Mary-A Catholic Evangelical Debate - David Questions Marian Devotion

GK Upsidedown ^ | May 16, 2007 | Father Dwight Longenecker

[NYer]

For Mary's month, an excerpt from the book I co-wrote with David Gustafson--Mary-A Catholic Evangelical Debate.

This is from the chapter on Marian Devotion. David has been taking us on a little tour of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC. He's been describing the various chapels dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. As an Evangelical he finds them excessive, but he keeps his poweder dry until he comes to the Polish chapel, where he finds a dedication that is a real show stopper.

David writes...

A Polish chapel features “Our Lady of Czestochowa“. In that chapel is posted a prayer to Mary (“An Act of Consecration to the Mother of God”) by the heroic Polish Cardinal, Stephan Wyszynski. His prayer caught my attention—it made me sad, actually—and impressed itself on my memory:

O Mother of God, Immaculate Mary! To Thee do I dedicate my body and soul, all my prayers and deeds, my joys and sufferings, all that I am and all that I have. With a joyful heart I surrender myself to Thy bondage of love. To Thee will I devote my service of my own free will for the salvation of mankind, and for the help of the Holy Church whose Mother Thou art. From now on my only desire is to do all things with Thee, through Thee, and for Thee. I know I can accomplish nothing with my own strength, whereas Thou canst do everything that is the will of Thy Son, and Thou art always victorious. Grant, therefore, O Helper of the faithful, that my family, my parish, and my homeland might become in truth the Kingdom where Thou reignest with Thy Son. Amen.

For life in the maternal bondage of Mary for the Holy Church,

My blessing,

Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski

If Cardinal Wyszynski’s references to Mary and Jesus were replaced by references to Jesus and the Father, this prayer would be uncontroversially Christian.

As it is, I cannot understand how a Christian minister can commend this prayer. To whom does the Christian properly dedicate himself, body and soul? (Php. 3:7-14.) Whom does the Christian want to serve, be with, work through and for? (Matt. 10:37; Col. 3:24.) Through whom can the Christian do all things? (Php. 4:13.) Who reigns in the Christian’s kingdom? (1 Cor. 15:25.) My little citations to proof texts are ridiculous. Even the most careless reading of the New Testament admits only one answer to all these questions: Jesus Christ.
Can I hope that Cardinal Wyszynski’s “Act of Consecration”, addressed instead to Jesus’ mother Mary, is an aberration, and that in reality Catholics are not encouraged to devote themselves to Mary in this extravagant way?

I encourage you to read David's word and try to understand his objections to Catholic Marian devotion. He's not against Mary as such, but sincerely believes that such devotions are excessive and must necessarily be giving to the Blessed Virgin the devotion and dedication that are due to her Son.

How would you answer David? (and no fair just telling him he's a demon-possessed Protestant.

[NYer]

And here is Fr. Longenecker's response.

---

David Discovers another Marian Show Stopper

For Mary's month I'm posting some excerpts from the book called Mary-A Catholic-Evangelical Debate that I wrote with fellow Bob Jones graduate David Gustafson. (who comments on this blog)

In yesterday's post David displayed a particularly extravagent dedication to the Blessed Virgin written by Stefan Cardinal Wyzinski. It seemed to David that such devotion to Mary must necessarily detract from the proper devotion to her Son.

My reply:

