Posted on 02/15/2010 9:07:17 AM PST by GonzoII
The Scenario:
Ever have one of those days when you’re feeling full of energy and vigor? I mean, you’re feeling just obnoxiously happy? Well, this is one of those days.
Driving home from work, you switch on the radio to see what’s happening, and you tune in to a local Protestant radio station just in time to hear a preacher speaking against various Catholic doctrines concerning Mary. The show is called Pastor Bob’s Bible Hour. Pastor Bob proclaims: “Jesus knew Catholics would come along and begin to worship His mother and call her perpetual virgin and absurd things like that. But the Bible says: ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And are not His brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all of His sisters with us?’ (Matt. 13:55-56a). And isn’t it sad, my brothers and sisters?”
Pastor Bob goes on to say: “Jesus dealt with these Mary worshippers in His day. In Luke 11:27-28, the Bible says, ‘A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that You sucked!” But He said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”’”
On a normal day you would probably just listen, take a few mental notes and drive on. But not this time. You’re feeling a little bit too saucy. You take the first exit you see and head for a phone. This is just one more reason why you need to buy that cell phone you’ve been talking about getting.
Step One:
(Excerpt) Read more at envoymagazine.com ...
Ohh yea, I was a Catholic before I was saved.
As a Catholic I argued that we venerated her, much as they still do today, it is only in retrospect I can see that no matter what we called it, it stole glory from God.
With all due respect, I must disagree. Let me say up front that I also disagree with the stream of Protestantism that routinely insult Jesus' mom, because a) it's rude and b) it's pointless.
Having said that, your analogy isn't quite accurate. For most of us (excluding the above-mentioned weirdos who get some odd kick of going around insulting dead people), the analogy is more like going over to your friend's house for dinner and finding 12x17 pictures of his mother framed on every wall, life-size posters of his mom behind every door, and cute little "What Would Mother Do?" cross-stitches stuffed in every possible corner. You'd wonder if your friend had an unhealthy attachment to his mom.
That's what it's like for most Protestants (again, above mentioned people excluded). We don't think there's anything *wrong* with Mary, we just find the amount of devotion and adoration heaped upon her to be, well, a little creepy.
_____________________
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with You, (The greeting from the Angel Gabriel)
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. (Elizabeth's declaration when John the Babtist leaped in her womb)
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. (Is it wrong to Pentacostals to ask someone to pray for them?)
_____________________
Catholics simply respect the role of Mary in Salvation History, and God knew what he was doing in giving us an iconic image of a virtuous woman. The New Eve.
On a practical level I find Mary's role more important than ever. Women are taught to be selfish and materialistic. The world tells us that Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are who we should look up to.
God told us that an obedient, selfless, humble woman like Mary is truly blessed. Nobody sufferred like Mary, and she said "yes" to God no matter what.
I have no doubt that true Catholic women, who have a formation that includes The Blessed Mother, make exceptional mothers and wives.
At a time when my friends mothers were indulging in worldly causes, my very Catholic mother was dedicated and willing to endure every difficulty and humiliation for what she considered her apostolic mission of motherhood. Although my father was Methodist and converted to marry my mother, he had no religious formation.
I remember telling her to divorce my father for his "errant" ways (I was worldly), and she told me,"God gave me that poor lost soul to care for, and that's what I have to do." Needless to say they continue married, and are now happier than ever, after 40 years of marriage.
Thank God for my Catholic mother.
Not so infallible huh?
Yes, Rev 12:17 makes a reference to Mary. Clear as a bell. That woman is described as mother of Christ. What pagan goddess?
It is only clear if one can not rightly divide the word of God and if they are willing to be literal for a few verses, then ignore what does not fit and then be literal again..
Catholics are fee to have a pagan goddess as the queen of their heaven if they so choose
Jer 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
Jer 44:17 But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
Jer 44:18 But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
Jer 44:19 And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?
Literature tells us that the "queen of heaven" which was the same Pagan goddess that Israel worshipped when they became apostate and followed the pagans was Ashtoreth,/Astart/ Ishtar
THAT is the queen of heaven .....
With all due respect, no. I don't pray at, to, or towards a cross. I pray to the Triune God.
I thought Christ was God..
Could you show me where scripture says we need a mediator to Christ.
