Posted on 08/25/2005 3:42:57 PM PDT by NYer
I read the post, I haven't read the entire thread,
To me, it appears that early Christianity, say dark ages, is very similar to the Muslim faith of today:
Believe, or be an infidel (to the church).
Christianity has evolved over the centuries into recognizing the progress man and science has created:
Muslims have been stuck in the dark ages, unable to grasp new concepts of right and wrong, man and loving wife; life and death with honor.
Western Catholics, and devout Baptists, cling to the literal interpretation of the written Bible, perhaps the same that Muslims cling to thier vision of their convoluted Koran.
Each finds solice in their readings. Devout Christians look on the ancient messages in a positive way, Muslims look on their messages in a way that incites them to take over the earth in their own destructive way.
Only my take, as a non-practising protestant!
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
One thing about arguing against yourself. You always win.
Interesting comments and thank you for posting them. However, let's begin with where you are at - "non-practising protestant". That places you in the category of anyone who wants to forumlate an opinion based on personal impressions, rather than on biblical truths. To expound an idea, one must formulate it on agreed upon truths. In this instance, that would be the Bible. From which protestant sect are you non-practicing? Is it fair to assume that you were baptized at some point in your life?
Don't you think she was a "proper wife" to Joseph after the birth of Jesus?
Here is the reason that so many Protestants think that we worship Mary; they do not worship God. Oh yes, the offer Him adoration and praise but this is not worship. Worship requires the act of sacrifice which is missing from the Protestant service. When they see us venerating and praying to Mary it reminds them of how they approach God. They cannot imagine the true nature of a higher form of prayer which is the sacrifice of the Mass.
HA! I wonder if this article had anything to do with last week's hundreds and hundreds of posts because of the Assumption and Queenship of Mary feasts that prompted some "conversation"! Ah, the memories...
Explain the faith completely, but do it with love. Good Biblical advice from Peter.
Regards
Ah! Very true.
An interesting post. As a Baptist I find it interesting when attending services at a Roman church (my wife is a member of the Roman Church) that no one brings a Bible. You must all be so well versed! At the Baptist Church we bring our Bibles because we realize no matter how many times we read them there is more to learn.
The issue of Mary is more than praying to another human being, it is also the concept of the immaculate conception in which your church claims she was born without sin, there are no Bible verses to support this position.
Before you put down evangelicals remember who was it that brought the REFORMATION.
Anyway, it would appear that here, on FR, some progress is being made. I've actually read where some of the Prots have made reference to Mary as merely being a "quasi-goddess" for Catholics as opposed to a goddess.
Hey, it's a start....
Let me first make a minor terminological point. Roman is a rite, usually called Latin, inside the Catholic Church. The designation Roman Catholic is often used when Catholic is meant, since non-Catholics rarely care about the purely liturgical aspects of the Latin Mass. Indeed, the Bible would not be found in the pews in any Catholic rite.
Why? The Bible, contrary to the Protestant belief, is not something to be read outside of the instruction of the Apostolic Church. The Mass is the proper context in which the Bible is proclaimed. As you are surely aware, the Mass consists of the Bbile verses either incorporated in the liturgical prayer or read or sung directly. The only element of the Mass where free text is used is during the homily, which is supposed to be an explanation of the day's readings in layman's terms.
Of course, the Catholics are encouraged to study the Bible, as long as they do so in the light of the Sacred Tradition and the teaching of the Magisterium. Speculation about the meaning of various passages based exclusively on the reader's imagination is not encouraged.
In 36 I offered one reason why veneration of the Blessed Virgin irritated the evangelicals. It has to do with the understanding of human nature that sharply differs from yours. We think that the goal of man is nothing less than sainthood; that divine grace is sufficient for each Christian to do the work of the saints and to build Christ's Church on earth. Mary, of course, is the primary saint, and the first house of the Lord. Indeed, her immaculacy is the state of human perfection Christ promised all of us once we reach Heaven. There are no depraved dunghills in our worldview.
The fullness of grace is proclaimed in Luke 1:28 (most Protestant Bibles mangle that verse). Fullness of grace is, of course, synonymous with immaculacy. This has been the teaching of the Church since the Patristic period; in fact, Nestorianism was proclaimed heretical in great part because it attempted to misinterpret the role of Mary and hence distort the proper Christology.
I am not sure how to read your last paragraph. If your reference is to Luther, then I am sure your are aware of his fervent veneration of the Blessed Mother, -- a sign of sincerity of his faith, thaty goes a long way to offset the gravity of his theological error.
