Posted on 12/17/2010 7:31:07 AM PST by marshmallow
“Son here is your Mother”
“Mother here is your son”
She is our mother and sister and daughter, as Christ is our brother and father and Son.
That much is clear.
We are commanded to pray for one another. Do you also remember how Jesus taught the disciples to pray??
“...our Father”
We are also taught by scripture, by Jesus, that we are to ask in His name. The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit. The Triune God.
Where’s the command to pray to anyone else? Mary can’t hear you. St. So-and-So can’t hear you—only God is omniscient and omnipresent.
Why waste time praying to Mary (and you are praying, by the way—how else could you claim she hears you) when it’s God who demands we pray to and worship him alone ?
You see where I’m going with this then.
We believe that Christ is bodily present in the bread and the wine. Every mass concludes with the presentation, where Christ is distributed out to all the body of believers. He is the focus of every one of our worship services.
Yes, I’m well aware of the Our Father prayer, and we pray the our father whenever we wish.
“Where’s the command to pray to anyone else?”
I’m not sure why the syntax is so difficult. We pray only TO Christ. We are commanded to pray FOR one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, as are the Saints in Heaven. This means that Mary is called to pray FOR us just as we are called to pray FOR one another.
You are correct that God demands we pray TO him alone.
“The Church” didn’t provide the Ten Commandments, either. And it sure is obvious they don’t follow them.
I can say with all authority (for myself) that the sky is green. That does not make it so.
Just because the Roman Catholic Church makes a proclamation about something doesn’t change the fact that it is against God’s commandments!!
Hoss
I cannot read your mind, and I do not wish to assume where you are getting this from.
So I ask, what is the citation from scripture?
How do you know that Catholics worship the statues? What makes a graven image is whether or not one worships the object instead of God himself.
You are quite right that the statues are not in and of themselves required, and the Catholic church does not require them. Some choose to erect memorials to the Saints in their honour. Some do not.
Then why do you pray to Mary? That syntax is pretty simple as well!
You cannot have it both ways, no matter how badly you want to.
Hoss
And here I thought a believer in sola scriptura would instantly recognise the reference.
Unsurprisingly disappointed.
We don’t pray TO Mary.
We ask Mary to pray for us.
That is the exact wording of the Rosary,
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us Sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death, Amen.
And those that do may be committing idolatry. If they venerate anyone or anything othr than God— idolatry. Mariolatry just happens to be one of the subjects here.
Hoss
D-fendr wrote:
“With errors in who Mary is, you’ll often find errors in who Christ is. The two tend to go together - which is why the Council that decreed Mary as Theotokos was all about Christology. Recall that, even using the same scripture, the Trinity was argued for centuries.”
I certainly agree with your statement. But error cuts both ways here. And if any individual doesn’t think so, then he/she is very likely in error that other way. There is no locus (doctrine) of theology of which this is not true.
CLEAR from WHERE? JESUS IS VERY CLEAR about who His mother and brother are and it’s not according to man’s understanding. Don’t muddy HIS WORD with man made teachings.
there’s superstition surrounding your statues, which makes them idols. I bet you’d never toss one in the trash
What a perfect way to put it. If you give someone else the responsibility for your faith then you can't be held to account. It's probably why you don't see a lot of Bible study among them.
but as we all know, it comes down to individual responsibilty both in life and in worship
Yes, but isn't it beautiful to not only believe The Gospel, but to understand The Gospel. The more you read Scripture, the more you fellowship with other Christians the more you understand the incredible love of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Okay... But how do you “wing” that request to her? Are you “petitioning” her? Now—differentiate how you “ask” Mary to do something, and how you “ask” God Almighty for something. What is the difference in the vehicle? I “ask” things of God daily; how is “asking” Mary different than praying??
As I’ve read here, she’s the supposed “Queen of Heaven”, so how do you get her attention????
Hint: you PRAY. I don’t care how the Roman Catholic Church “defines” it. Prayer is prayer; and if it’s directed to anyone other than God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), then you’re committing idolatry. And blasphemy because you’re ascribing abilities to a created creature that belongs to God ALONE.
Hoss
We've already got it. We already know that all history to you must be revised to prop up the Vatican's system. If necessary, to prop up the system, you would say that the Roman Catholic Church was in Britain in 300 B.C., because of the longing anticipation of the British to be Roman Catholic.
We already realize that you absolutely must revise all history to prop up the false notion that Jesus was creating a papacy in Matthew 16, and that a church as you want to believe exists there, actually exists there.
You even want to revise our words as we type them on this forum. We never said anything about what people in 100 A.D. called themselves. We are not concerned what they CALLED themselves.
We know that nice folks like you can't think any differently -- only what the Vatican says is truth, can be truth to you, even if they lie to you. So we are not first interested in changing your minds. We write firmly so that others will realize that the whole world need not succumb to the same mental traps.
Hey, other folks out there reading this, there are libraries, full---literal libraries of historical materials that have been written and compiled without either deference to the Roman Catholic Church or prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church. Read RCC-approved stuff. You're free to do so, and the comparison will help you understand some important things.
But histories, too, that were not written to prop up any religious system exist. The authors were not sitting around saying, "How can we destroy the views of the RCC." They were written by legitimate historians who were not bound to any church or its hierarchy to produce a product or create a particular mind set.
Don't simply swallow the Roman Catholic view of Roman, European, or American history. There is plenty of material out there.
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