Posted on 12/17/2010 7:31:07 AM PST by marshmallow
Back when I first joined YIMCatholic, I was going to write posts about my conversion. I hammered out seven posts in pretty rapid succession and then, I stopped writing them until recently.
Many of my posts now are simply my observations of the world which are colored through the lens of a convert to Catholicism. It would be difficult for them not to be. Other posts I've written are of the "look what I just found!" variety, and the "I want to share this with you" type. Call them the discovery posts if you will.
Recently I gave a talk on the Communion of Saints for my parishes RCIA group. Consequently, I've been answering questions of potential converts that have prompted me to explain my conversion to others.
Basically, this has resulted in my having become a neophyte evangelist of sorts for the Church. And though this blog space isn't the forum for heavy-duty apologetics, because others do that better elsewhere, I have always seen my role here at YIMC as one of evangelizing.
Back to my conversion story, when I was first confronting the idea of becoming a Catholic, I had to look hard at the question "Why am I Protestant?" Having just moved cross-country following my retirement from the Marines, I found out that my mother no longer went to church where we had gone when I was growing up. Instead of the non-denominational church I grew up in (and which we were a founding family of), I learned that she now went to a Presbyterian church instead. Hmmm.
Rather than start visiting all kinds of churches, which appealed to me about as much as shopping for a new car, my family and I kept going to the local Catholic parish in our new town while I did research and home improvement projects. One of the first things I looked into was the problem of Catholics and their obviously misguided devotion to the Virgin Mary.
The funny thing is, I had sat in the pews in the Catholic Church with my wife for close to 18 years and I had never really noticed any wacky or overly zealous devotion to Mary. Not at Mass, anyway, and as we didn't stick around much after the conclusion of Mass, I didn't see anything that made me uncomfortable. Truthfully, I was surprised about this and it's probably a big reason why I continued to sit in the pews with my patient Catholic wife for that long a time.
This didn't stop me from believing that weird Marian devotions were happening though, and I assumed talk of her perpetual virginity was just "crazy talk." Like most, I had no idea what the Immaculate Conception was either and I just thought people were referring to Our Lord's conception. I was ignorant, plain and simple. But I had in mind a mission to correct the wrong religious track that my family was on so I started planning the military campaign to retake the spiritual territory I had ceded to the Church. My first target was what I thought would be the easiest: Mary.
Before I went on my "destroy Marian Devotion" offensive, though, I knew I would have to do a little homework. Planning ahead, you see, I figured the best place to start was with the guys who picked up the Protestant Reformation football and ran with it for touchdowns. Follow the winners Frank, and victory will be yours!
But get this. Much to my surprise, nay, shock(!) I had to throw a penalty flag on myself and look for a different angle of attack. Because what I found out was that the Big Three "Reformers" all agreed with the Catholic Church's teachings on the Mother of God!
Here is what I found, courtesy of the site catholicapologetics.info,
Martin Luther:
Mary the Mother of God
Throughout his life Luther maintained without change the historic Christian affirmation that Mary was the Mother of God:
"She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God."
Perpetual Virginity
Again throughout his life Luther held that Mary's perpetual virginity was an article of faith for all Christians - and interpreted Galatians 4:4 to mean that Christ was "born of a woman" alone.
"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin."
The Immaculate Conception
Yet again the Immaculate Conception was a doctrine Luther defended to his death (as confirmed by Lutheran scholars like Arthur Piepkorn). Like Augustine, Luther saw an unbreakable link between Mary's divine maternity, perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception. Although his formulation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not clear-cut, he held that her soul was devoid of sin from the beginning:
"But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin..."
Assumption
Although he did not make it an article of faith, Luther said of the doctrine of the Assumption:
"There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know."
Honor to Mary
Despite his unremitting criticism of the traditional doctrines of Marian mediation and intercession, to the end Luther continued to proclaim that Mary should be honored. He made it a point to preach on her feast days.
"The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart."
"Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing." Luther made this statement in his last sermon at Wittenberg in January 1546.
John Calvin:
It has been said that John Calvin belonged to the second generation of the Reformers and certainly his theology of double predestination governed his views on Marian and all other Christian doctrine . Although Calvin was not as profuse in his praise of Mary as Martin Luther he did not deny her perpetual virginity. The term he used most commonly in referring to Mary was "Holy Virgin".
"Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God."
"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ." Calvin translated "brothers" in this context to mean cousins or relatives.
"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."
"To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son."
Ulrich Zwingli:
"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."
"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." Zwingli used Exodus 4:22 to defend the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."
"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin."
"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother."
"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."
I remember being blown away by these revelations. I had gone to Christian churches my whole life and I had been told what I was supposed to believe, and I had never been told these things about Mary. I felt a little bit like the fellow wearing tan below, even though I was really acting like the guy wearing black.
And then I thought, "methinks they dost protest too much." And like young Skywalker above, I too leaped with faith and lived to tell the tale. I didn't land on my feet though. Instead, I landed in the lap of Blaise Pascal.
And so began the process of my going back to the Scriptures and to the Church Fathers and back through the history of the Catholic Church, and finally back into the arms of Christ's Church Herself.
Perhaps this post is a prequel in the 2BFrank saga. Sheeeesh!
To read more about the Protestant Reformers views on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to track down the footnotes too, head on over to catholicapologetics.info. Head over to Scripture Catholic too, and bring your Bibles. Then head over to the Vatican and look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well.
Christ himself commanded that we pray for one another. So I really don’t see why you have an issue with Mary praying for us.
“Catholic attitude toasted God is that somehow God is just too busy to hear our prayers.”
Has anyone here besides you expressed this? No. Hardly.
“if only a more holy person than ourselves could mediate between us and God”
Mediators are not the same as intercessors. Intercessors are those who pray to God for us. They intercede.
“this would be more effective in getting our prayers heard than if we ask Jesus to be our mediator.”
Well now I have to ask you, do you sincerely believe that prayer is effective? If so, then why is it a bad thing for people to pray together on something?
“So the Roman Catholic Church hasn’t said it’s a PLACE that you go?? That is defined.”
You seem awfully sure. Where in Canon law does it back up what you just said?
You might as well deny that Heaven is a ‘real’ place at least in the sense that we understand ‘real’ places to be.
Where is heaven? I don’t see that anywhere in scripture.
Would it matter if it were biblical evidence? I’ve been presenting nothing else but, and I don’t see you taking biblical evidence into consideration.
Great. Notice you aren’t getting crossfire.
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Romans 8:34)
You say “He’s fully Man and fully God” yet you say He was not fully man because He did not carry our sinful side. Double speak?
He had to be born of sinful man (Mary) in order to inherit (carry) the sins of Adam. Our minds cannot comprehend totally how that worked but it must have for our salvation to be possible.
So you deny that Peter was the first Pope and granted an office by Christ himself?
Your issue is with scripture, not history.
As for Catholicism in England, yes you are correct that for a time, maybe a hundred years or so, there wasn’t much contact, but both before and after, they did. Why do you think the Pope sent missions out that way? And how do you think Christianity got there in the first place? Why do you think they were writing to the Empire to get help defending themselves?
If I go back to the sources, why don’t I see the term ‘biblicist’ from any of the Church Fathers? That’s the hallmark of revisionism, imposition of modern terms on ancient times.
You’ve just denied that Christ was sinless.
Are you arguing that man was created to be sinful? Wow. That denies everything in Genesis which says precisely the opposite. Adam was cursed by God. To be fully Man this curse must be lifted, which is why Christ did not bear original sin and was free of the taint of sin.
Would you kneel before a statue of me, put your hands in prayer position, assume a worshipful attitude and then ask me, through my graven image to intercede for you before God?
“regardless of what SOME fine print in the Catechism says.”
So you acknowledge you are wrong about what the Church teaches. Excellent.
