Posted on 09/26/2016 4:47:49 PM PDT by marshmallow
The Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue announced a substantial agreement but healing the historic schism still requires plenty of work
As of last Thursday, the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church announced that it had reached substantial agreement on the questions of primacy and synodality in the Church. It was described as a “landmark agreement”, and one source asked excitedly whether Orthodox Churches might soon “recognise the Pope”. Has there really been a historic breakthrough in the process towards healing the thousand-year-old schism between East and West?
That the issue is a thorny one is shown by the recent history of the dialogue. In 2007 a meeting of the Commission at Ravenna produced a statement which recognised a historical right of the Bishop of Rome to be considered as protos, first in the order of bishops in the pre-schism Church, while leaving it to future discussions to see how this primacy might be exercised in a future, reunited Church.
The impact of the Ravenna document was somewhat reduced by the absence of the Moscow patriarchate, the largest Orthodox Church, because of an internal Orthodox dispute. In 2014 the Commission met at Amman in Jordan, but failed to reach agreement on the theme of “Primacy and Synodality”. This year, with only of the small Church of Georgia expressing reservations, the group meeting in the Italian town of Chieti has managed to achieve a consensus on the issue.
The document, bearing the full title “Synodality and Primacy during the first Millennium: Towards a common understanding in service to the Unity of the Church”, was released as early as Friday. A perusal of it shows that, while it is of undoubted significance as a stage in the dialogue, it is too early to be ringing the church........
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
Saint Paul did tell followers to Imitate Him as he was in CHrist, cf (1 Cor. 11:1) which follows an earlier statement “ I urge you, then, be imitators of me (1 Corinthians 4:16); As you became imitators of Us and of the Lord, for you received.... (1 Thes. 1:6); In Phillipians 3:17 Saint Paul writes “Brothers, join in imitating me....”; Again, “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us,....” (Cf. 2 Thes 3:7)
So I agree, Paul never said Pray to him, but he did say imitate himself numerous times. In this Sense, Saint Paul is one of the greatest Saints in Catholic Theology having a feast day on June 25 along with Saint Peter, the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, which dates back to the 4th century, if not earlier, at the Church of Rome.
Mary is the Most holiest of the Saints, and thus her response to the angel Gabriel “let it be done to me according to your will” reflects an acceptance of Christ, do to an exceptional Grace given to her by God, to be the Mother of the Lord.
Do Catholics Imitate Mary’s humility, yes? Do we ask her pray for us, yes, such as in the Rosary “Holy Mary Mother of God Pray for Us sinners”, yes,
But do we pray to her as if she were God, absolutely not
No I am telling You that. You are just to stubborn, it appears, to hear what I am saying. You are trying to reflect a Southern U.S. Protestant theology, I would predict, on Catholic Theology. It doesn’t work that way.
I am not arrogant enough to project Catholic Theology on your Southern U.S. Protestant theology. You reject the Communion of Saints, you probably reject the theological title Dogmatically proclaimed at the Council of Ephesus that Mary is “Theotokos”, etc. Given your, again likely rejection of these 2 Major Theological Dogmas held in the Catholic Church (also held in the Eastern Orthodox Church), I would not expect you to believe that asking Mary to pray for us (you) is acceptable to you. That is fine with me, you reject it you reject it, not trying to change you.
What I will not accept is you trying to define what it is I believe as a Catholic sense you are not one and your theological perspective you are projecting on the issue of Mary already starts with an anti Communion of saints, anti any title accorded to Mary, thus I would expect you to reject prayers such as the Rosary, etc.
There's a big difference between imitating as Paul noted and "serve me" which the apparition noted; unless the catholic has redefined these words also as they have so many others.
Mary is the Most holiest of the Saints, and thus her response to the angel Gabriel “let it be done to me according to your will” reflects an acceptance of Christ, do to an exceptional Grace given to her by God, to be the Mother of the Lord.
There is nothing in Christianity that supports your claim regarding Mary being the holiest of the saints.
Do Catholics Imitate Mary’s humility, yes? Do we ask her pray for us, yes, such as in the Rosary “Holy Mary Mother of God Pray for Us sinners”, yes,
The catholic prayers regarding Mary go way beyond this. Catholics pray TO mary and that cannot be denied.
You seem to ignore the post of one of the 15 promises of the rosary which said, "Whosoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces."
Again, we are not to serve Mary nor pray to her.
But do we pray to her as if she were God, absolutely not
You must not have read a lot of the writings on the catholic and mary.
Compared to this, the other issues don't seem to be very important.
ealgeone:
Serving Mary does not mean what you think it means, serving Mary in this context is always a instrument to serve Christ, who is who Mary leads us towards.
Their is nothing in Protestant Christianity That says Mary is the Most Holiest of the Saints. There clearly is in both Catholic and Orthodox Theology as well.
LOL! I knew the catholic would have to redefine serve.
