A Protestant Discovers Mary

NC Register ^ | March 13, 2010

[NYer]

Romano Guardini wrote in his book on the Rosary, “To linger in the domain of Mary is a divinely great thing. One does not ask about the utility of truly noble things, because they have their meaning within themselves. So it is of infinite meaning to draw a deep breath of this purity, to be secure in the peace of this union with God.”

Guardini was speaking of spending time with Mary in praying the Rosary, but David Mills, in his latest book, Discovering Mary, helps us linger in the domain of Mary by opening up to us the riches of divine revelation, both from tradition and Scripture. Mills, a convert from the Episcopal Church, former editor of the Christian journal Touchstone and editor of the 1998 book of essays commemorating the centennial of C.S. Lewis’ birth The Pilgrim’s Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness, as well as the author of Knowing the Real Jesus (2001), has written a rock-solid introduction to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and done so with intellectual rigor and an affable tone.

His book begins with an introduction in which he describes how he came to discover the riches of the Church’s teachings on Mary: “I began to see how a sacred vessel is made holy by the sacred thing it carries,” he writes. “I began to feel this in a way I had not before. I found myself developing an experiential understanding of Mary and indeed a Marian devotion. Which surprised me. It surprised me a lot.”

Unfortunately, he notes, he did not learn about Mary from contemporary Catholics, nor in homilies, “even on Marian feast days.” It seems he learned on his own by reading magisterial documents and going back to Scriptures in light of those documents.

This book shares the fruit of that study. Mills examines the life of Mary, Mary in the Bible, Mary in Catholic doctrine, Marian feast days and the names of Mary. He includes an appendix full of references to papal documents and books on Mary.

Most of the book is done in a question-and-answer format, which usually works well, although at times it feels awkward. Would someone really ask, for instance, “What is happening in the liturgy on the Marian feast days?”

But most of the questions are natural. “What is the point of Marian devotion?” Mills asks. It is “to live the Catholic life as well as we can,” he answers. “This means going ever more deeply into the mystery of Christ, to become saintlier, more conformed to his image, by following Mary’s example and by turning to her for help and comfort.”

Next question: “Does devotion to Mary detract from our devotion to Christ?”

“Christians since the beginning of serious Marian devotion have been careful to emphasize Mary’s subordination to her son,” Mills replies. “In fact, they have said it so often that the reader begins to expect it. In the fifth century St. Ambrose put it nicely: ‘Mary was the temple of God, not the god of the temple.’”

David Mills, with the same radical clarity he showed in Knowing the Real Jesus, has written what has to be one of the best, if not the very best, short introductions to Catholic teaching on Mary, the Mother of God. Discovering Mary is ideal for those wanting to know more about her, whether they be skeptics, Protestants, or Catholics who don’t know the Mother of the Church well enough.

Franklin Freeman writes from Saco, Maine.

DISCOVERING MARY

Answers to Questions About the Mother of God

By David Mills

Servant Books, 2009

148 pages, $12.99

To order: servantbooks.org

[Quix]

Worthy points, I think . . . as much as I understand them. LOL.

Which I think is pretty much.

[Cronos]

“Mary did not provide the divine nature to Jesus Christ for it existed before all of Creation” —> of course she did NOT — that is completely contradictory to Church teachings. However, Christ was born to her, and Christ was completely man and completely God. She was the New Testament Ark that carried the Word that was God,that was Jesus Christ. You have correctly enunciated an orthodox belief in opposition to an Arian and to a monophysite and to a nestorian (pardons to Nestorius) one.

[wmfights]

I believe that Baptism is a means of grace, that it saves, but it isn't a 'work' of man but that it is God's gift and that the commandment to preach the Gospel and baptize means children too. As a Baptist wmfights would probably disagree with me and as a Baptist he should.

We do disagree on it. From the Baptist perspective we believe Baptism follows faith.

Concerning Ambrose:

pg 103: His father came from the highest social class. As Praetorian Prefect of Gaul he ruled a huge chunk of western Europe and was one of the half-dozen most important civilians in the empire. "A History of Christianity" by Paul Johnson.

