Posted on 09/12/2005 9:23:36 AM PDT by Salvation
Very true. She was a creature. Catholics make no claim that she is divine. There is only one God, and there are three persons in one God.
**Like me, Mary is temporal, temporary, bearing God's image, but mortal. Destined for resurrection on the last day.**
You are aware, aren't you, of the Catholic Church's teachings that Mary was assumed into heaven bodily? Hence we celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven.
Oh, so it is a sin now to compare Mary to gift wrapping? Such extreme devotion! You invent sin like an anti-Christ!
It certainly isn't charitable to compare ANYONE to gift wrapping no matter who they are.
Where does the bible say this?
Richard of St. Laurence states "there is not such powerful help in any name, nor is there any other name given to men, after that of Jesus, from which so much salvation is poured forth upon men as from the name of Mary." He continues, "that the devout invocation of this sweet and holy name leads to the acquisition of superabundant graces in this life, and a very high degree of glory in the next."After the most sacred name of Jesus, the name of Mary is so rich in every good thing, that on earth and in heaven there is no other from which devout souls receive so much grace, hope, and sweetness.
I've trudged through RC writings before and I prefer a simple straight answer as to where the bible teaches that she, specifically, was assumed into heaven.
Is that how you feel about your own mother, too? Now that you're here, she's trash?
Where does Richard of St. Laurence say that Christ's name won't do something that Mary's name will?
I'm thinking the former, as someone with a "determination to repent" obviously loves God.
I think the statement is an "if, then" statement of sorts. If the person is a sinner, and if that person invokes the name of Mary with the determination to repent, then the devil must flee from that sinner.
Stop kissing your wife. Stop saying "I love you" to your mom.
Those relationships just hijack love that should be going to Almighty God.
I have seen some very nice gift wrapping. Some with Gold foil even. As far as I am concerned everybody in this thread is gift wrapping, so there.
My relationship with my mother is ethically different from my relationship with Mary. I owe my mother honor, support, care, respect. In comparison, I owe that other mother zip. Zero. Nothing.
You make an interesting arguement. A friend of mine is married to an incredible woman -- brilliant, beautiful, bilingual, and 20-some years yonger than my wife. If I start cultivating an affection towards my friend's wife that comes anywhere near the affection I have for my own wife, will God be pleased? Think about it ...
Knew a young guy once upon a time who cultivated elderly widows. He assumed that these other guys' mothers would enrich him, if he played them right. At the expense of the legitimate heirs.
Unless Mary has been magically transformed into a prayer-hearing goddess, the mother/son/stepson relationships have already fulfilled their purposes, already played out. Since my mother is still alive, this story is still being written.
The Church teaches it, she who is the fountainhead and wellspring of the Bible--its author, its compiler, its editor, its publisher, and its official interpreter.
I think you've been around these threads long enough to know that we entirely reject the notion that every single article of the faith *must be explicitly taught* in the Bible. "The pillar and foundation of all truth" for the Christian is not Holy Scripture, it is the Church, as 1st Timothy says.
Would you call yourself "a beloved disciple" of Christ? Do you stand faithfully at the foot of His cross?
Stop kissing your wife. Stop saying "I love you" to your mom.
Those relationships just hijack love that should be going to Almighty God.
You are missing the point. If God puts on a mask to receive my legitimate care and affection, it's in the person of my wife, my family, my fellow parishioners, the poor. Under the aegis of the Almighty, I owe an appropriate and condign love to each of these stated parties. I show my love for God by loving my family, my neighbor, my parents. Folks here on earth.
It is Satan, the fallen angel, who needs to show up in supernatural disguise to embezzle worship.
To me, it seems that, at the most basic human level, we respect the parents of those we love. Even if those parents are egregious sinners, we ought to at least respect their bringing into the world the person we love. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob "live to Him," then so does the mother of Jesus. "Dead" (from an earthly standpoint) is just a materialist obfuscation, if we believe in eternal life.
Your gift-wrap analogy suggests that you do not believe Jesus is a human being. If He is, then He takes His human nature, His human body, His human genetics from His human mother. Where else would His humanity come from?
The belief that Jesus only appeared human, but in reality had only the nature of divinity, is the Monophysite heresy, and is related to the Manichean belief that created matter, including humanity, is so evil that the Divine would not be associated with it.
PRE-CISELY. And that is *exactly* what we demand for Our Lady. Not to be adored as an uncreated Divinity, but to be honored with "hyperdulia" as the most blessed among women because it was in her AND (as people seem to forget) through her totally obedient will and permission that Christ came into the world.
Our argument is solely this--that we all owe Mary "under the aegis of the Almighty" a certain amount of appropriate and condign love because she willingly brought the Christ Child into the world. That love is most certainly not expressed by those who impiously regard the Holy God-bearer with little more affection than if she were a disposable Tupperware container.
You may well think our affection for Our Lady as exaggerated. You won't be the first. But to go the other extreme and say that she does not deserve *any* higher praise than, say St. Peter, is nonsense and easily refuted by the smallest glimpse throughout Christian history. Christian history, I might point out, *including* Luther and Calvin.
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