It's so predictable.
Yet, that is not what the apparition said. It said "serve me".
One of the apparitions also said to build a temple/shrine "in its honor".
I can't wait for the new definition of those words.
As noted earlier, my posts are directed toward those who may read these threads, but not post, so the false doctrines of roman catholicism is exposed.
ealgeone:
Does serving in the U.S. Military, by definition, mean you are opposed to God?, serving the country as a teacher, or serving your local city by serving a Senior citizens home?
You are correct, build in “Honor”, that is correct.
To which the catholic has to appeal to man's "tradition" and not the inspired word.
As we cannot measure this against the written word, being the Bible, to which we all agree on the books of the NT, the catholic position fails.
To build in the honor of the apparition. In other words a temple to a false apparition.
ealgeone:
As for Mary being the most holiest of Saints. The greeting from Luke’s Gospel rendered in the Catholic RSV version “Hail full of Grace”, which is a literal translation of Saint Jerome’s Latin translation (Ave, gratia plena)of the Greek “Kecharitomene” and while Saints Jerome’s translation is an accurate rendering of the “Greek”, my Catholic commentaries suggest that even his translation does not quite capture the depth of the word “Kecharitomene” as My RSV Ignatius Catholic Bible with commentaries from the Church Fathers notes the literal meaning of the expression “Kecharitomene” means “already graced” which is a title no other human person was given in the Bible. The Patristic commentaries of this Verse all indicate are suggest that this greeting in Luke 1:28 was nothing that had been given any other saint in the NT Church.
http://dhspriory.org/thomas/CALuke.htm#1
In summary, you are incorrect.
serving Mary in this context is always a instrument to serve Christ, who is who Mary leads us towards.
The Our Father is a great Church Prayer, yet even in its construction it is a Church prayer, Liturgical prayer, not individual prayer “Our Father”. Intercessory prayer, it appears, is something that you don’t believe in. SO the next time a friend, a family member of your is sick and asks you to pray for them, are you going to tell them to go fly a kite and pray directly to the Father themselves.
Yet Saint Paul asked the Church to pray for each other (see Colossians 1:9), the early Church prayed for Saint Peter while he was in prison (Acts 12:5); the writer of Hebrews asked others to pray for them (Hebrews 13:18)
Intercessory Prayer, which asking Mary to pray for us entails, is presented in somewhat explicit terms, in the NT. In the book of Revelation, 24 elders in heaven intercede with God for Christians on earth (Rev. 5:8). Later in Revelation, we see Angels present to God the prayers of the Church on earth (Rev. 8:3). It is clear from these and other texts that heavenly beings (saints and angels) are aware of what is going on here on earth (Luke 15:7; 1 Tim 5:21)
The rendering is an incorrect one. The translation errors have been noted Jerome's rendering. It's lead to a lot of bad theology.
It should read, "Greetings, you favored with grace."
This is not a title no matter how much the catholic wants it to be.
No one disagrees on the uniqueness of this situation. Only one woman was going to be the mother of Jesus. This does not render this as a title.
Mary is blessed among women. Why? She's been selected to give birth to the Messiah.
This does not mean Mary was the holiest of the saints. The catholic is practicing eisiegeis in this event.
ealgeone:
The rendering is not an incorrect one, it is only incorrect to Protestant translators. the word Charis is greek for Grace, So the translation by Jerome Hail full of Grace is accurate, it actually is inaccurate only in the sense that it does not go far enough.
http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=288189&Pg=&Pgnu=&recnu=to
Mary is considered blessed because of this.
This does not give the meaning however of sinlessness as claimed by the Catholic. Even the catholic encyclopedia online confirms this. Yet the catholic continues to espouse yet another false doctrine regarding Mary.
Joseph and Mary offered the sin offering after Jesus was born to be in accordance with the Law. If she was winless there is no need for the offering.
ealgeone:
I recognize you don’t accept the theological implications for that passage as it relates to Mary, That is fine. But to say the rendering of Saint Jerome is inaccurate is an inaccurate statement. The passage itself does hint that Mary was Graced by God in a unique way before Christ died and rose from the Dead, which where God’s Grace that saves flows from or comes from. Now how Catholic Doctrine understood this to mean Mary was preserved from Sin by God’s Grace, that goes beyond just this passage although it is part of the Scriptural basis, not only 1, for the Doctrine.
Christianity does reject prayers to the departed saints.
Christianity also rejects the vain repetitious prayers such as the rosary.
As posted before, you may not change your perspective. But there are many who read these posts who do not comment. I post to illustrate the false doctrines of roman catholicism so others can avoid the rcc.
Does God know the future? Yes.
Did He pick Mary for this? Yes.
Does this mean she is sinless? No.
The catholic perspective on this contradicts the NT teaching all have sinned. Everybody not named Jesus.
Again to understand the perfect it has to be viewed from the perspective of the speaker/writer.
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.