MARIAN DEVOTION - Akathist Hymn to the Mother of God

Various ^

[biblewonk]

I know this is a subject far beyond any of our humble intellects, but I think we can make a few tentative logical steps. Let's tease your suspicion out a bit. Say Mary's flesh (i.e. egg) was not used in the conception of Christ. We know Christ was fully human, and we know he had human flesh. So where did He get it? Well, I guess that first cell of His Holy Body would have had to be created ex nihilo (i.e. out of thin air) by God in Mary's womb. If so, then how is Christ said, properly, to be a member of the human race? He certainly would be of human *form* but he wouldn't have been descended from Adam or Abraham or David. The natural link to the family of man gets severed the instant you have God create Christ's body from scratch.

I appreciate your taking the time to entertain the thought. Don't you recall Jesus saying "God is able to of these stones raise up children unto Abraham". That one verse answers the whole question. Yes God can make a person from the air that is a son of Abraham therefore a member of the human race. "With God all things are possible". Even passing a camel through the eye of a needle.

[biblewonk]

I did not literally mean to pass through the eye of a sewing needle.

You must be kidding!

[William Terrell]

Near where I live, there is a statute of Mary in a grassy field. From time to time people kneel before that statute and pray. Afterward they put money in a box surrounded with wire mesh.

[dangus]

>>Near where I live, there is a statute of Mary in a grassy field. From time to time people kneel before that statute and pray. Afterward they put money in a box surrounded with wire mesh<<

uhhhhh... do you have a point there? Or are you using the same kind of logic we've seen time and time again:

Catholics are doing something we don't do.
Catholics are eeeeeeeeeeevvvillll.
Hmmm... what's the most evil explanation I can possibly find to explain what they're doing?

Trust me, no-one is expecting that the statue is going to come to life and carry the money off to Mt. Gezar. The money is most likely an offering for the poor.

[William Terrell]

My point is that their actions are indistinguishable from idol worship to me. Maybe you're right; Catholics are just doing something I don't do. I worship God and His Son Jesus Christ and nothing else, according to the Commandments.

[William Terrell]

Isn't intercession with God the promise, duty and glory of the Christ, and Him alone? I don't see anywhere in the Bible where it is otherwise. Where did the power bestowed on Mary come from, if it isn't Biblical?

[biblewonk]

I've never heard anyone believe that before. I'm speachless. I checked on the web and it is obvious that someone forwarded the idea quite a while ago. There just aren't many people who believe that it is not a literal needle.

[William Terrell]

Ok, so you guys are just asking Mary to pray for you. I certainly have asked others to pray for me, and have prayed for others at their request. But I don't erect a statue of them for that purpose, nor do they erect a statue of me.

Nowhere that I see is there any Biblical authority to make an image representing anyone and implore the image to intercede for me.

I'd theorize that the statues and the prayers to Mary for intercession are because of the belief that Mary has more power and standing with God than any other human being. I can find no Biblical authority for that.

[Arguss]

"Where did the power bestowed on Mary come from, if it isn't Biblical?"

The body of all knowledge isn't all in the Bible. The Church relies on Tradition as well.

There is a whole body of works written and spoken by the Apostles and other witnesses of the time that never made it into the Bible. Rmember that the final form of what we call the Bible was canonized by the Church from a mountain of evidence.

Recall the last paragraph of the Gospel of John:

"There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written."

That's not to say that none of those things are written or orally passed on. They just don't appear in the Bible.

Based partly on that Tradition, and I suppose what has been revealed since, the Church has logically extrapolated some doctrine.

[William Terrell]

Well, go your own way and be blessed. Only God can judge. All I have is sola scriptura to guide me in all that is outside of me and what God puts in my heart to make my personal choices.

If there are unGodly acts or convictions associated with any faith, His law will see to it that the offspring from them will be visible and clearly abominations.

[dangus]

Actually, "graven" is a very loaded translation which we should learn to reject. The original Hebrew word is akin to "molten." What the people in Palestine did was this: After a war, they gathered all the enemy's trasures and melted them down, then cast them into statues. This forced them to preserve their precious metals for future times of war, when the statues could be melt down again, and fashionned into weapons, so the people literally would believe that they were fighting with their Gods.

What YHWH thus hated, was the materialism, being perpetually readied for war, and the worship of false Gods. This is plainly not what is going on here.

[dangus]

... in fact, read further in the bible, about how God commanded the Israelites to make statues of seraphim and serpents, and how he healed them of snakebites through the serpentine statues. Read how he commanded them to bow before the ark, adorned as it was with Cherubim.