Luke 1:11
And there appeared unto him [Zacharias] an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
*******"Hail Mary, full of grace!"
Believers are told that they are also "full of grace" [caritovw] by Paul in Ephesians...
Luke 1:28 And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one [caritovw] , the Lord is with you!
Eph 1:16 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted [caritovw] in the beloved.
*******"Mary is the only woman who ever lived who is grace-filled, pure of defect, immaculate."
What do you base this belief on - becasue it isn't in the Scriptures.
*******"Mary and Jesus DO go together. You can't have one without the other."
Jesus is Eternal God. I assure you that you can have Jesus without Mary. If Mary would have said "no" then God would have found someone else. What you are saying is borderline blaspheme.
*******"There have been only two perfect human beings on planet earth, Jesus and Mary."
There are five explicit references to Jesus' sinlessness in the Bible. Regarding Mary there are none.
Paul said...
2 Corinthians 5:21
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Peter said...
1 Peter 2:22
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
John said...
1 John 3:5
And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
Paul said...
Hebrews 4:15-16
We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin
Jesus said...
John 8:46
"Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?"
*******"Don't deprive yourself of your spiritual Mother."
The "mother" believers is the heavenly Jerusalem...
Galatians 4:26
"But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all."
*******"Besides the Bible, which can be twisted around to suit everyone, we also have 2000 years of history, revelations, mystics who spoke with Mary, Catholic doctrine which was revealed over centuries, not just made up on the whim of a pope."
Every theological belief must be judged by it's argeement with the Scriptures! Even as Isaiah said...
Isaiah 8:20
"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."
And how can you be absolutely sure these appearances were really Mary? Remember, "even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light." - Galatians 4:26
*******"Jesus always honored and respected her, that as a child he was dependent on her for his every need. Should we not follow his example?"
Yes we should! Starting here:
"While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." - Matthew 12
May the Lord add His blessing to your posts. Thank You for your care here.
Paul may have instructed the Ephesians that they have, upon Christ's death and resurrection, been bestowed with spiritual graces(1:3-14) but he nowhere says Epeshians hail, you are full of grace! Nor is he an Archangel of the Lord, a significant distinction. It is Scriptural that Mary is full of grace, a statement not accorded to another woman elsewhere in Scripture, consequently a logical part of Tradition: many important things were not recorded but were known and occurred and held fast to in Tradition, but Mary's grace filled status is scriptural fact. And Paul says there are, for the Ephesians, spiritual grace but he does not go on to say that they are in the fullness of it or what would be the logic of this statement: "For this cause I also, hearing of the fiath in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and of your charity to all the saints, cease not giving thanks for you, making remembrance of you in my prayers, in order that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may grant you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation unto the full knowledge of himself and enlighten the eyes of your heart to know wwhat is the hope of his calling, that the treasure of the glory of his inheritance among the saints" (1:15-19). In other words, these Ephesians are not there yet, but Paul prays that they may eventually be granted this fullness of grace.
There is no such qualification in the Lukan Narrative: "Hail full of grace the Lord is with thee" She is already full of Grace and with the Lord, whereas the Ephesians are still working on it, working it out, and with Paul's prayer. And Mary knows her place too and states: "henceforth all generations shall call me blessed" Luke 1:48. Paul doesn't say this about himself, or others. Only Mary is allowed this proclamation. And of course, before Mary even allows this about herself, Elizabeth witnesses this for us: "Blessed art thou among all woman" singularly identifying our Lady as alone among all women as, well, singularly blessed. And somehow, while I am sure you are very nice, I think the Church is correct in accepting Elizabeth's testimony, after all she was specially qualified giving birth, as she did, to the man who baptised our Lord. As to Mary's sinlessness, well the tabernacle of the Lord, logically, could never be unclean. V's wife.
Protestants always say this in an attempt to minimize the Blessed Mother, and it never ceases to amaze me.
How is it that you claim to know what God "would have done" had Mary said "no"? Who are you??
You have no idea what God "would have done"; you can no more speculate about God's hypothetical reactions in hypothetical situations than you can turn a hair on your head white or black, to borrow a phrase of the Lord's.
And incidentally, claiming that grace comes through Jesus, not through Mary, is to deny the obvious Incarnational fact of the Christian faith that Jesus came through Mary!
You are going far, far off the rails, PM. If you stay on the trajectory you're on, you'll soon be a Jehovah's Witness or a B'nai Noach; not even a Christian anymore.