Posted on 02/24/2010 11:17:16 AM PST by Pyro7480
Why is it so important to Catholics that Mary be considered to always have been a virgin and not have had other children?
IMHO, a very powerful passage of Scripture to point at. Israel was rejecting God when they worshiped the queen of heaven. I think the vast majority of RC's don't understand what their well intentioned, but wrong, worship of Mary really is.
They should be running to Jesus the Christ.
Reasonable points.
If you spend an hour in devotion to her, that’s an hour you are not spending in devotion to God.
How can that not be a distraction?
What can Mary do for you that God can’t or won’t?
I believe it was an
IN-GROUP/OUT-GROUP
BUREAUCRATIC POLITICAL POWER-MONGERING MANIPULATION.
It’s a more or less EXCLUSIVE, EXCLUSIONIST DISTINCTIVE.
Keeps the unwashed outside the doors and convinces the sheeple how kosher they are because they believe & practice all such specialized distinctive hogwash.
IMHO, a very powerful passage of Scripture to point at. Israel was rejecting God when they worshiped the queen of heaven. I think the vast majority of RC's don't understand what their well intentioned, but wrong, worship of Mary really is.
They should be running to Jesus the Christ.
Amen ! Brother.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
There is no distraction in recognizing Mary’s special role in salvation history. I stand by my original statement that she is who she is only because Jesus is who He is and all Catholics understand that.
Honoring His mother is not an affront to Jesus.
Each deeper understanding of Mary has come about because of an attack on her son. Every doctrine about her is a reflection of Him for it is always through Him, in Him and with Him that we live and move and have our being.
Just as we are now sons and daughters of God, just as we are now the redeemed, just as we are now saints, so too Mary owes everything to her Son, Our Lord Jesus.
Nice try.
NO cigar.
Toooooooooooooooo much proof otherwise from your own official documents.
Please list one that says that Mary is anything due to her own divine power, one that says that Mary is in fact divine or that doctrines came about because of political maneuvering.
There has been a concerted effort in the post reform protestant to demonize the Church because of her beliefs regarding Mary, yet there is no evidence that any belief about Mary is separate from the Church’s teachings about Jesus.
I many times before . . .
This is just a tiny sample.
Here’s the title:
And it carries the official sanctions of:
nihil obstat
n.
1. Roman Catholic Church An attestation by a church censor that a book contains nothing damaging to faith or morals.
2. Official approval, especially of an artistic work.
WITH RICHARD CARDINAL CUSHINGS IMPRIMATUR
Let me track down the brief portion of quotes . . .
Here they are:
However, as we’ve seen through a variety of sources—a pile of them in Ferraro’s manual about the Rosary—the Roman Catholic et al/Vatican Edifice disagrees with a lot of the claims of RC’s hereon to the contrary.
p.32 [Quixicated emphases below]
Mary is crowned Queen of heaven and earth, ***dispenser*** of ***all*** graces . . .
p32
4 - She became Queen of Purgatory, where she exercises ***her power*** as ***mediatrix*** in behalf of these suffering souls.
6 - ***She*** became the ***ruler of hell,*** that trembles at her slightest gaze and is defeated by ***her power.***
“Just as a rock extracted from earth will precipitate into the abyss, so will man, left without ***Mary’s*** help, quickly slide toward hell.” —Richard of St Victor
p37
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come; Thy kingdom come ***through Mary!*** —Partial Indulgence
p41
***”Mary*** is the ***tree of life*** to those who grasp her, and he is happy who hold her fast.” —Prov. 3:18
p43
1 - “Hail Mary, beloved daughter of the Father, Mother of the Divine Son, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, ***complement of the most august Trinity!”**** [what outrageous blasphemy]
p45
6 - To her was granted grace greater than that conferred upon all others, ‘that ***she*** might ***vanquish sin*** in every respect.’
[Qx: I guess Christ’s vanquishing sin was unnecessary—or ineffectual without Mary’s assistance?]
p46
7 - “Mary is the dawn of God because, just as the dawn marks the end of darkness and the beginning of day, so ***Mary*** indicates the end of vices and the beginning of virtue.”
[Qx: I guess Christ’s conquering on The Cross and HIS conquering trip to hell were unncessary?]
9 - God loved Mary so much that He gave her the keys to His heart. ‘No one can go to God without ***Mary*** drawing him.’
[Qx: I guess Holy Spirit has been relegated to a ‘Walter Mitty’ role as spouse of Mary? That’s SOME POWER to cancel & take over HOLY SPIRIT’S role to draw men to God!]
p47
4 - ***”Mary,*** trusting in the word of the angel, ***destroyed the sin*** Eve committed by trusting in the serpent.’