Ray Charles could see that it was political force driving Ambrose' assension in the hierarchy of the RCC, not any great theological abilities exhibited over an extended period of time. Ambrose is the one being quoted in this thread "Mary is the Temple of God". It's good to know the real background.

[betty boop]

Magnificently put, Cvengr!

PAX CHRISTI

[Joya]

YOU said,
21. ... once the Hound Of Heaven is on a project, the only way is THROUGH. Running away just never works. Pretending otherwise never works. Slipping and sliding around on the issues never works.

= = =
So true.

Well put. All of it.

May we GO AFTER GOD. MAY WE SEEK HIM FOR OURSELVES. EACH ONE.

[Cronos]

Concerning Ambrose --> read the history above

The bishops of the province, dreading the inevitable tumults of a popular election, begged the Emperor Valentinian to appoint a successor by imperial edict; he, however, decided that the election must take place in the usual way. It devolved upon Ambrose, therefore, to maintain order in the city at this perilous juncture. Proceeding to the basilica in which the disunited clergy and people were assembled, he began a conciliatory discourse in the interest of peace and moderation, but was interrupted by a voice (according to Paulinus, the voice of an infant) crying, "Ambrose, Bishop". The cry was instantly repeated by the entire assembly, and Ambrose, to his surprise and dismay, was unanimously pronounced elected. Quite apart from any supernatural intervention, he was the only logical candidate, known to the Catholics as a firm believer in the Nicene Creed, unobnoxious to the Arians, as one who had kept aloof from all theological controversies. The only difficulty was that of forcing the bewildered consular to accept an office for which his previous training nowise fitted him. Strange to say, like so many other believers of that age, from a misguided reverence for the sanctity of baptism, he was still only a catechumen, and by a wise provision of the canons ineligible to the episcopate. That he was sincere in his repugnance to accepting the responsibilities of the sacred office, those only have doubted who have judged a great man by the standard of their own pettiness. Were Ambrose the worldly-minded, ambitious, and scheming individual they choose to paint him, he would have surely sought advancement in the career that lay wide open before him as a man of acknowledged ability and noble blood. It is difficult to believe that he resorted to the questionable expedients mentioned by his biographer as practised by him with a view to undermining his reputation with the populace. At any rate his efforts were unsuccessful. Valentinian, who was proud that his favourable opinion of Ambrose had been so fully ratified by the voice of clergy and people, confirmed the election and pronounced severe penalties against all who should abet him in his attempt to conceal himself. The Saint finally acquiesced, received baptism at the hands of a Catholic bishop, and eight day later, 7 December 374, the day on which East and West annually honour his memory, after the necessary preliminary degrees was consecrated bishop.

--> "Ambrose, Bishop". The cry was instantly repeated by the entire assembly,

he was the only logical candidate, known to the Catholics as a firm believer in the Nicene Creed

Upon the completion of his liberal education, the Saint devoted his attention to the study and practice of the law, and soon so distinguished himself by the eloquence and ability of his pleadings at the court of the praetorian prefect, Anicius Probus, that the latter took his into his council, and later obtained for him from the Emperor Valentinian the office of consular governor of Liguria and Æmilia, with residence in Milan. "Go", said the prefect, with unconscious prophecy, "conduct thyself not as a judge, but as bishop".

His first act in the episcopate, imitated by many a saintly successor, was to divest himself of his worldly goods. His personal property he gave to the poor; he made over his landed possessions to the Church, making provision for the support of his beloved sister.

In order to supply the lack of an early theological training, he devoted himself assiduously to the study of Scripture and the Fathers, with a marked preference for Origen and St. Basil, traces of whose influence are repeatedly met with in his works.