It is wonderful that you attend Catholic Mass. May its sanctifying grace be with you often. My wife is a Baptist and she always finds the Catholic Mass a sustaining spiritual force. Needless to say, I know many saintly Protestants and it is never my intention to put down their individual faith. However, we belief differently, understand the Bible differently and worship differently. Those differences need to be explained with clarity. Please view my posts in this spirit.
..."Is it fair to assume that you were baptized at some point in your life?"......
No, I was never baptised. Brought up as a Christian Scientist, but rejected their teachings.
My beliefs are that one can be of the Christian faith, but not believe in the literal word and verse of the bible.
ROTF LOL. That is totally classic!
"look, even our statues worship statues!"
I have to admit that before Sr Lucy died I had a problem with Fatima shrines that had her statue with Francisco and Jacinta. Afterall she was still living!
It's happened to everybody.
I like the way Shea presented it. I needed that this morning.
Humanity and Satan gave us those things. They used the church as cover.
B. TO FIND THE GRACE OF GOD, WE MUST DISCOVER MARY
6. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.
7. Let me explain:
(1) Mary alone found grace with God for herself and for every individual person. No patriarch or prophet or any other holy person of the Old Law could manage to find this grace.
8. (2) It was Mary who gave existence and life to the author of all grace, and because of this she is called the "Mother of Grace".
9. (3) God the Father, from whom, as from its essential source, every perfect gift and every grace come down to us , gave her every grace when he gave her his Son. Thus, as St Bernard says, the will of God is manifested to her in Jesus and with Jesus.
10. (4) God chose her to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all his graces, so that all his graces and gifts pass through her hands. Such is the power that she has received from him that, according to St Bernardine, she gives the graces of the eternal Father, the virtues of Jesus Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit to whom she wills, as and when she wills, and as much as she wills.
11. (5) As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother. If he prides himself on having God for his Father but does not give to Mary the tender affection of a true child, he is an impostor and his father is the devil.
12. (6) Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of that head, that is, all true Christians. A mother does not conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone, then, wishes to become a member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with grace and truth , he must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ, which she possesses with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to true members of Jesus Christ, her true children.
13. (7) The Holy Spirit espoused Mary and produced his greatest work, the incarnate Word, in her, by her and through her. He has never disowned her and so he continues to produce every day, in a mysterious but very real manner, the souls of the elect in her and through her.
14. (8) Mary received from God a unique dominion over souls enabling her to nourish them and make them more and more godlike. St Augustine went so far as to say that even in this world all the elect are enclosed in the womb of Mary, and that their real birthday is when this good mother brings them forth to eternal life. Consequently, just as an infant draws all its nourishment from its mother, who gives according to its needs, so the elect draw their spiritual nourishment and all their strength from Mary.
15. (9) It was to Mary that God the Father said, "Dwell in Jacob", that is, dwell in my elect who are typified by Jacob. It was to Mary that God the Son said, "My dear Mother, your inheritance is in Israel", that is, in the elect. It was to Mary that the Holy Spirit said, "Place your roots in my elect". Whoever, then, is of the chosen and predestinate will have the Blessed Virgin living within him, and he will let her plant in his very soul the roots of every virtue, but especially deep humility and ardent charity.
16. (10) Mary is called by St Augustine, and is indeed, the "living mould of God" . In her alone the God-man was formed in his human nature without losing any feature of the Godhead. In her alone, by the grace of Jesus Christ, man is made godlike as far as human nature is capable of it. A sculptor can make a statue or a life-like model in two ways:
(i) By using his skill, strength, experience and good tools to produce a statue out of hard, shapeless matter;
(ii) By making a cast of it in a mould. The first way is long and involved and open to all sorts of accidents. It only needs a faulty stroke of the chisel or hammer to ruin the whole work. The second is quick, easy, straightforward, almost effortless and inexpensive, but the mould must be perfect and true to life and the material must be easy to handle and offer no resistance.
17. Mary is the great mould of God, fashioned by the Holy Spirit to give human nature to a Man who is God by the hypostatic union, and to fashion through grace men who are like to God. No godly feature is missing from this mould. Everyone who casts himself into it and allows himself to be moulded will acquire every feature of Jesus Christ, true God, with little pain or effort, as befits his weak human condition. He will take on a faithful likeness to Jesus with no possibility of distortion, for the devil has never had and never will have any access to Mary, the holy and immaculate Virgin, in whom there is not the least suspicion of a stain of sin.
