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.
You are thinking as a human thinks, and not as God thinks.
God saw that Jesus would die and that grace was given to Mary in advance — since he also saw that she would be the Mother of Jesus, true God and true man.
Please do read some of the Catholic apologetics, and try to understand it.
You are thinking as a human thinks, and not as God thinks.
God is outside of time — anything is possible with him.
Sorry, mm, but the Catholic Church is right. What are you going to tell Jesus when you meet him at the moment of your death? Are you going to tell him that you didn’t accept his mother as a holy person?
Mark 3:31-35
Jesus’ Mother and Brothers
31 And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers[a] are outside, seeking you.” 33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
bump
So, what is needed for Salvation, to be 100% right on all doctrinal and dogmatic issues, or to have Faith?
Book, chapter and verse, please.
Where are you getting ideas about worshipping Mary?
Probably from watching people bowing to her statues, lighting candles to her, praying to her, just for starters.
I don't suppose many of the comments daniel has posted showing the the church hierarchy's deification of her helps the matter either.
Souls in hell are still alive, too.
We are prohibited contact with those who have died physical deaths.
And there’s simply not one iota of evidence that any of those souls in heaven can even hear us, much less have any power to answer prayer.
Jesus taught us to pray and never made mention ONCE of praying to ANYONE but the Father.
My religion, Christianity, says we pray to God through Jesus. Anything else is not Christian. Nothing in the Bible tells me to pray to someone else, appointed by a human after their death, who somehow gets access to Jesus for me.
Catholics assign more power to these Saints than they do to Jesus. How could anyone who reads the Bible think to pray to anyone except Jesus?
If God kept Mary from sinning before hand, then she never sinned and did not need a savior.
In which case, she lied when she called God her Savior. That blows the sinless thing.
It’s not too hard to figure out if you THINK it through.
Exactly
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem;
Creatorem caeli et terrae.
Et in Jesum Christum,
Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum;
qui conceptus est
de Spiritu Sancto,
natus ex Maria virgine;
passus sub Pontio Pilato,
crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus;
descendit ad inferos;
tertia die resurrexit a mortuis;
ascendit ad caelos;
sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis;
inde venturus est
iudicare vivos et mortuos.
Credo in Spiritum Sanctum;
sanctam ecclesiam catholicam;
sanctorum communionem;
remissionem peccatorum;
carnis resurrectionem;
vitam aeternam. Amen.
In English:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
and born of the Virgin Mary,
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended into hell.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
he will come again
to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen
You're starting from a false premise, the very kind that atheists use to try to catch Christians.
God is outside time, true. But that does not logically lead to the conclusion that He can do anything.
Besides, God cannot do anything. He cannot change, He cannot lie, He cannot deny Himself, He cannot be unfaithful.
Which mother then?
Show me the word Catholic in the bible
The Catholic Church is not holy, do you mean you worship the church itself?
Neither. Having Jesus. Trusting Him.
You can believe that God exists and you do well, even the demons believe and tremble.
But it doesn't save them.
If someone is putting faith in their faith to save them, it's the wrong thing. The faith has to be in Jesus, not their ability to have faith.
ROTFLMAO!
I don’t really even care. I only came onto this thread after seeing all the protestant bashing
What with the RCC's history, calling it holy is ....um... a bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say?
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