The problem with your analysis is the “either-or” mentality. You assume Marian devotion must take the place of proper devotion to the Lord. Let me use an analogy to show you how strange this charge seems to Catholics. Try to imagine what it would be like if you discovered that another Christian group thought Evangelicals were in grave error because of your emphasis on the Bible. These fictional Christians say rather aggressively, “You evangelicals stress the Bible to the neglect of Jesus. You call your churches ‘Bible’ churches and have ’Bible’ colleges instead of ‘Christian’ churches and colleges. Inside your church you don’t have pictures of Jesus, you don’t have any crucifixes; and you don’t have the Stations of the Cross. Instead, all you have is a big central pulpit to preach the Bible. The New Testament says that the early Christians “devoted themselves … to the breaking of the bread” (Acts 2:42) and that the way to remember Jesus and proclaim his death is through the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11:24-26); yet you Evangelicals have the Lord’s Supper once a month, or even less often, and the main feature of your church service is a long Bible sermon. You have removed the cross of Christ and replaced it with the Bible.”
“You even have a formal doctrine named sola Scriptura. This man-made dogma is a later distortion and addition to the Christian faith—something that is unheard of both in the Scriptures themselves and in the early church. This dogma (which you treat as infallible) states that the Bible and not Jesus is the only source of Truth. You teach your children to memorize Bible verses instead of receiving Jesus in communion. You teach them to sing, ‘The B-I-B-L-E, / Yes that‘s the book for me. / I stand alone on the word of God….’ Notice how they are not to stand alone on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11), but on the Bible instead! Evangelical preachers say that there is no way anyone can come to God without believing the Bible. They declare their undying love for the Bible instead of Jesus. They say how their lives are totally dedicated to preaching the Bible instead of the cross of Christ.”
If someone were to make this charge a good Evangelical might well snort with dismay and bewilderment. How could someone so misunderstand his position? Surely they are doing it on purpose! The good Evangelical would patiently explain to his critic, “You have misunderstood completely. Sola Scriptura doesn’t set the Bible in opposition to Jesus. It does exactly the opposite: it helps us to glorify Jesus. Don’t you see that we love the Bible because it gives us access to our Savior? It’s true that we believe people need to know the Bible, but that’s because the written Word and the incarnate Word are inextricably intertwined. You can’t have one without the other. It is really Jesus we worship and proclaim through the Bible. If you just look at our whole practice and teaching with an open mind you would see how misguided and mistaken you really are.”
To your dismay your critic dismisses your explanations. “No, no,” he says as he sadly shakes his head. “That all sounds very plausible, but you will never convince me. I just know that you worship the Bible instead of Jesus, and all your clever word play just goes to show how blind you really are.”
Now perhaps you understand how Catholics feel when Evangelicals say similar things about their Catholic understanding of Mary. We reply, “Are you serious? How can you possibly make such a fundamental and basic mistake about what we believe? We don’t venerate Mary on her own, but because she has given us our Savior and because she constantly leads us to him. If you took time to study our whole teaching and practice you will see how this is true. We admit that some Catholics may over-emphasize Mary, just like some Evangelicals may take extreme views on the Bible, but when you see the full picture you can’t make such a terrible mistake.”

Labels: Mary - A Catholic Evangelical Debate

[Alex Murphy]

I encourage you to read David's word and try to understand his objections to Catholic Marian devotion. He's not against Mary as such, but sincerely believes that such devotions are excessive and must necessarily be giving to the Blessed Virgin the devotion and dedication that are due to her Son.

Looks to be good thread material, NYer. Looking forward to seeing the responses generated.

[trisham]

How would you answer David? (and no fair just telling him he's a demon-possessed Protestant.

****************

Heh. :)

[xzins]

O Son of God, Holy Jesus! To Thee do I dedicate my body and soul, all my prayers and deeds, my joys and sufferings, all that I am and all that I have. With a joyful heart I surrender myself to Thy bondage of love. To Thee will I devote my service of my own free will for the salvation of mankind, and for the help of the Holy Church whose Leader Thou art. From now on my only desire is to do all things with Thee, through Thee, and for Thee. I know I can accomplish nothing with my own strength, whereas Thou canst do everything because you are the Son of God, and Thou art always victorious. Grant, therefore, O Helper of the faithful, that my family, my parish, and my homeland might become in truth the Kingdom where Thou reignest with Thy Father, world without end. Amen.

[Jaded]

Good articles. Interesting.

[mckenzie7]

What a wonderful way to explain our devotion to Mary.

All generations do call Her Blessed!

“Blessed are you among women!”

[RobbyS]

Without getting into the distinctions between Lateia, Dulia and Hyperdulia, the late Jaroslav Pelikan, a Lutheran turned Orthpdox said something I like in his book “Mary through the centuries.” It relates to the Orthodox worship of Icons. to which Orthodox give devotion of the sort that few Catholics given to the Sacred Heart pictures and statues. The idea is that God works through
people and things, so that even in Acts Paul is said to have such power as a healer than the people of Ephesus coveted articles belonging to him. What we Catholics and Orthodox worship in the power of Almighty God as conveyed by persons on who he has bestowed his divine power. Most directly God healed in the person of Jesus, who shared that power with his disciples. The person on which he most fully bestowed his power was his mother. God wishes all mankind to be raised from the pit to the ranks of the gods. Evidentally some will and some won’t, but among those who will Mary must be ranked the highest. At the pinnicle of humanity stands the Virgin. When we lift up our eyes to her, we look aways even higher, to the majesty of the God whos sustains her and us. Harnack said that we give to Mary ther place in the scheme of thinks that Arius gave to Christ. In a rough sense that is true. But let me turn it around: in giving such a low place to Mary, one hardly greater than that they give to St. Elizabeth( although they generally ignore her altogether) they offer us a rather low Christology, a kind of unrecognized Arianism.