[Qx: Evidently, she beat Christ to the job of vanquishing sin!]
5 - “She desired the safety of everyone, went in search of it, and obtained it; it was also ***through **her** that this salvation was wrought.”***
[QX: What an unnecessary waste of precious Blood and suffering on THE CROSS!!!/sar]
p47
10 - “As Noah’s Ark saved all the animals that entered it, so ***Mary saves all*** the souls that entrust themselves to her care.”
p50
8 - “If she were not so holy as she is, how could God appoint her to be the ladder of Paradise, the advocate of the world, ***meatrix between HIm and us?” ***
p50
4 - “By becoming Mother of God, ***Mary*** belongs to the order of ***hypostatic union;*** hence she participates IN the ***infinite sanctity of God.”***
WHAT UNMITIGATED BLASPHEMY AND IDOLATRY!
WHAT SHAMEFUL HIDEOUSNESS!
Sorry, but every time I read through this small sample of such stuff from this TREASURED Roman Catholic classic . . . I’m STUNNED at the blatant, barzen idolatry and blasphemy.
As Alamo-Girl says most mildly—”Jeepers.”
At some point, words fail me.
You are exactly correct, I have even seen pictures of Mary on the Cross in churches in South America. Even the emmaculate conception was made up recently when they realized if Mary was without sin she would have never died. Forget Catholicism and just read the bible, otherwise you are adding to the gospel and possibly placing your soul in jeopardy. I was a catholic for 30 years, trust me, I know ...
WELL PUT.
THX THX.
And no where does it say that Mary is any of those things without her Son, Jesus.
Nice try, but no cigar.
No, this more than a reasonable point. It goes to the heart of the Gospel. The point is that the references to Christ’s brethren and mother, are direct references to the church itself, in the first viewed individually and in the second viewed collectively. This is a recurring theme in the Scriptures of both Old and New Testament. The church is, viewed individually, the bridesmaids, the children of God, the brethren of Christ, the various members of the body, etc. etc. But the church is also, viewed collectively, the bride herself, the mother of all the faithful, the body which encompasses all the members, even the queen. Mary herself is the personification of the church, just as Eve was, the one at the coming of the Christ, the other before His coming. Of that I have no doubt. But what does the church do when, to use the preferred RC term, she venerates herself? Is the church right to call upon itself as mediator? Does the church praise itself and them claim that it is Christ who is being glorified? I think not.
No, Jesus’ point in Matthew 12 is very clear, his church is more dear to Him, more His family, than those who were His family. That is precisely the point He is making here, precisely. For we are all children of God by adoption, not by birth, or Jesus was flat out lying to Nicodemus. Even His own family was not part of the church by blood, but by faith. We are not “cousins” of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Roman church would assert of those who stood outside the house that day and waited to talk to Jesus. No, we are brethren, brothers and sisters, even as they were, we by faith and they by blood, and in the case of at least some, perhaps all, of them, by the grace of God, by faith also.
That is the plain meaning of the text. To take it the way Rome does is dictated not by what the text says, but by what the magisterium in its pride demands the text say.
Accepted, for the purpose of our sidebar, with reservations. However, the "we" in your statement must certainly only apply to y'all, and not to me and mine.
That the sacrifice is finished does not mean its application to us is finished. The sacrifice of the Mass indeed refers to that same finished sacrifice worked by Jesus:
I would assert that the mass is an unnecessary construct, and thereby false. It is prayers from a broken and contrite heart which are the true sacrifice, wherever they may be offered.
WELL PUT.
THANKS.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
a silly assertion by yet another
devotee of the rubber dictionary . . .
or perhaps an ESL student?
The language of those blasphemous, idolatrous assertions was quite stark.
They didn’t leave much to any wiggle room in a number of cases.
Of course, we are used to Roman Catholics et al fantasizing all manner of nonsense about RELIGIOUS STUFF.
. . . and about history.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
A snide reply rather than a substantive argument.
Where in official Catholic doctrines on Mary or in any of her titles and devotions does it say that Mary is any of these things or has any power that is not a direct reflection of the divinity, power and sacrifice of her Son?
It is easy to take these things out of context and without the theology and exegesis behind them and present them as the elevation of Mary over her Son.
I say again, there is not doctrine or teaching or honorific or devotion of Mary that is not a direct result of the birth, life and death of her son.
It seems that God had no problem bringing the gift of grace through her. To think or act like she was nothing more than an incubator is an insult to Jesus.
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