Posted on 12/08/2012 2:24:39 PM PST by NYer
Do Catholics worship Mary? This question is as old as the Protestant Reformation itself, and it rests, like other disputed doctrinal points, on a false premise that has been turned into a wedge: the veneration of Mary detracts from the worship of Christ.
This seeming opposition between Mary and Christ is symptomatic of the Protestant tendency, begun by Luther, to view the entirety of Christian life through a dialectical lens – a lens of conflict and division. With the Reformation the integrity of Christianity is broken and its formerly coherent elements are now set in opposition. The Gospel versus the Law. Faith versus Works. Scripture versus Tradition. Authority versus Individuality. Faith versus Reason. Christ versus Mary.
The Catholic tradition rightly sees the mutual complementarity of these elements of the faith, as they all contribute to our ultimate end – living with God now and in eternity. To choose any one of these is to choose them all.
By contrast, to assert that Catholics worship Mary along with or in place of Christ, or that praying to Mary somehow impedes Christ’s role as “the one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim 2:5) is to create a false dichotomy between the Word made flesh and the woman who gave the Word his flesh. No such opposition exists. The one Mediator entrusted his mediation to the will and womb of Mary. She does not impede his mediation – she helps to make it possible.
Within this context we see the ancillary role that the ancilla Domini plays in her divine Son’s mission. Mary’s is not a surrogate womb rented and then forgotten in God’s plan. She is physically connected to Christ and his life, and because of this she is even more deeply connected to him in the order of grace. She is, in fact, “full of grace,” as only one who is redeemed by Christ could be.
The feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception celebrates the very first act of salvation by Christ in the world. Redemption is made possible for all by his precious blood shed on the cross. Yet Mary’s role in the Savior’s life and mission is so critical and so unique that God saw it necessary to wash her in the blood of the Lamb in advance, at the first moment of her conception.
This reality could not be more Biblical: the angel greets Mary as “full of grace” (Luke 1:28), which is literally rendered as “already graced” (kecharitōmenē). Following Mary, the Church has “pondered what sort of greeting this might be” for centuries. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, ultimately defined in 1854, is nothing other than a rational expression of the angel’s greeting contained in Scripture: Mary is “already graced” with Christ’s redemption at the very moment of her creation.
Because God called Mary to the unique vocation of serving as the Mother of God, it is not just her soul that is graced, as is the case for us when we receive the sacraments. Mary’s entire being, body and soul, is full of grace so that she may be a worthy ark for the New Covenant. And just as the ark of the old covenant was adorned with gold to be a worthy house for God’s word, Mary is conceived without original sin to be the living and holy house for God’s Word.
Thus Mary is not only conceived immaculately, that is, without stain of sin. She also is the Immaculate Conception. Her entire being was specifically created by God with unique privilege so that she could fulfill her role in God’s plan of salvation. “Free from sin,” both original and personal, is the necessary consequence of being “full of grace.”
Protestants claim that veneration of Mary as it is practiced by Catholics is not biblical. St. Paul encouraged the Corinthians to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). Paul is not holding himself up as the end goal, but as a means to Christ, the true end. And if a person is imitated, he is simultaneously venerated.
If we should imitate Paul, how much more should we imitate Mary, who fulfilled God’s will to the greatest degree a human being could. Throughout her life she humbled herself so that God could be exalted, and because of this, Christ has fulfilled his promise by exalting his lowly mother to the seat closest to him in God’s kingdom.
Mary is the model of humility, charity, and openness to the will of God. She allows a sword to pierce her heart for the sake of the world’s salvation. She shows us the greatness to which we are called: a life free from sin and filled with God’s grace that leads to union with God in Heaven. She is the model disciple, and therefore worthy of imitation and veneration, not as an end in herself, but as the means to the very purpose of her – and our – existence: Christ himself.
God’s lowly handmaiden would not want it any other way.
My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen
Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum,
et exsultávit spíritus meus
in Deo salvatóre meo,
quia respéxit humilitátem
ancíllæ suæ.
Ecce enim ex hoc beátam
me dicent omnes generatiónes,
quia fecit mihi magna,
qui potens est,
et sanctum nomen eius,
et misericórdia eius in progénies
et progénies timéntibus eum.
Fecit poténtiam in bráchio suo,
dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui;
depósuit poténtes de sede
et exaltávit húmiles.
Esuriéntes implévit bonis
et dívites dimísit inánes.
Suscépit Ísrael púerum suum,
recordátus misericórdiæ,
sicut locútus est ad patres nostros,
Ábraham et sémini eius in sæcula.