[Mad Dawg]

I was thinking about all these conversations yesterday and thinking that atg least my experience of being Catholic is an experience of something like a great wealth or abundance. In a moment of inner turmoil I thought that Katherine Laboure and Augustine of Hippo were both people who knew where I was coming from and who would pray for me — and I felt conducted by them to our Lord. I don’t pretend to be able to make sense (much less theology) out of this, but I don’t complain either because it was to our Lord that I was being conducted.

[Mad Dawg]

O Son of God, Holy Jesus! To Thee do I dedicate my body and soul, all my prayers and deeds, my joys and sufferings, all that I am and all that I have.

May God accept and bless your self dedication, as I'm sure he will. There are greater things, I think, in such a self-offering that we can imagine or pray for, and I thank God for this act of yours.

[Claud]

Yes, we pour out such effusive praise for the Virgin Mary that it might seem excessive. If Mary’s THAT special, then what’s left that’s reserved for God and God alone?

The answer is the Mass.

I’d invite David and any other Protestant to carefully comb the texts of the two forms of Mass of the Roman Church, and note carefully whether there is ANY indication that the sacrifice that is being offered there is being offered to anyone else but God Himself:

http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/TridentineLatinEnglish.htm

http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/NovusOrdo.htm

Personal devotions are one thing, and they yes can even go to excess sometimes, but the very highest form of worship Catholics offer God is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross as made present in the Mass. Not our own private prayer.

Our little prayers to our Mother in Heaven are peanuts compared to that awesome sacrifice which reverberates through time, and which has wiped away sin for ever.

[GoLightly]

We don’t venerate Mary on her own, but because she has given us our Savior and because she constantly leads us to him.

My sons were a gift from God. I didn't bring them into or "give them" to this world. That was God's doing, not mine.

I understand the point he was trying to make, but with all due respect, giving credit to any of God's creation for His works isn't glorifying Him. It is bringing him down to our own level.

[jo kus]

I understand the point he was trying to make, but with all due respect, giving credit to any of God's creation for His works isn't glorifying Him. It is bringing him down to our own level.

Is this a Caucus thread? Just curious before it turns into an apologetic one.

Regards

[jo kus]

I guess it is not. My mistake.

Carry on.

Regards

[Mad Dawg]

Doesn’t your husband ever thank you for being the mother of his children? I thank the boss-lady all the time! Even before I was a calf-lick.

[adiaireton8]

My sons were a gift from God. I didn't bring them into or "give them" to this world. That was God's doing, not mine. I understand the point he was trying to make, but with all due respect, giving credit to any of God's creation for His works isn't glorifying Him. It is bringing him down to our own level.

Who wrote the above words: you or God?

-A8

[adiaireton8]

My point is that you are viewing God's causal activity and human causal activity as mutually exclusive, when in fact they can be concurrent causes without overdetermination.

-A8

[NYer]

I didn't bring them into or "give them" to this world. That was God's doing, not mine.

You (and your husband) provided the DNA; God provided the life force. In the case of Jesus, only Mary provided the DNA. Jesus followed the Ten Commandments and 'honored' His mother and father. In John 19:26 - Jesus makes Mary the Mother of us all as He dies on the Cross by saying "behold your mother." Jesus did not say "John, behold your mother" because he gave Mary to all of us, his beloved disciples. All the words that Jesus spoke on the Cross had a divine purpose. Jesus was not just telling John to take care of his mother. As Catholics, we follow the example of Jesus and honor Mary as our Mother.

[baa39]

“He’s not against Mary as such, but sincerely believes that such devotions are excessive and must necessarily be giving to the Blessed Virgin the devotion and dedication that are due to her Son.”

Jesus is not jealous of his mother. Her glory is his. It’s not like we have a limited amount of devotion and have to figure a percentage to give to each.

The Son of God derived his human (physical) nature from the body of Mary. She is truly the Mother of God by His choice. We cannot honor her enough, and when we do we honor Him, they go together.

[baa39]

That is a very good point you make about the Mass, which is the center of our faith and religious practice.

Also, devotion to Mary always leads us closer to God. It is not a distraction or substitute, but an enhancement of our spiritual life. Just as at Cana, when Mary was asked what they should do, she indicated her Son and said, “Do as he tells you.” This is what knowing Mary does for us too.

What is the main devotion to Mary? Praying the Rosary, which is Christocentric! It’s all about the life of Jesus, the mysteries of Jesus, the Redemption of mankind through Christ. 20 minutes of saying the Rosary is 20 minutes meditating directly upon the Gospel and its meaning. Praying to Mary one is always focused on God, it cannot be otherwise.

This is something which a person discovers as he/she learns more about Mary and honors her. You focus on Mary, and find yourself understanding more about God and loving Him more!