From Augustines City of God
But if, as is much more probable and credible, it must needs be that all men, so long as they are mortal, are also miserable, we must seek an intermediate who is not only man, but also God, that, by the interposition of His blessed mortality, He may bring men out of their mortal misery to a blessed immortality. In this intermediate two things are requisite, that He become mortal, and that He do not continue mortal. He did become mortal, not rendering the divinity of the Word infirm, but assuming the infirmity of flesh. Neither did He continue mortal in the flesh, but raised it from the dead; for it is the very fruit of His mediation that those, for the sake of whose redemption He became the Mediator, should not abide eternally in bodily death. Wherefore it became the Mediator between us and God to have both a transient mortality and a permanent blessedness, that by that which is transient He might be assimilated to mortals, and might translate them from mortality to that which is permanent. Good angels, therefore, cannot mediate between miserable mortals and blessed immortals, for they themselves also are both blessed and immortal; but evil angels can mediate, because they are immortal like the one party, miserable like the other.
To these is opposed the good Mediator, who, in opposition to their immortality and misery, has chosen to be mortal for a time, and has been able to continue blessed in eternity. It is thus He has destroyed, by the humility of His death and the benignity of His blessedness, those proud immortals and hurtful wretches, and has prevented them from seducing to misery by their boast of immortality those men whose hearts He has cleansed by faith, and whom He has thus freed from their impure dominion.
Man, then, mortal and miserable, and far removed from the immortal and the blessed, what medium shall he choose by which he may be united to immortality and blessedness? The immortality of the demons, which might have some charm for man, is miserable; the mortality of Christ, which might offend man, exists no longer. In the one there is the fear of an eternal misery; in the other, death, which could not be eternal, can no longer be feared, and blessedness, which is eternal, must be loved. For the immortal and miserable mediator interposes himself to prevent us from passing to a blessed immortality, because that which hinders such a passage, namely, misery, continues in him; but the mortal and blessed Mediator interposed Himself, in order that, having passed through mortality, He might of mortals make immortals (showing His power to do this in His own resurrection), and from being miserable to raise them to the blessed company from the number of whom He had Himself never departed. There is, then, a wicked mediator, who separates friends, and a good Mediator, who reconciles enemies
Amazing you're willing to declare a fictional pagan goddess the Queen of Heaven, but you deny that title to the Mother of God.
But we do not.
Ashtoreth,/Astart/ Ishtar THAT is the queen of heaven .....
YOU do.
The very gates of hell will not prevail against the Church founded by Christ, certainly your calumnies will not either.
Perhaps.
But whoever thought up making Mary into a pagan idol was not part of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not do that.
Good thing, therefore, that you never ask anyone to pray for you, and you have steadfastly refused to pray for anyone who asked you.
Shout that as loud and often as you want, you still cannot make it true.
"Honor Your Father and Mother"
Those who choose to treat the mother of Jesus, like some meaningless Buddha statue, can do so at your own peril. Those of us who choose to honor Mary, should not be slandered with lies and distortions. God clearly had a problem with the sanctimonious pharisees who felt only they had the word of God.
That's an amazing claim. How much time did you spend in Rome studying the Catholics there before reaching that conclusion?
Nowhere in Scripture are we told not to ask other Christians to pray for us.
They asked living men and women to pray for them , there is not one shred of evidence that the saints in heaven are omnipresent and can hear all the prayers of all the people over the entire world... what they pray for is judgement on men
Prayers TO MARY
Here is one I can still recite from memory
The "Memorare" is a sixteenth-century version of a fifteenth-century prayer that began "Ad sanctitatis tuae pedes, dulcissima Virgo Maria." Claude Bernard (1588-1641) popularized the idea that the "Memorare" was written by Saint Bernard.
Remember, most loving Virgin Mary,
never was it heard
that anyone who turned to you for help
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence,
though burdened by my sins,
I run to your protection
for you are my mother.
Mother of the Word of God,
do not despise my words of pleading
but be merciful and hear my prayer.
Amen.
Act of Oblation to the Blessed Virgin Mary
My Queen! my Mother!
I give thee all myself, and,
to show my devotion to thee,
I consecrate to thee my eyes,
my ears, my mouth, my heart, my entire self.
Wherefore, O loving Mother,
as I am thine own,
keep me, defend me,
as thy property and possession.
Just to make a point that there are many prayers to Mary are not asking her intercession with Christ
Okay, don't ask anyone to pray for you because you're worshiping them...follow your statement it out...you see?
1Thes:5:25:
"Brethren, pray for us." (DRV)
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us.
And don't forget they consecrate the morning to Mary, too. Just like the Aztecs and the Egyptians.
Pray means ask. A prayer is a request. Directing our requests to Mary for her intercession is described in shorthand as “praying to” her.
The Aztecs and Egyptians consecrated the morning to Mary?
Where DO you get this stuff?
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