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Those of us who have brains and use them (Am I getting the protestant snarky thing down correctly?) note that there is a difference between "equal" and "same". Further, we look at quotes in context and when we read Scripture we think not only about the one line but about the situation in which it is given.

Yes, there is a difference between 'equal' and the 'same', and Christ said all Christians were equal, not the same.

So, how does that distinction help your case?

So in the case of the woman who calls out "Blessed the womb that bore you and the breasts that have you suck," (from memory), I don't know what YOU see, But I see someone who is implicitly distancing herself from the love and holiness (and blessedness -- a word the pronunciation of which some Protestants seem unwilling to reveal) which Jesus offers to all of us in Him.

I didn't use that passage, I used Mk.3:34-35, where Christ said all those 'who do the will of the Father, the same is my brother, my sister and my mother'.

But even in that passage, the Lord corrects the woman (the only time the Lord corrects any woman in the Gospels) and states that blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Lk.11:28).

Now, if you want to actually deal with those verses say and not just throw up some smoke, then do so.

There is nothing complicated about them.

Here is a note from the RCC NAB,

.....it emphasizes that attentiveness to God's word is more important than biological relationship to Jesus

Regarding Mark, the note in the NAB states

Against this background, Jesus is informed of the arrival of his mother and brothers [sisters]. He responds by showing that not family ties but doing God's will is decisive in the kingdom.

But, despite the tendentious leaning on the word usually translated as "rather" I do not think this text itself will unequivocally support the notion that all of us are currently equally OR identically blessed. What it will support is that we are all offered blessedness in Christ AND all challenged to avoid distancing ourselves from that call by adopting a kind of "poor little old me attitude, I'd be so much better off if only I were blood kin to Jesus" attitude.

Well, that is a nice little theory, but it doesn't line up with what the passages actually say.

Christ makes it very clear that the issue in the Christian life is following His words and Mary wasn't considered anyone more special than anyone else when it came to that issue.

One of the things I LIKE about hosepipe's disparaging of "denominations", though I think his contention is wrong in the final analysis, is that I think a temptation common to all Xtians is to keep putting something between us and an encounter with Christ, so that a Catholic might be distressed to learn that there was no Mass in heaven (since it is ALL Mass all the time) or Protestant might be upset to find no Bible (since the Word Himself constantly and intimately gives himself to all the blessed).

Well, there is no 'mass' in heaven since Christ only needed to die once and doesn't need to re-crucified over and over again in a non-bloody replication of that sacrifice.(Heb.6:6)

Christ did say that heaven and earth will fade away, but His words never will.(Mk.13:31)

The woman calls out her cry, and Jesus says to her, "You too, Lady. Get a grip. Come to me and I'll SHOW you 'blessed'!"

Well, He could have easily said, yes, lady you are correct, my mother is blessed above all other human beings but...' , but Christ didn't say that, rather He corrected the woman and made her see that it was His words that were the issue, not Mary.

But when you want to avoid what scripture actually says, any reasoning will do.

AS has been said more than once in this protracted conflict as and has been ignored without remission, Mary has nothing in the blessedness department that is not offered to all the blessed. Maybe different degree, maybe different sort of manifestations, but holiness and blessedness nonethe less.

And where do you get the idea that Mary is anymore blessed than any other believer based on her relationship to Christ?

That is what you are basing the special relationship on, the mother-son relationship, which Christ himself stated was no longer relevant once His own ministry started.

The distinction between equal and same helps me like this. All the blessed are the same in that they receive Grace. They may differ in the, so to speak, amount or degree or even, possibly, the kind of Grace.

Okay, "whoever does the will of my father ..."

Mary did not do that? Did anybody hear the Word or serve the Word more than Mary did?

Ιδου η δουλη κυριυ΄γενοιτο μοι κατα ρημα σου. And she carried the child to term, gave birth, did the stuff mothers do. Mary did the will of God pretty intimately and thoroughly.

I am struck that you think that's the only time the Lord "corrects" someone any woman in the Gospels. I'd say that he "corrects" his parents in the temple and he sho' 'nuff brings the Syro-Phonecian woman up short.

WE Catholics think Jesus is THE Word of God. It is not IMHO "throwing up smoke" to have a huge chunk of one's thinking determined by the first verses of John. Are you suggesting that when Jesus Himself spoke to MAry she should have said, "Not now, dear, I'm reading my Bible." Do you think she was not attentive to the Word of God when she hovered over Him as mothers do and looked to His needs?

Well, that is a nice little theory, but it doesn't line up with what the passages actually say.Becuase you say so? (That was an argument you used when I referred to the text. I was wondering if it would persuade you? I bet not.)

Christ makes it very clear that the issue in the Christian life is following His words...

Well anybody who wants to be Jesus's Mom, who makes that the aim of his spiritual life (except in a certain sense as articulated earlier in this thread) is wasting his time. I think you are almost agreeing with what I said was the meaning of the Blessed is the womb exchange. The job of Mom is filled and we are not in any way let off the hook because we can't be His Mom.

Thank you for your tendentious and irrelevant aside about the Mass which shows nothing but that you have missed my point.Some are so sure I'm wrong that they don't want to understand what I think, because it ges int he way of their prejudices.

But when you want to avoid what scripture actually says, any reasoning will do.

Yeah. I can see that. And when one is so sure that one knows exactly what a Greek particle means and can conclude from that a highly specific meaning of a text then one thinks that everyone with another opinion doesn't want to see the truth. People are funny that way.

But maybe it would be better to avoid personal remarks.