Replies

One of those Catholic doctrines like the Immaculate Conception some of us protestants have scriptural difficulty with.

As well as some Catholics. I'm sorry, but my wife and I went to Catholic school together for 12 years, but we just don't understand (or believe) "Transubstantiation, the "Immaculate Conception," and many other doctrines of the faith. We believe that they were created by man, not God. We respect Catholics, but we prefer to worship in other Christian churches.

I for one don’t believe that Catholics have horns; I have met many faithful Catholics much more reverant and serving than myself.

A quest for doctrinal purity tends to lead to an excessively legalistic splitting of hairs (there’s a joke about that, Heretic Scum!)

But, I believe God is pulling the Church to the center.

Thank you.

My guess is that you probably would learn more by reading the relevant passages in the Cathechism than you did by suffering through your inadequate religion classes. Most Catholics get about as much from these classes as they do from their algebra classes. In any case. just remember that "substance", which comes from the Latin word used to translate the Greek word "ousia," is an example of a technical philosophical term that was vested with a very different meaning by the Ecumenical Council of Niceaea as a tool for defining the doctrine of the Trinity. Just as the Council says, against Arius, Jesus is "really" God as well as "really" man, so is Jesus really present in the Sacrament. But read 1372-1779 in the Catechism, which avoids some of the scholastic language that is so hard for moderns.

You recognize the power of the Spirit working in the Scriptures --which after all are mere paper--but not in the bread and wine. That largely because you do not recognize Christ in the person of the priest. Ironically, modern evangelicals are anti-liturgical in a way that John Calvin was not. You will find what Calvin says about the Eucharist in his Institutes is probably closer to Catholic teaching than that of so many evangelical congregations who to eschew all sacraments, even baptism, a treat the Lord's Supper as no more than a occasional celebration of unity. How has this come to be? Out of some special revelation, or because of a corruption of the original teachings?

Most who have difficulty with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception have never had it properly explained to them. To begin with, Mary always points us to Jesus, and this teaching is ultimately about Jesus.

Jesus has a divine nature and a human nature. The divine nature he has from the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. The human nature he has — entirely — from his mother, because he has no human father.

Our salvation is possible because we are allowed to participate in the merits of Christ’s Atonement. The Atonement is an act by which the original disobedience of man is overcome by the perfect obedience of Jesus, the new Adam. Jesus is perfectly obedient to the Father in both his divine and his human natures. In his human nature this is especially hard, because Jesus is a real man, and it’s part of our nature to avoid and resist suffering and death. Nevertheless, Jesus in his human nature gave himself to the plan of his divine Father, without compromise or reservation. It was a perfect gift of self, which is not possible for anyone afflicted by sin (Romans 7:15-23).

Mary comes into the picture because she also is called upon to make a total and unreserved gift of self, in obedience to the Father’s plan (Luke 1:38). It is Mary’s consent that makes possible the perfect union of human and divine natures in Jesus, and therefore makes it possible for Jesus’s sacrifice to be a perfect atonement of infinite merit. As with her divine son, Mary could not have given perfect assent to God’s proposal relayed through the angel, if her mind or flesh had ever been under the bondage of sin. Mary’s sinlessness makes her self-gift of human nature perfect and thus ensures that the Incarnation is genuine and not a hoax.

I hope this helps.