Posted on 10/08/2015 8:02:23 AM PDT by Salvation
As a young child I was very close to God. I spoke to Him in a very natural way and He spoke plainly to me. Although I have very few memories of my early childhood, I vividly remember how close I was to God. When early puberty approached, though, I began to slip away, drifting into the rebellious and angry years of my teens. As the flesh came more alive, my spirit submerged.
The culture of the time didn’t help, either. It was the late 1960s and early 1970s and rebelliousness and the flesh were celebrated as “virtues.” Somehow we thought ourselves more mature than our pathetic forebears, who were hopelessly “repressed.” There was the attitude among the young that we had come of age somehow. We collectively deluded ourselves, aided by the messages of rock music and the haze of drug use, that we were somehow “better.”
So it was the winter of my soul. The vivid faith of my childhood gave way to a kind of indifferent agnosticism. Though I never formally left Church (my mother would never had permitted that as long as I lived in under my parents’ roof), I no longer heard God or spoke to Him. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that when I was in high school I joined the youth choir of my parish church. This was not precipitated by a religious passion, but rather by a passion of another kind: there were pretty girls in the choir and I “sought their company,” shall we say. But God has a way of using beauty to draw us to the truth. Week after week, year after year, as we sang those old religious classics a buried faith began to awaken within me.
But what to do? How to pray? I heard that I was supposed to pray. But how? As a child it had been natural to talk with God. But now He seemed distant, aloof, and likely angry with me. And I’ll admit it, prayer seemed a little “goofy” to me, a high school senior still struggling to be “cool” in his own eyes and in the eyes of his friends. Not only that, but prayer was “boring.” It seemed an unfocused, unstructured, and “goofy” thing.
But I knew someone who did pray. My paternal grandmother, “Nana,” was a real prayer warrior. Every day she took out her beads and sat by the window to pray. I had seen my mother pray now and again, but she was more private about it. But Nana, who lived with us off and on in her last years, knew how to pray and you could see it every day.
Rosary Redivivus – In my parish church of the 1970s, the rosary was non-existent. Devotions and adoration were on the outs during that sterile time. Even the Crucifix was gone. But Nana had that “old-time religion” and I learned to appreciate it through her.
Ad Jesum per Mariam – There are some, non-Catholics especially, who think that talking of Mary or focusing on her in any way takes away from Christ. It is as though they consider it a zero-sum game, in which our hearts cannot love both Mary and Jesus. But my own experience was that Mary led me to Christ. I had struggled to know and worship Christ, but somehow a mother’s love felt more natural, safer, and more accessible to me. So I began there, where I could. Simply pole-vaulting right into a mature faith from where I was did not seem possible. So I began, as a little child again, holding my Mother’s hand. And gently, Mother Mary led me to Christ, her son. Through the rosary, that “Gospel on a string,” I became reacquainted with the basic gospel story.
The thing about Marian devotion is that it opens up a whole world. For with this devotion comes an open door into so many of the other traditions and devotions of the Church: Eucharistic adoration, litanies, traditional Marian hymns, lighting candles, modesty, pious demeanor, and so forth. So as Mary led me, she also reconnected me to many things that I only vaguely remembered. The suburban Catholicism of the 1970s had all but cast these things aside, and I had lost them as well. Now in my late teens, I was going up into the Church “attic” and bringing things down. Thus, little by little, Mother Mary was helping me to put things back in place. I remember my own mother being pleased to discover that I had taken some old religious statues, stashed away in a drawer in my room, and placed them out on my dresser once again. I also took down the crazy rock-and-roll posters, one by one, and replaced them with traditional art, including a picture of Mary.
Over time, praying the Rosary and talking to Mary began to feel natural. And, sure enough, little by little, I began to speak with God. It was when I was in the middle of college that I began to sense the call to the priesthood. I had become the choir director by that time and took a new job in a city parish: you guessed it, “St. Mary’s.” There, the sterility of suburban Catholicism had never taken hold. The candles burned brightly at the side altars. The beautiful windows, marble altars, statues, and traditional novenas were all on display in Mother Mary’s parish. The rest is history. Mary cemented the deal between me and her Son, Jesus. I became His priest and now I can’t stop talking about Him! He is my hero, my savior and Lord. And praying again to God has become more natural and more deeply spiritual for me.
It all began one day when I took Mary’s hand and let her lead me to Christ. And hasn’t that always been her role? She, by God’s grace, brought Christ to us, showed Him to us at Bethlehem, presented Him in the Temple, and ushered in His first miracle (even despite His reluctance). She said to the stewards that day at Cana, and to us now, “Do whatever he tells you.” The Gospel of John says, Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him (John 2:11). And so Mary’s intercession strengthened the faith of others in her Son. That has always been her role: to take us by the hand and lead us to Christ. Her rosary has been called the “Gospel on a string” because she bids us to reflect on the central mysteries of the Scripture as we pray.