18. Dear friend, what a difference there is between a soul brought up in the ordinary way to resemble Jesus Christ by people who, like sculptors, rely on their own skill and industry, and a soul thoroughly tractable, entirely detached, most ready to be moulded in her by the working of the Holy Spirit. What blemishes and defects, what shadows and distortions, what natural and human imperfections are found in the first soul, and what a faithful and divine likeness to Jesus is found in the second!
19. There is not and there will never be, either in God's creation or in his mind, a creature in whom he is so honoured as in the most Blessed Virgin Mary, not excepting even the saints, the cherubim or the highest seraphim in heaven. Mary is God's garden of Paradise, his own unspeakable world, into which his Son entered to do wonderful things, to tend it and to take his delight in it. He created a world for the wayfarer, that is, the one we are living in. He created a second world - Paradise - for the Blessed. He created a third for himself, which he named Mary. She is a world unknown to most mortals here on earth. Even the angels and saints in heaven find her incomprehensible, and are lost in admiration of a God who is so exalted and so far above them, so distant from them, and so enclosed in Mary, his chosen world, that they exclaim: "Holy, holy, holy" unceasingly.
20. Happy, indeed sublimely happy, is the person to whom the Holy Spirit reveals the secret of Mary, thus imparting to him true knowledge of her. Happy the person to whom the Holy Spirit opens this enclosed garden for him to enter, and to whom the Holy Spirit gives access to this sealed fountain where he can draw water and drink deep draughts of the living waters of grace. That person will find only grace and no creature in the most lovable Virgin Mary. But he will find that the infinitely holy and exalted God is at the same time infinitely solicitous for him and understands his weaknesses. Since God is everywhere, he can be found everywhere, even in hell. But there is no place where God can be more present to his creature and more sympathetic to human weakness than in Mary. It was indeed for this very purpose that he came down from heaven. Everywhere else he is the Bread of the strong and the Bread of angels, but living in Mary he is the Bread of children.
21. Let us not imagine, then, as some misguided teachers do, that Mary being simply a creature would be a hindrance to union with the Creator. Far from it, for it is no longer Mary who lives but Jesus Christ himself, God alone, who lives in her. Her transformation into God far surpasses that experienced by St Paul and other saints, more than heaven surpasses the earth. Mary was created only for God, and it is unthinkable that she should reserve even one soul for herself. On the contrary she leads every soul to God and to union with him. Mary is the wonderful echo of God. The more a person joins himself to her, the more effectively she unites him to God. When we say "Mary", she re-echoes "God". When, like St Elizabeth, we call her blessed, she gives the honour to God. If those misguided ones who were so sadly led astray by the devil, even in their prayer-life, had known how to discover Mary, and Jesus through her, and God through Jesus, they would not have had such terrible falls. The saints tell us that when we have once found Mary, and through Mary Jesus, and through Jesus God the Father, then we have discovered every good. When we say "every good", we except nothing. "Every good" includes every grace, continuous friendship with God, every protection against the enemies of God, possession of truth to counter every falsehood, endless benefits and unfailing headway against the hazards we meet on the way to salvation, and finally every consolation and joy amid the bitter afflictions of life.
22. This does not mean that one who has discovered Mary through a genuine devotion is exempt from crosses and sufferings. Far from it! One is tried even more than others, because Mary, as Mother of the living, gives to all her children splinters of the tree of life, which is the Cross of Jesus. But while meting out crosses to them she gives the grace to bear them with patience, and even with joy. In this way, the crosses she sends to those who trust themselves to her are rather like sweetmeats, i.e. "sweetened" crosses rather than "bitter" ones. If from time to time they do taste the bitterness of the chalice from which we must drink to become proven friends of God, the consolation and joy which their Mother sends in the wake of their sorrows creates in them a strong desire to carry even heavier and still more bitter crosses.
C. A TRUE DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN IS INDISPENSABLE
23. The difficulty, then, is how to arrive at the true knowledge of the most holy Virgin and so find grace in abundance through her. God, as the absolute Master, can give directly what he ordinarily dispenses only through Mary, and it would be rash to deny that he sometimes does so. However, St Thomas assures us that, following the order established by his divine Wisdom, God ordinarily imparts his graces to men through Mary. Therefore, if we wish to go to him, seeking union with him, we must use the same means which he used in coming down from heaven to assume our human nature and to impart his graces to us. That means was a complete dependence on Mary his Mother, which is true devotion to her.
To a Catholic observing, it appears that there isn't much sacrifice going on period. The services don't even mention sacrifice.
Got Scripture?
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