Posted on 03/13/2005 7:16:00 PM PST by churchillbuff
First I've heard of this and can say now I don't agree with it. Mary was Jesus's mother nothing more and nothing less.
Nothing wrong with deep respect for a mother who saw her son brutalized the way she did.
I haven't heard of it either. Mary needed the Saviour too.
I hate confining labels, but as a "Protestant" I have affection for Mary. I don't believe for a minute that she hears prayer or in any way intercedes for us. That's the Son's role.
.
NEVER FORGET
MEL's next -PASSION- will be the...
Miracle of -FATIMA-
MEL's -PASSION- was about the Past and the Future
MEL's -FATIMA- will explain what we can all do about both in the Present
MEL's -PASSION- was sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-
for: Sacrifice begets Sacrifice
and: LOVE is the Only Reality
and: GOD is LOVE
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085111/posts
NEVER FORGET
.
Respect, sure. Worship? Uh, no. If this is happening, it's surely only within the elites of the National/World Council of Churches -- certainly not within the rank-n-file of even these liberal Protestant denominations.
Mary was a sinner saved by grace just as any sinner. Silly to think she was sinless as those who believe in the immaculate conception do.
Good grief! It's bad enough the Catholics let her get in their way with Jesus all the time...now they want Protestants to deify her!
That didn't take long...
any word on it?
While Mary's role in the Nativity is recalled dutifully each December, largely overlooked is the subsequent presentation of Jesus at the temple, during which the righteous old man Simeon tells Mary that "a sword will pierce your own soul also."
Also neglected are her maternal frenzy when her 12-year-old son goes missing to debate the temple elders and her role at the wedding at Cana, where, at her behest, he performs (somewhat grudgingly) his first miracle, changing water into wine. The most striking omission, at least from Protestant sermons, is a recognition of the import of her role at the Cross.
Although the first three Gospels don't place Mary there by name, many readings assume she is one of the women who remain, watching Christ's agony, after the male disciples have fled. In John's Gospel she shares that witness with an unnamed disciple (often thought to be John), and Jesus, near death, commends them to each other, telling her, "Woman, behold your son!" and telling John, "Behold your mother." Mary makes one final appearance, as the only named woman in a mostly male group gathered in an "upper room" who, guided by the Holy Spirit, will make up the new church.
Gaventa's conclusion was that although Mary's appearances can be brief and frustratingly devoid of anecdote, "there isn't a figure comparable to her." No major player appears earlier in the story, and none, she notes, "is present in all these key situations: at Jesus' birth, at his death, in the upper room." Protestant treatments, Gaventa asserted, tended to limit themselves to what God does through Mary rather than talk about Mary herself. "You could say the same thing about the Apostle Peterthat the stories are not really about him," Gaventa says. "But that doesn't keep people from talking about Peter as a role model from whom Christians can learn things."
And so, in the book she finally wrote, Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus, and in essays and lectures, Gaventa began reviving or establishing Marian titles that, unlike Queen of Heaven, are more appropriate for Protestant use. One was First Disciple. Traditional commentary saw Mary's "Let it be" primarily as a statement of obedience. But Gaventa, and many who followed, heard in it a thought-through acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah made long before any other believer's. In a Christianity Today article, Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., paraphrases some of the original reformers, saying, "If she had not believed, she would not have conceived."
Protestants would do well to remember that there was a thriving Church, as ordained by Christ Himself, with a well-developed theology and tradition for 300 years before there was a Bible.
I was raised in a Protestant household, but my family and I have "swum the Tiber. " There is a Mother Church, and she welcomes all her lost sheep back to the fold.
-ccm
A couple of nice articles about praying to Mary and the saints:
http://www.catholic-convert.com/Portals/57ad7180-c5e7-49f5-b282-c6475cdb7ee7/Documents/MaryAndWorship.doc
http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/praying.htm
TIME? nevermind........
Welcome home. I am a convert myself.
OK, but when Hank Henagraff, the Bible answer man, asks a caller for him or her to "pray for me." What does he mean and if it's okay for him to ask some disembodied voice on the phone to pray to God for him, why shouldn't I ask God's mother?
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