HE INCREASES AND SHE DECREASES [Mary, Mother of God]

The Rock ^ | May 1994 | Mark Shea

[Salvation]

HE INCREASES AND SHE DECREASES

By MARK P. SHEA

 

Some friends are always good for a cheery disagreement--like my pal Bill. Here he is, a guy who modestly describes himself as "The Last Bastion of the Reformation," a guy who sings "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" in the shower, a guy who keeps ribbing me about being Catholic when he knows that I can scarcely resist the challenge to respond. Consider the letter I got the other day, written with Bill's usual joie de vivre, in which he urged me to get a recent book devoted to "critiquing" Marian devotion from an Evangelical perspective.

As a former Evangelical, I know anti-Marian arguments. But, having been a Catholic for nearly six years, I've been surprised to discover how much larger Mary looms in many Protestant minds than in Catholic ones. Maybe I'm languishing in a papally-induced spiritual blindness, but Jesus seems as big to me as ever. Only Mary has changed sizes since I "poped." She got a lot smaller and less threatening.

Since I became a Catholic she often, after directing me to her Son, has seemed to slip out of the room for long stretches, leaving me to talk with him while she busies herself with quietly praying for me or doing some other motherly task. She has been a most unobtrusive presence--endlessly loving and interceding, but not nearly as noisy about it as my Protestant upbringing would have led me to believe.

Yet how can this be? Books have "proven" that Catholics are obsessively fixated on our Lady to the exclusion of faith in Christ. They have shown that all we think about is the way in which Mary can save us from sin. They have demonstrated that I spend day and night obsequiously seeking to have her declared a fourth member of the Trinity.

Of course, there are benighted souls in my communion (Mother Teresa, say) whose summary of Marian devotion is: Love Jesus as Mary loves Jesus, love Mary as Jesus loves Mary. Such people seem to think that Mary is not a goddess but that she has a significant place in the drama of redemption. They regard her as remarkable in that her choice to love and obey the as-yet-unseen and unincarnate Messiah was the very key to the Incarnation.

They find a subtle difference between such faith (unbuttressed and unrehearsed) and the wobbly performance of Peter and Thomas. They attach some quirky meaning to the fact she was the first disciple to say "yes" to the incarnate God and that it was this "yes" and the love it expressed which was the basis of the first and deepest love relationship the Son of God ever experienced as man.

Such cultists seem to have this notion that her role in the life of the Church might extend beyond the physical fact of providing a uterine environment and three square meals a day to the Second Person of the Trinity--that she is something more than a disposable first stage in the Incarnation.

For some reason they hold the belief that Jesus, who obeyed the law perfectly, obeyed the command to love his mother in a way unique in human history and that imitating him might involve us in that love relationship too. They are bewitched with the fact the dying Jesus commanded the disciple he loved (that is, you and me) to have Mary as mother and that she was commanded to have the beloved disciple (that is, you and me) as her son.

These people suspect that as the risen Christ remains human forever, so he remains his mother's son forever. If she loves him, she just might love those who are in him as her own and pray they will love her son with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Likewise, if Jesus loves her in a unique way and we are to be like him . . . well, you can work that one out.

 

 

[Salvation]

**And how many threads and lines of posting from the RC camp, have had to do primarily with Mary on FR vs primarily about Jesus on FR? **

Most of the posting on FR have to do with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Consider the Daily Mass Readings and all the quotes from the Bible as compared with threads at certain times about the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Even this thread is about Christ!

Happy New Year, BTW!

[Salvation]

Those are angels.

[Quix]

May you have a blessed New Year as well . . .

full of The Lord’s provision, protection, faith, hope, joy, love, peace and intimate dialogues with those you love.

Methinks the count on FR is different but it’s an interesting empirical question. . . I suppose we could take 6 months and count . . .

This thread is about JESUS?

Obviously, that’s why most of the pics are about MARY! LOL.

[ScubieNuc]

Looks like babies to me. If you want to think of angels as baby heads, that’s fine, I guess, but no neutral observer would see that picture that way.

Why is the blue-eyed European girl standing on the disembodied ‘angel’ heads? Wouldn’t Mary have most likely been olive skinned with brown eyes?

[Salvation]

You missed this post;
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1946602/posts?page=15#15

The pictures are about the beginning of the life of Christ. Everything is straight from the Bible.

[Salvation]

#5 was a picture of the Immaculate Conception -- sorry, my mistake.

Annunciation

Pietro Cavallini

1291
Mosaic
Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome

[Salvation]

It was the wrong picture. I have asked for it to be removed. Sorry to have caused you such angst.

