good work; the chapter should read thirty; the error is mine; mea culpa Fortunately it was not the text of scripture I mangled; nonetheless, correcting my error I submit for your review:

He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot. Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased. If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers who go right on their ways:

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Proverbs, Catholic Chapter nine, Protestant verses seven to fifteen,
Proverbs, Catholic Chapter thirty, Protestant verses five to six, as authorized, but not authored, by King James

[metmom]

Nice story.

I wonder who made that up?

[metmom]

And not one word about it at all in Scripture.

[af_vet_1981]

But then one would be misspelling Balaam's name. Correct; I often use an alternative rendering in English because Balaam's makes no linguistic sense to me from the Hebrew, which I might render Bilam and would not be familiar to most on the RF.

The etymology of the name Balaam is uncertain, and several Jewish, and Christian, sources translate it either glutton, or foreigner. The rabbis, playing on the name, call him Belo 'Am, meaning without people, more explicitly meaning that he is without a share with the people in the world to come, or call him Billa' 'Am, meaning one that ruined a people. This deconstruction of his name into B—l Am is supported by many modern biblical critics, which considers his name to simply be derived from Baal Am, a reference to Am, a Baal of Moab.
bold emphasis mine

[af_vet_1981]

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought! Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.
Numbers, Catholic chapter twenty three, Protestant verses nineteen to twenty four,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James