Glória Patri et Fílio
et Spirítui Sancto.
Sicut erat in princípio,
et nunc et semper,
et in sæcula sæculórum.
Amen.
She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God . . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.
(Commentary on the Magnificat, 1521; in Luther’s Works, Pelikan et al, vol. 21, 326)
If Mary was born without sin and sinless throughout her whole life, why is she being referred to as redeemed? The following quote will explain, “Some influential Catholic Christians expressed reservations about this doctrine, because it appeared to imply that Mary did not need Christ as her Savior. The church seemed to be caught in a dilemma: it did not seem correct that the mother of God was stained by sin, but it was necessary to believe that Mary had been redeemed from sin by Jesus Christ like everyone else.
Even such a great figure as St. Thomas Aquinas could not fully accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception for this reason. Fr. Raymond Brown, S.S., explains…Duns Scotus was able to win the day because of his insight that the Immaculate Conception came through God’s application of the grace of Christ beforehand…she was the first Christian…the Lord applied the grace of Jesus’ salvation to Mary in advance to prepare her for her special role in his plan.”10
She was not saved from sin, she did not sin and so she needs no savior, how could she need to be saved from sin she never committed How could she be redeemed before she was in need of redemption.
With regards to Catholic dogmas we often see, as we do here, that the dogmas are not justified by Scripture or history, but rather by lawyer like tactics of semantic, technicalities and loopholes. For example the Church realize that their devotees have been accepting a very questionable belief and so when it comes time for the church to make this belief an official teaching they come up with a loophole. Can you imagine such a scene, the elite of the Church stating, “Good job Duns Scotus, your brilliant technical loophole will go down in history as an inspired revelation from God! As well as the cause of damnation to hell for those who do not come to Church on the feast day (and are not forgiven for that mortal sin)!” Please note that John Scotus Duns was a “FRANCISCAN philosopher and theologian who attempted to create a new synthesis of Christian belief with Greek and Arab philosophy.”11
Supposedly, Mary is not a saved sinner; she was saved from having ever sinned. Mary was saved from sin before she ever sinning, it was impossible for her to sin because she was born without a sin nature (original sin). Then she was not saved from sin, she did not sin and so she needs no savior, how could she need to be saved from sin she never committed? How could she be redeemed before she was in need of redemption?
Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. writes, “After the Fathers and up to the early Middle Ages we find explicit references to Mary’s freedom from sin from the moment of her life. Paschasius Radbertus (ninth century), for example, wrote that she was exempt from sin since the beginning of her existence. As early as the late half of the seventh century, a feast of the Immaculate Conception was celebrated annually in the East under the title ‘Conception of St. Anne.’ St. Andrew Crete (d. A.D. 720) composed a hymn with the inscription: ‘The Ninth Day of December, Conception of the Grandmother of God, St. Anne.’”12 Mary is thought to have died in 48 AD13 consider just how long after her death these teachings came to be. For more on this, see our article A Review of Marian Dogma and Apparition Chronology. Just because a belief is old, it does not make it true.
Pope Leo I wrote, “Alone therefore among the sons of men the Lord Jesus was born innocent, because alone conceived without pollution of carnal concupiscence.”14
Catholic Theologian Ludwig Ott wrote, “Neither the Greek nor the Latin Fathers explicitly teach the Immaculate Conception of Mary….individual Greek Fathers (e.g., Origen, Basil, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria) taught that Mary suffered from venial personal faults, such as ambition and vanity.”15
WRT the verse in Genesis and "who" would bruise the head of the devil, the site http://www.truefreethinker.com/articles/roman-catholic-maryology-mary-roman-catholicism-part-9-will-she-%E2%80%9Ccrush-your-head%E2%80%9D says:
“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death’” (Revelation 12:10-11).
Justin Martyr wrote, “Christ is born of the Virgin, in order that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed.”10
Pope-Saint Leo the Great wrote, “at the beginning of the world [God], foretold the remedy his love had prepared for the restoration of us mortals, giving notice to the serpent that the offspring of the woman would come and, by his power, crush its baneful head as it was raised to strike.”
This link also goes on to explain that the ancient Targums and Midrashes - Jewish commentaries of the Bible - point to the Messiah being the SOLE one to crush the head of the adversary.
Amen to that! Having protestant clergy in the family, I appreciate your comment. Thanks :)
LOL. Now we're devotees. As opposed to what, devout Christians? LOL. I suppose there will always be an audience who enjoys antiCatholic material. This stuff certainly isn't written to engage a Catholic who understands the faith.
BWAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THAT'S what you call proof?
What a stranglehold the RCC has on it's adherents. No wonder those nuns wanted out.
There is freedom outside the strangling bondage of the Catholic church, and that's in Jesus and Him alone.
Who really gives a rip. The Catholic church only has authority over people as they let it have over them. What a power hungry bastion of political anarchy.
They don't have power over people just because they claim it and no matter how much they calim God gave it to them.
Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Being under orders from an organization as corrupt as the RCC is not freedom, but bondage.
Yeah, right.
Denial of the truth is always an effective counter to the facts. /s
Then why did the Inquisition go after the laity?
History does not bear out your claim.
So, we should go back to the days where the only Bible was held by the Bishop and the parishioners didn’t understand the language and only knew what the guy told them to know?
um, NO.
That is not the way it should be. That is definitely not the way. I do not need a vast bureaucracy between me and my Lord and Savior.
That sounds like every Catholic event I've ever attended, including family baptisms, communions, weddings. I worked with a KoC member and he always came into work late, always left early, did his KoC business on the company dime, stole from the company, was a snarky, obnoxious, crass, vulgar sexist. He had NO qualms at all about making sexual innuendos to the other female employees. One of the self-righteous, arrogant people I have ever met.
And yes, he did blow a gasket when I became a Christian.
Typical knee jerk reaction...
You just don't REALLY understand.
Actually by God's grace, we came to our senses and now really do understand.
I don’t see anywhere where daniel has ever ascribed to that.
Perhaps you have misunderstood what he was saying.
Well, as least far you have seen affirmed that RCs can disagree with the pope about such things as applying the title “Co-redemptrix” to Mary, which they can on this level of teaching, and that the Inquisition needs to be brought to bear upon the majority of RCs, but that you basically need a lawyer to reconcile the past advocation by “Pastors of the Church” (by Bull and canons) of the use of torture on the theologically unfaithful in even in order to coerce them into confessing their errors and into accusing others, and of extermination of them, and newer teaching.
Which also applies to such things as freedom of religion, ecumenism, and the status of those outside Rome, and debates on such reveal that interpretation of the magisterium is required to some degree and exercised.
Oh really?
Let’s take the prayer of Prayer of Pope Pius XII. Found here : [http://catholicism.about.com/od/tothevirginmary/qt/Honor_Immacula.htm]
I’ll use just the bolded excerpts from the prayer.
we cast ourselves into your arms
1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (When did we need to replace God with Mary?)
confident of finding in your most loving heart appeasement of our ardent desires, and a safe harbor from the tempests which beset us on every side.
Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (once again Catholics replacing Christ with Mary)
O crystal fountain of faith
Romans 12:3 according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. or "a measure of faith." (but Mary is the “fountain of faith” for Catholics)
Lily of all holiness
1 Samuel 2:2 There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God. (for Catholics however, “all holiness” is given to Mary)
Conqueress of evil and death
Hosea 13:14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. (but Catholics claim it was Mary who conquered death)
Convert the wicked
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 Of sin, because they believe not on me; (Catholics have even replaced the Holy Spirit with Mary)
Statement by catholic Bishop Liqouri “.......We often more quickly obtain what we ask by calling on the name of Mary than by invoking that of Jesus.....” She...is our Salvation, our Life, our Hope, our Counsel, our Refuge, our Help”
Need I go on? Catholics have replaced virtually every attribute and working of God and given that to Mary in their worship.
For someone complaining persistently about unjust "lies" and "truth", I think it is noticeable that the truth about Luther is omitted in order to tarnish him as the source of all sin in the world - hardly true and laughable! Luther did not "fornicate with nuns", he married a former nun when he also left the clergy because he did not believe that clerical celibacy was Scriptural. He did not advocate for "free sex" nor adultery, nor child murder. Perhaps some statements could be taken more seriously if the ridiculous rhetoric was given up?
Biographer WHT Dau notes of Luther:
Actually, it was the other "R" word - the Renaissance. After that, the Enlightenment. Nice attempt at scapegoating, though.
bump
Both the Renaissance and the so-called enlightenment were rivals to Catholic teaching and both were foundational in the Reformation.
My Dad converted to Catholicism when he and my Mom married, then they got divorced and he remarried and left the Catholic Church (not that he ever had much to do with it anyway). But when he wanted to go back to the Catholic Church for social reasons, he said what attracted him to it was, "The priests drink and smoke and tell dirty jokes on the golf course" with him. Good reason, huh?
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LOL! Notice who plays the “tattle to the Moderator” card for making things personal, then proceeds to make it personal!
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