Catholics, Protestants, and Immaculate Mary

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.

The oaths taken by Luther and his faux bride were freely given and life long, just like a marriage vow. That you call it “satanic” is simply your opinion.

What Did Luther Say About Polygamy?
Martin Luther said polygamy is permissible:

I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter. (De Wette II, 459, ibid., pp. 329-330.)

Martin Luther once advised an inhabitant of Orlamunde to take a second wife, in addition to the one then living. Luther also reluctantly approved of a bigamous marriage in the case of Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who was united to a secondary wife, Margarethe von der Saale, on March 4, 1540. Since this advice was given in a confessional, Luther refused to acknowledge his part in sanctioning the marriage.

If I ever were to become a convert to Christianity, it would obviously be vital to my salvation to pick the right sect, and not mistakenly select one of all the others which are heretical.... .....but which is it????

The answer is quite simple but you must seek the response from God, not from man. The fact that you have posed the question means you have already stepped onto the path others have traveled before you. It is rife with ledges, hills, valleys, brambles and pitfalls but the true seeker is also an adventurer with a passion for the quest. Like Bilbo Baggins, one starts out reluctantly but is soon absorbed by those they encounter and what is learned along the way.

Insofar as describing yourself as an atheist, I can only smile (with a gleam in my eye) at what is about to unfold for you. Like Norma McCorvey, C S Lewis, Maggie Gallagher, Kirk Cameron, Bernard Nathanson and a host of others, the first step into the surf provokes a reaction, followed by a longing to take another dip. Here is a small tidbit of what you will discover.

History is full of men who have claimed that they came from God, or that they were gods, or that they bore messages from God - Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Christ, Lao-tze, and thousands of others, right down to the person who founded a new religion this very day. Each of them has a right to be heard and considered. But as a yardstick external to and outside of whatever is to be measured is needed, so there must be some permanent tests available to all men, all civilizations, and all ages, by which they can decide whether any of these claimants, or all of them, are justified in their claims. These tests are of two kinds: reason and history. Reason, because everyone has it, even those without faith; history, because everyone lives in it and should know something about it.

Reason dictates that if any one of these men actually came from God, the least thing that God could do to support His claim would be to pre-announce His coming. Automobile manufacturers tell their customers when to expect a new model. If God sent anyone from Himself, or if He came Himself with a vitally important message for all men, it would seem reasonable that He would first let men know when His messenger was coming, where He would be born, where He would live, the doctrine He would teach, the enemies He would make, the program He would adopt for the future, and the manner of His death. By the extent to which the messenger conformed with these announcements, one could judge the validity of his claims.

Reason further assures us that if God did not do this, then there would be nothing to prevent any impostor from appearing in history and saying, "I come from God," or "An angel appeared to me in the desert and gave me this message." In such cases there would be no objective, historical way of testing the messenger. We would have only his word for it, and of course he could be wrong.

If a visitor came from a foreign country to Washington and said he was a diplomat, the government would ask him for his passport and other documents testifying that he represented a certain government. His papers would have to antedate his coming. If such proofs of identity are asked from delegates of other countries, reason certainly ought to do so with messengers who claim to have come from God. To each claimant reason says, "What record was there before you were born that you were coming?"

With this test one can evaluate the claimants. Socrates had no one to foretell his birth. Buddha had no one to pre-announce him and his message or tell the day when he would sit under the tree. Confucius did not have the name of his mother and his birthplace recorded, nor were they given to men centuries before he arrived so that when he did come, men would know he was a messenger from God. But, with Christ, it was different. Because of the OT prophecies, His coming was not unexpected. There were no predictions about Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tze, Mohammed , or anyone else; but there were predictions about Christ. Others just came and said, "Here I am, believe me". Christ alone stepped out of that line saying, "Search the writings of the Jewish people and the related history of the Babylonians, Persians, and Romans." Even the pagan, Tacitus, speaking for the ancient Romans, says, "People were generally persuaded in the faith of the ancient prophecies, that the East was to prevail, and that from Judea was to come the Master and Ruler of the world." China had the same expectations, as did the Greeks.