With a genius truly Roman, he, like Cicero, Virgil, and other classical authors, contented himself with thoroughly digesting and casting into a Latin mould the best fruits of Greek thought. His studies were of an eminently practical nature; he learned that he might teach. In the exordium of his treatise, "De Officiis", he complains that, owing to the suddenness of his transfer from the tribunal to the pulpit, he was compelled to learn and teach simultaneously

His piety, sound judgment, and genuine Catholic instinct preserved him from error, and his fame as an eloquent expounder of Catholic doctrine soon reached the ends of the earth. His power as an orator is attested not only by the repeated eulogies, but yet more by the conversion of the skilled rhetorician Augustine. His style is that of a man who is concerned with thoughts rather than words. We cannot imagine him wasting time in turning an elegant phrase. "He was one of those", says St. Augustine, "who speak the truth, and speak it well, judiciously, pointedly, and with beauty and power of expression" (Christian Doctrine IV.21).

All of the above are from New Advent, but you can refer any other history for him. He was not as deep a theologian when made bishop -- true, but his epistles date fromAFTER that, when he made the effort to learn and to teach what he had learnt. And this was effective -- St. Augustine heard this and converted!

[Cronos]

And yet, scripture disagrees with you about the sacrament of Baptism -- both xone and I believe that it is NOT merely a symbol and to prove that we quote

When the Redeemer declares (John 3) that it is necessary to be born again of water and the Holy Ghost in order to enter the Kingdom of God, His words may be justly understood to mean that He includes all who are capable of having a right to this kingdom. Now, He has asserted such a right even for those who are not adults, when He says (Matthew 19:14): "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." It has been objected that this latter text does not refer to infants, inasmuch as Christ says "to come to me". In the parallel passage in St. Luke (18:15), however, the text reads: "And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them"; and then follow the words cited from St. Matthew. In the Greek text, the words brephe and prosepheron refer to infants in arms.

and

Moreover, St. Paul (Colossians 2) says that baptism in the New Law has taken the place of circumcision in the Old. It was especially to infants that the rite of circumcision was applied by Divine precept. If it be said that there is no example of the baptism of infants to be found in the Bible, we may answer that infants are included in such phrases as: "She was baptized and her household" (Acts 16:15); "Himself was baptized, and all his house immediately" (Acts 16:33); "I baptized the household of Stephanus" (1 Corinthians 1:16).

To the objection that baptism requires faith, theologians reply that adults must have faith, but infants receive habitual faith, which is infused into them in the sacrament of regeneration. As to actual faith, they believe on the faith of another; as St. Augustine (De Verb. Apost., xiv, xviii) beautifully says: "He believes by another, who has sinned by another."

Question -- what do you believe for those perpetually insane? Do you baptise them?

And, the proof that the Early Church DID baptise infants is from here by St. Cyprian of Carthage

In respect to the case of infants, which you say ought not to be baptised within the second or third day after birth, and that hte law of ncient circumcision be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptised and sanctified within the eighth day,we all thought very differently in our council. For in this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man.. we ought to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh accrding to Adam, he has ontracted teh contagion of the ancient death as its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins -- that to him are remitted, not his own sincs, but the sins of another (Adam)

And from Origen (c 185 to 254)

The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed teh secrets of divine mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit

and from St. Augustine in Epistle 28

Who is so impious as to wish to exclude infants from the kindgom of heaven by forbidding them to be baptised and born again in Christ? This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perserveringly guards even to the end

Whoever says that even infants are vivified in Christ when they depart this life without the participation of His Sacrament (Baptism), both opposes the Apostolic preaching and condemns the whole Church which hastens to baptize infants, because it unhesitatingly believes that otherwise they can not possibly be vivified in Christ,"

Scripture, Tradition and History hold to the viewpoint shared by Orthodox, Orientals, Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans that baptism is NOT just a symbol and that it is valid for infants.

[Quix]

THANKS FOR YOUR KIND WORDS.

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.

[Theo]

Ultimately: Jesus.

All other ground is sinking sand.