There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide;
If merely 1% of them 'ask' Mary for help just once each day;
that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day.
Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds)
...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!
Purty good fer someone NOT 'divine'!
Be careful what you move.
The may NOT be a white pawn in your hand.
Bible says Mary was highly favored, not full of grace...But even if she was full of grace, what's that mean???
It means Mary was full of graciousness...Joyful, happy...You couldn't make full of grace mean sinless if you were David Copperfield...
Your religion apparently has assigned a different definition to grace that what it actually is...
And we do call her blest...Not as a title...She was blest because she was fortunate enough to be chosen by God to carry Jesus...
And yet, Jesus says we Christians are just as blessed as Mary...
Disagreeing with the catholic blasphemies regarding Mary the Mother of Jesus is not disparaging Mary. Disagreeing with the religion of catholiciism is not disparaging Christianity. And of course, MAry is not the center of Christianity nor the mediatrix for Salvation.
Like what young Jewish girl would EVER turn down the opportunity to be mother of the Messiah?
It’s absolutely ludicrous to even think that any one of them would say *No* to that announcement.
Yes...God did...He said he did...He said he would preserve his bible for all generations...
All your religion did was take what God had given us, added some uninspired books to it to claim the bible as its own...
Christians were reading and copying the bible for hundreds of years before your religion got its sticky hands on it...
So someone in your religion was involved is binding the pages together and putting a cover on it...So what???
Not really ... think about it: Mary was already betrothed to Joseph, meaning in Jewish terms, she was already Joseph’s Lady, albeit a young Lady. That’s why the Angel also went to Joseph!
Perhaps a dictionary would be helpful to you...
Mediator
1: one that mediates; especially : one that mediates between parties at variance
a person who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement; a go-between.
And of course,
μεσίτης
mesitēs
mes-ee'-tace
From G3319; a go between, that is, (simply) an internunciator, or (by implication) a reconciler (intercessor): - mediator.
When someone prays for you the person is not a mediator...There is only one mediator...A mediator presents your case to the Judge and argues with an opponent in front of the judge on your behalf...That is the role of Jesus and no one else...
When you ask someone to pray for you, they are standing along side you, adding to your supplication or interceding on your behalf if you are not able to pray... NOT between you and God as a mediator does...
There is only one Mediator between us and God and his role in that capacity is to be our advocate to defend us and present our (His) case to God in the face of our accuser...
Do you know??
I think those quotes prove the point of Mary worship.
My favorite.
That would be in line with the examples we have in the NT where we see Paul asking others to pray for him and each other.
However, in none of those examples do we see Paul praying to Mary or to believers who've died.
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray He gave them the Lord's Prayer as an example.
John, who was Mary's caretaker after Jesus died never once wrote about praying to Mary or her being assumed.
It is so amazing that roman catholics have built up Mary into something we don't see accorded in the Word.
And we should be praying a genuine, original, non-repetitive prayer directly to God for him to call out his elect from the cult of Roman Catholicism.
That would be far superior love in my opinion because it would be love provided to us by The Lord instead of a man-made edifice known as Catholic Church.
Hoss
Indeed, “love-bombing” is a tactic of cults, and I have experienced it first hand. It matters not how wildly against Scripture their doctrine is, they understand how people can be moved to a new way of thinking by experiencing an outpouring of personal attention.
That, of course, is only a substitute for true love. Love does not parade itself. It simply acts in the best interest of the one loved. There is a reason Jesus told us, for example, to not advertise our good works. Telling someone you love them and will pray for them is easy. It’s just words. Steadfastly telling them the hard truth that they are lost and need Jesus to save them, not church nor ritual nor works of the flesh? That’s much harder. Not a good way to be popular, at all. But it is the right thing to do, and it is in the best interests of the one so loved. Truth-bombing is far closer to love than anything anyone can do with a useless string of beads.
Peace,
SR
And Catholics call her the spouse of the Holy Spirit even being the wife of Joseph.
In those days betrothed was a legal marriage even though not yet consummated.
So many people are dealing with rejection issues that when someone comes along and offers them love and acceptance, they’ll fall for it.
I’ve seen enough *Catholic love* hurled my way to immunize me against it forever. They all high five each other but if you’re not Catholic, you get invectives of *hater*, *bigot*, and *heretic*.
If we love those who love us, what good is that. Even sinners do the same.
Jesus told us to love our enemies and go the extra mile with them. The treatment RC’s heap on *outsiders* is enough to turn people away from their church and I’ve seen numerous examples of people on FR who posted that they were considering looking into the Catholic church but changed their minds after seeing said behavior.
Of course, the treatment wasn’t much better within Catholicism either.
And we do call her blest...She was blest because she was fortunate enough to be chosen by God to carry Jesus...
And yet, Jesus says we Christians are just as blessed as Mary... "
Good, good... now you're getting there! You and me both!
Some of them sure seem to have a lot of hatred for Protestants. They need to pray for themselves to have a cleaner heart. How are you?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.