Another distinguishing fact is that once He appeared, He struck history with such impact that He split it in two, dividing it into two periods: one before His coming, the other after it. Buddha did not do this, nor any of the great Indian philosophers. Even those who deny God must date their attacks upon Him, A.D. so and so, or so many years after His coming.

The story of every human life begins with birth and ends with death. In the Person of Christ, however, it was His death that was first and His life that was last. It was not so much that His birth cast a shadow on His life and thus led to His death; it was rather that the Cross was first, and cast its shadow back to His birth. His has been the only life in the world that was ever lived backward.

If the above resonates with you, drop me a freepmail. God speed on your journey; my prayers accompany you.

you can stretch a Trinity into a full 3-dimensional object with 4 elements, then a 4 dimensional object with something like 16 elements ~ the Hindu Trinity more or less does that, but then it has Shiva returning at least 3 times as a Messiah, and possibly one additional time in his manifestation as The Great Fish (see jonah on that one) who saves Ma-Nu (also known as Noah) by using Krishna/Shiva (Manifest as the 8 headed cobra) to tie his boat to Mt Ararat. There are, of course, numerous variations on that story India being India. But there's a lesson in this business of using a bit of knowledge to elaborate into something far beyond the original intent.

We already know of the high priest of the ancient city Salem who was the perfect man ~ Malkizedek. I've seen pieces that amplify on the little bit we know from the two Biblical references and suggest he presauges the Messiah as manifest as Jesus, then there's the Second Coming ~ and by golly we have that same three messiahs in one meme showing up without much effort on anyone's part. Throw in the female attribute of the universe (see DNA's other side), and it's not much different, but it is far more different than what we all want to believe.

The differences Protestants and Catholics have over Mary are NOTHING compared to the differences everybody will have with everything at the end of time.

I think that it would helpful if we acknowledged that we cannot prove that Catholics are worshiping Mary, though it may seem that she is their prime object of spiritual affection and security given that the amount of honorific titles, attributions, prayers and devotion to her can exceed that given to Christ, and cast Him into the background.

In addition, it cannot be said that we follow Luther as a pope, or that he is the founder of our faith, seeing as he was one of many who imperfectly followed Christ. Who began His church in dissent from those who, like Rome, presumed a level of assured veracity above that which was written.

Nor should RCs labor to support by Scripture such traditions as the IM (which the EOs reject as contrary to Tradition), and what we see as excess devotion to Mary and prayers to her, because,

A. The extrapolative nature of attempts to establish them by Scripture overall evidences to SS types that these really flow from tradition.

And

B. Because the real basis for such teachings is that of the authority of Rome, who has infallibly declared herself infallible and as the One who infallibly defines the extent and meaning of Scripture and Tradition (though the extent of Tradition is unknown).

Thus as it was with the beginning of the church, which began with an Itinerant Preacher in dissent from those who sat in power, the issue is that of the basis for assurance of truth claims, that of Scriptural substantiation or self declaration.

Far more political than religious? The two were so mixed up by then, the age preceding, so inexorably blended that it if blame is to be laid, let us not forget first causes!

There is much to know of history, and I cannot claim to know it all, but you were suggesting the Reformation was a product of other considerations, which leads away from looking at the rot that was in the Roman church at the time, casting blame elsewhere.

Let us agree to what first causes actually were, then we can continue on to later ramifications, involvements, philosophical considerations and their resulting impacts upon European societies & culture.

Are you maintaining it was the Renaissance that led Luther to state his own opposition to corruptions which could be then seen in the Latin Church of that era? Or is it more like mixing in that part with all the rest of later developments, in hopes of distracting from and burying it (the rot), using guilt by association technique to impugn the Reformers, for the sake of the more generally sinful nature of mankind, which one can pretty much always find evidence for, wherever on cares to look?

That's what I have long been seeing in argument against Luther and the Reformation. Upthread, we had one of your cohorts accuse Luther of having his way with a barrel-full of nuns (as in many). Then it comes out it was he married one of them. Two years after they both had left the Latin Church. They were married... but Still damned to hell for fornication, according to one of your brethren.

I'm sorry, but in the environment here, to be snootily told that I'm simply too ignorant to understand, is a bit much. The real problem you may have with me FRiend, is that I understand much only too well!

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