[Cronos]

And yet, scripture disagrees with you about the sacrament of Baptism -- both xone and I believe that it is NOT merely a symbol and to prove that we quote

When the Redeemer declares (John 3) that it is necessary to be born again of water and the Holy Ghost in order to enter the Kingdom of God, His words may be justly understood to mean that He includes all who are capable of having a right to this kingdom. Now, He has asserted such a right even for those who are not adults, when He says (Matthew 19:14): "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." It has been objected that this latter text does not refer to infants, inasmuch as Christ says "to come to me". In the parallel passage in St. Luke (18:15), however, the text reads: "And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them"; and then follow the words cited from St. Matthew. In the Greek text, the words brephe and prosepheron refer to infants in arms.

and

Moreover, St. Paul (Colossians 2) says that baptism in the New Law has taken the place of circumcision in the Old. It was especially to infants that the rite of circumcision was applied by Divine precept. If it be said that there is no example of the baptism of infants to be found in the Bible, we may answer that infants are included in such phrases as: "She was baptized and her household" (Acts 16:15); "Himself was baptized, and all his house immediately" (Acts 16:33); "I baptized the household of Stephanus" (1 Corinthians 1:16).

To the objection that baptism requires faith, theologians reply that adults must have faith, but infants receive habitual faith, which is infused into them in the sacrament of regeneration. As to actual faith, they believe on the faith of another; as St. Augustine (De Verb. Apost., xiv, xviii) beautifully says: "He believes by another, who has sinned by another."

Question -- what do you believe for those perpetually insane? Do you baptise them?

And, the proof that the Early Church DID baptise infants is from here by St. Cyprian of Carthage

In respect to the case of infants, which you say ought not to be baptised within the second or third day after birth, and that hte law of ncient circumcision be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptised and sanctified within the eighth day,we all thought very differently in our council. For in this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man.. we ought to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh accrding to Adam, he has ontracted teh contagion of the ancient death as its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins -- that to him are remitted, not his own sincs, but the sins of another (Adam)

And from Origen (c 185 to 254)

The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed teh secrets of divine mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit

and from St. Augustine in Epistle 28

Who is so impious as to wish to exclude infants from the kindgom of heaven by forbidding them to be baptised and born again in Christ? This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perserveringly guards even to the end

Whoever says that even infants are vivified in Christ when they depart this life without the participation of His Sacrament (Baptism), both opposes the Apostolic preaching and condemns the whole Church which hastens to baptize infants, because it unhesitatingly believes that otherwise they can not possibly be vivified in Christ,"

Scripture, Tradition and History hold to the viewpoint shared by Orthodox, Orientals, Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans that baptism is NOT just a symbol and that it is valid for infants.

[Quix]

I love the significant numbers of Heavenly visitation folks who come back and describe the classes aborted babies are in as children in Heaven—it doesn’t matter who or what their parents were nor the relationship their parents had or didn’t have with God. Christ emphasized to one visitor that HE DOESN’T LOSE A SINGLE ABORTED BABY.

PRAISE GOD FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS

and for the fact that God doesn’t care a flip about

MAN’S RELIGION AND SILLY TO HELLISH RELIGIOUS NOTIONS.

[Cronos]

True, it is Jesus who taught us about this. If youwant to receive salvation, justification, new birth and eternal life, what does scripture say?
By believeing in Christ (Jm 3:16, Acts 16:31)
By repentance Acts 2:38, 2 Pet3:9
By baptism Jm 3:5, 1 Pet 3:21, Titus 3:5
By the work of the Spirit Jm 3:5, 2 Cor 3:6
By declaring wit our mouths Lk 12:8, Rom 10:9
By coming to a knowledge of the truth 1 Tim 2:4, Heb 10:26
By works Rom 2:6, Jame 2:24
By grace Acts 15:11, Eph 2:8
By His blood Rom 5:9, Heb 9:22
By His righteousness Rom 5:17, 2 Pet 1:1
By His Cross Eph 2:16, Col 2:14

We can't take out any ONE of these and proclaim it ALONE as themeans of salvation. The Bible is a book in it's entirety -- no one part contradicts the other. To restrict this to faith alone or works alone is false -- salvation, justification is more than that, Can we be saved without faith? No. Can we besaved without repenteance? No. Withotu God's face? No. Without Baptism? No. Without the Holy Spirit? No

These are all involved and necessary, you cannot dismiss one as the means of obtaining eternal life, neither can ONE be emphasized to the exclusion of another. They are all involved in salvation and entry into The CHurch. The CHurch does not divide these various elements of salvation up, overemphasizing some while ignoring others: rather, she holds them all in their fullness

As you see, The Apostolic and CAtholic Church (Orthodox, Oriental, CAtholic, Assyrian) retains the fullness of the Faith as taught to us by the Apostles.