The Catechism doesn’t write those letters any finer than any others.
Do you believe that we are permitted to create images of God?
Well I’m not sure. Somewhere in that whole address of the Angel where they say, “all generations will call you blessed.”
I don’t see *that* said about anyone else in the bible other than Christ.
The miracle of the incarnation is that God took upon himself, all the frailties of man, that he literally entered his creation at a time and place of his choosing, by being born, just as any of us. That he spent nine months in his mothers womb, was raised by Mary and Joseph, and that he would go on to minister publicly to the Jews to call them to repent.
That he would suffer, and die, all to expiate our sins. To be the perfect man for which our blood debt could finally be paid.
Why do you believe that loving Mary somehow detracts from Christ? You seem to believe that if Christ were the one who uplifted Mary, that acknowledging the blessings he bestowed upon her, somehow deminishes Christ himself.
“So when a Catholic dies, his soul lays unconscious in the ground until the judgment?”
There’s two Final Judgements. One is for those who die now. They will see Christ and be judged.
The second will come after the time of tribulation, when the world ends and Christ returns to Earth.
So depending on which you refer to, depends on the answer to your question. Purgatory is the cleansing of those who are already saved prior to entering heaven. So it would occur, after Christ judges a person, and determines whether or not they will suffer Hell or rejoice in heaven.
“It’s like you might attend a wedding wearing dirty old rags...You are not rejected or sent off because you look so poorly...Your clothes are ripped off of you and burned and you are given a new suit of white linen...Right on the spot”
The scripture actually says that the one who’s works are burnt that they will still be saved, but only as one escaping through the fire. Fire burns. Fire hurts. To escape through the fire means that you yourself will be burnt by the flames before you reach through the other side. Burnt and purified.
“Jesus in the flesh, died...Would there be no death in the flesh had the flesh been sinless??? Perhaps you could ask Adam.”
You are quite right that we are immortal without sin. However, Christ died, not because of HIS actions, but because he was crucified and chose to die. Had Christ chosen not to die, he would not have died. This is bad theology.
“There is no reason to think that God could not be born into a body that was subject to Adam’s original sin and yet still be sinless.”
That’s two PROTESTANTS who have denied that Christ was sinless. Wow. This is bad. This is really basic Christology. Christ was born without sin. Wholly and completely, without original sin.
“Because I am subject to original sin, I am tempted to sin, I feel pain, I get old or sick and die...Or someone runs a spear thru me...But yet, I still live...I will be resurrected with a new, glorified body.”
Yes, but with Christ he could still die, for the flesh is not immune to privation. But the Curse of Adam was not upon him. That much we know.
“Was Jesus body void of original sin or was Jesus said to have committed no sin???”
Not either or question. Adam, without original sin, fell and was tempted by evil to disobey God. Christ, without original sin, succeeded and redeemed the race of Man, where Adam fell.
That he was without original sin does not make Christ immune to sin, for if this were so, then Adam himself would not have fallen. Sin is ultimately through the will, and Christ, though he suffered from the privations of hunger, and thirst, did not fall to the temptations offered by Satan.
1Pe 2:22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
Not quite: Heaven and He’ll are both real because they are named and described in Scripture. Jesus spoke of both, did he not? Would you not assert the existence of Heaven and He’ll when God himself said they exist? Would you not agree that God himself trumps “Canon Law”?
I don’t need Canon Law be because God himself defined/described Heaven in his Word.
Don’t you believe in the Bible??
Hoss
Funny how Protestants deny God’s ultimate sovereignty be subject to themselves. Interesting.
You’d rather deny that Christ was sinless than confess that Mary was sinless.
So where is it? If it’s a place and as well-defined as you say it is, where is heaven in the grand scheme of things?
Sorry — Hell —
Auto correct on the iPhone snuck in on me. :)
Hoss
So why then did Christ establish a Church to spread the Word if we are expected to get by solely on our own interpretation?
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