Okay, pro-forma: We can't STOP giving Satan standing through paying homage to Mary because we never STARTED giving standing through paying homage to Mary.
Yes we are to honor our EARTHLY mother and father. Mary is not our earthly mother.
The Baptized are members of the body of Christ. That body was born by Mary. So she is our mother by our adoption in Christ.
-- Further, I do not find that Moses wrote Honor your EARTHLY father and mother. (I don't understand why the Bible, as written, so often troubles people.) And I expect my adopted nephew and niece to honor their parents.
[10] As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
and
The only one that is righteous is Christ (God).
On the contrary: Jesus asks, "Why do you call me good?" IF we are to take these sweeping statements with the modern logical interpretation of "no one" etc. Then we must conclude EITHER that Jesus was not good OR that he was not named in the Bible. So it makes as much sense to be open to the Psalmist's saying there is none that is righteous is not to be taken in a completely exhaustive sense.
The following is not dispositive so I don't offer it as a proof but as an indication of a line of thought: If Mary is described as κεχαριτομένε it would be useful to wonder what perfected grace (it is a feminine perfect passive participle) might be. We look forward to being sinless and to being reunited with our bodies. None of these things will be merited, they will all be graces perfected in us in the future.
While it IS understandably controversial, it is not clearly unbiblical to conclude that the perfection of grace would include sinlessness and being reunited with one's body after death. These are what we assert about Mary.
Further, something Protestants don't often understand about the Immaculate conception, Mary is sinless, we hold, by the prevenient grace of Christ, rescuing her from the cesspool of sin BEFORE she fell in, while we are rescued AFTER we fall in. So to attribute sinlessness to Mary(at least as we do in the Catholic Church is NOT to detract from Christ's saving work (in our view) but rather to say it is more splendid than ever., FAR more splendid than one might dare to hope.
We certainly can and should pray for others,
however it it the Holy Spirit that intercedes for any of us; not Mary or any other dead sinner.
Rom.8:26
[26] Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Our Lord says that God is the God of the living, for all live to Him. So to characterize anyone as "dead" is troublesome and may be found to be going against Scripture. We, like Mary, live in the Spirit, and it is only because we do so that our intercession or hers is invited. Also Romans 8:26 has no word that indicates exclusivity or the manner of the Holy Spirit's intercession. Just as (we hold) the Holy Spirit prompts you to prayer and, as it were, conducts that prayer through Christ to the Father, so the same Spirit prompts intercessors united by the same Spirit in the body of Christ. Just as my Protestant mother-in-law, a mighty prayer warrior, intercedes by grace and with the prompting and assistance of the Holy Spirit, so also Mary intercedes. We see no contradiction between Rom 8:26 (one of my favorite passages, one I think VERY important and much neglected) and asking each other or the saints in heaven to pray for us.
What always troubles me is why the BIBLE upsets people.
I share that trouble. Leaving aside its wonderful inspiration and the great gift that it is, it is also beautiful and endlessly fascinating.
However, as I hope I have shown or, at least persuasively suggested, the Bible and the conclusions people think they have drawn from it are not the same thing. Two people can look at the same Bible, even the same verses and find very different things in them.
As to not wanting to argue, I want to say this gently and I hope you will read it gently.
Yours was the second post on this thread and your first paragraph ended with:
Stop aiding Satan and being distracted by Mary.Stop aiding Satan and being distracted by Mary.
I can see that this accusation was motivated by a desire to save us from error and to urge us toward the truth, the glorious truth of the Gospel of the Love of God in Christ Jesus.
Can you see that telling me that I am aiding Satan and am distracted by my devotion to Mary (especially when my EXPERIENCE as a convert to Catholicism is that Mary ever says, "Do whatever HE tells you," and, while gently encouraging me refuses to let me stop with her but urges me on to her Son) might be mistaken for a kind of insult?
I just suggested that you were practicing hit-and-run by posting and then not coming back to deal with answers to your post. You concluded that I was in the gutter.
You by comparison, told me I was aiding Satan, giving him standing, and was distracted. I never said about you anything half as nasty as what you said about us, yet you responded angrily and dismissively to me. At least I addressed the points you raised.
May I gently suggest to you that some of us Catholics have read Scripture, take it seriously, have an intense and thoughtful piety, and are sort of nonplussed when someone, without supporting arguments tells us we are aiding Satan?
May I suggest further that to say or suggest that we are upset by the Bible when it's not the Bible itself but particular interpretations that upset us seems to be well, not quite fair. It's demeaning. I didn't study Greek and Hebrew because the Bible upsets me. We have a slightly different Bible, but we read mostly the same texts. We have spent no less time than Protestants thinking about them. To suggest that because we have reached different conclusions we are upset about the Bible seems at the very best, a little misplaced.
May you also have a blessed Christmas, and may the joy of the Christ child fill your whole year, your whole life.
Thanking you for this post.
(from one convert to another :-) )