Happy New Year.

[giotto]

What a remarkable painting. I’ve never seen it, or many other depictions of the fifth Joyful mystery. Thank you for posting it.

[Sun]

Just so you know, dear, I ask Jesus’ Blessed Mother to pray to God for me, or anyone in need, just as I might ask a friend to pray for me, or anyone in need.

Jesus loves His mother so much, so doesn’t it make sense that we would ask His mother to intercede for us.

[Salvation]

I just kept looking for something. Didn’t find it in images, but rather a search for Finding Christ — Temple. Interesting, huh?

Sometimes, I think that the holy images are being diminished.

[Quix]

Let’s check the evidence . . .

Post # 6 MARY with Elizabeth Score at least half MARY

Post # 7 Holy Family . . . Mary almost center stage. score say what . . . 25-50% Mary highlighted—the’s the only one basking in the halo glo from Jesus . . . ?

Post # 10 Jesus at least has center stage . . . as an infant . . . The priest is speaking to Mary vs focusing on Jesus. Score Mary at least 35-65%?

Post # 12 The temple scene . . . Jesus is LISTENING . . .

TO

MARY . . . score Mary emphasis say 65-85%?

If the artist had wanted, he could certainly from that same incident had Mary listening to Jesus. But he did NOT. Mary is the SPEAKER, ACTER, AUTHORITY, JESUS the dutiful listener.

Post # 26 The Annunciation . . . Mary center stage with a messenger. Score 100% Mary emphasized.

I want to go to bed instead of calculate a total . . . but the tilt is clear, to me.

[Quix]

Not given the emphases of Scripture and the EMPHATIC PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST IN SCRIPTURE.

As CHRIST SAID . . . REFUSING TO GO TO HIS MOTEHR AND BROTHERS . . .

He counted those who did the will of the Father as His siblings and blood relatives.

I have no need, when praying to Heaven, to deal with a middleman, middle woman, middle parrot.

I may ask other believers in this time space dimension to pray for me—THAT’S BIBLICAL.

But MY prayers focus directly to Jesus, the Father by His Spirit. THAT’S Biblical.

[ScubieNuc]

Oh, you can leave it up if you want, my ‘angst’ is quite low.

Could you answer my questions though?

Why does Mary look European?

Why would angels look like disembodied baby heads?

Why would Mary be standing on their heads?

Why do Catholics get so anxious when people question them about their ‘worship’ or ‘adoration’ of Mary?

Are Catholics forbidden from disliking certain renditions of what some people picture Mary to look like?

[ScubieNuc]

According to the Bible there is only one Mediator between God and man....Jesus.

1Timothy 2:5 For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

On Earth, we can ask others to pray for us, but that doesn't make them mediators between God and us. Think of mediators between Unions and Management, these people have special acceptance by both sides. The Bible only says that Jesus fills that role.

There is also no place in the Bible where living believers are directed to pray to dead believers to intercede for them with God.

When Mary was alive, after Jesus assended into heaven, she could have prayed for those living, but her prayers would go to the same mediator as anyone elses...Jesus. Praying to Mary is not something the earliest Christians did or else it would have been recorded in the Bible.

[Salvation]

You have FReepmail.

[Salvation]

You are leaving the last line off this quote from Scripture! Who does Christ say his mother and brothers are?

All of us.

[Salvation]

For your information -- and I am sure you know this -- it just gets omitted -- the entire passage. My highlighting in red.

47

(Someone told him, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.") ³³

48

But he said in reply to the one who told him, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?"

49

And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.

50

For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother."

[RobbyS]

Apart from the fact that Mary was still alive for much of the time reported by the New Testament,
why do you think that the dead cannot pray for us? Are the dead indifferent to us? Does your mother cease to be your mother after she has passed away? In AC, the martyrs whom John describes in his Revelation are definitely aware of what is occuring on earth.

[BlessedBeGod]

Fra Angelico's "Coronation of the Virgin"

[ScubieNuc]

Yeah the dead are different from us......THEY ARE DEAD!

I believe the dead can not pray for us because the Bible doesn’t say that they can.

Revelations talks about the prayers of the saints. Saints in the New Testament refers to living believers. Revelations uses symbolic language when it talks about the prayers being as insense.

Your assumption that those ‘prayers of the saints’ are prayers of dead believers used as intercession is because of your other preconcieved ideas, not because the Bible supports it.

In heaven, my mother, father, and wife will be different then what I think of them now on Earth. (Matthew 22:30)