[Quix]

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

[Cronos]

I lve the significant numbers of Heavenly visitation folks who come back and describe the classes aborted babies are in as children in Heaven

Which visitations?

in any case, I agree with you that HE DOESN’T LOSE A SINGLE ABORTED BABY -- we just don't know what that means and it's best to be mum on what we do not know and could not know in his world. We DO, however, know that abortion is murder, murder most foul.

[The Comedian]

Mary did not provide the divine nature to Jesus Christ for it existed before all of Creation.

Kinda frustrating that this obvious truth seems so oblique to those who insist on peering around a corner which doesn't exist to see a secret which is right there in the middle of the street, eh?

Well put.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Alamo-Girl]

Precisely so, dear brother in Christ! Thank you so very much for your insights.

[Quix]

Your words are often as cool water in a dry wasteland.

Thanks much.

LUBBRO.

[Quix]

Thanks for your kind reply, Precious Sister in The Lord.

[Quix]

It has often seemed to me, Dear Sister,

That the enemy’s forces . . . do not

DIRECTLY answer such Biblical test criteria as who is Jesus in terms of His Deity or whether He came in the flesh, or not.

INSTEAD,

They get off into all manner of nice

SOUNDING

euphemisms and verbal, intellectual slights-of-mind/hand.

. . . the ground of all being . . .

. . . the ‘Christ consciousness’ . . .

. . . etc. etc. etc.

Such junk from the enemy usually SOUNDS quite kosher ENOUGH for those more addicted to being luke warm and having slightly itchy ears to hear mollifying platitudes.

Yet, on key, critical points—such as CHRIST’S DEITY or HIS COMING IN THE FLESH

they are plenty askew—though it may LOOK or SOUND only slightly askew—it’s actually askew enough to land one in hell if one is not discerning and alert in Holy Spirit’s wisdom.

The enemy is not so stupid as to say—forsake Jesus and some suck this demon’s thumb.

A —little— diversion is sufficient to yield a damnable result.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your concerns and insights, dear brother in Christ, and thank you for your encouragements!

roamer_1 quoting a Fatima prophecy: "To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart."

If I could change anything about the Catholic Church it would be to remove the need for footnotes. Which is to say, make it as plainly spoken as possible.

For instance, when the term "Mother of God" is used it doesn't really mean what it says on plain reading, i.e. that Mary is the mother of the One and Only Triune God. Rather it means that Mary is the mother in the incarnation of the Word of God, Jesus.

And in the case of the above excerpt, I doubt it actually means what it says on plain reading either. If it did, it would be saying that in order for people to be saved, God wants them to devote themselves to Mary's "Immaculate Heart." And that reading would be contrary to the words of God on a number of points, including these (emphasis mine):

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. - Matthew 4:10

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, [even] by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. - Acts 4:8-12

And I John saw these things, and heard [them]. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See [thou do it] not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. - Revelation 22:8-9

The disciple is not above [his] master, nor the servant above his lord. - Matthew 10:24

I strongly suspect what the prophecy really means, if I had read the footnotes, is that God wants people on earth to be devoted to Him like Mary is devoted to Him so that they can be saved.

Then one of them, [which was] a lawyer, asked [him a question], tempting him, and saying, Master, which [is] the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Matthew 22:35-40

And again,

And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. - Luke 1:46-47

Perhaps one of the Catholics here will advise me whether my understanding of that excerpt of the prophecy is close or closer to what was meant.

To God be the glory, not man, never man!