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.
Anyone who claims to have once been Catholic knows the error in that statement. It seems to me that some here want it both ways. On one hand they assert that Catholics are mind numbed robots marching in lock-step to the mind control of the Vatican and the Pope and then on the other hand demand that the Church enforce an orthodoxy of their choosing on any politically active Catholic who deviates from what they consider to be Catholic doctrines. I pray for more one handed Protestants on these forums.
Peace be with you.
Yeah, but we went to school sooooooooo long ago. ;)
Actually, there was an article about it in the December 4th issue of Scientific American and there is a lot of information about it from the Department of Gynecology at the University of Milan. Most of the information does not attempt to connect the theological dots, but will corroborate the biological facts.
Peace be with you.
Link please ....
Did they also cover how soon the cells of jesus leave the person eating "the real actual presence?"..As for the Theological aspect..that comes under YOPI
You are a nurse, or so your name indicates. You know how long that food (any food) stays present in your body.
I have heard another nurse say about 15 minutes. Was she right?
As to the presence of Jesus after the consecrated host or wine is digested — only Jesus knows.
Don’t tell me what I understand and what I don’t understand. Let’s look at what Christ told us who are really His.
» John 17:23: Christ Himself prays to His Father: "I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one." » Romans 8:10: Paul tells us, "If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin." » Galatians 2:20: Paul speaks of himself and all true Christians: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." » Ephesians 3:17-18: Referring to the "inner man," Paul mentions that he prays "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." » I John 3:24: John writes: "Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us."
Romans 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Galatians 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
John 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
John 14:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
No nonsense about eating Christ in some cracker either.
The Father sees Christ in us.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Acts 15:8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness by granting them the holy Spirit just as he did us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, for by faith he purified their hearts.
That’s why we can go directly to the Father in Jesus name and don’t need to denigrate Christ by supposing we need some other mediator.
Romans 8:34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
We are to go before the Father in Jesus name.
Ephesians 5:20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
Powerful words! Thank you, CB.
Another one:
Here is another one:
Jesus is Substantially present in the Eucharist, but as a former Catholic you already knew that, right? When you understand the philosophical difference between substance and property we might actually be able to discuss this.
Peace be with you.
Then you have the other extremes:
Jerome’s reasoning on the issue is troubling.
He wrote: “It is not disparaging wedlock to prefer virginity. No one can make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil.” (’’Letter’’ 22). On First Corinthians 7 he reasons, “It is good, he says, for a man not to touch a woman. If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one: for there is no opposite to goodness but badness. But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned, the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil.”
Jerome further surmises, “If we are to pray always, it follows that we must never be in the bondage of wedlock, for as often as I render my wife her due [or eat, sleep, etc.], I cannot pray. The difference, then, between marriage and virginity is as great as that between not sinning and doing well; nay rather, to speak less harshly, as great as between good and better.
You surely admit that he is no bishop who during his episcopate begets children... A layman, or any believer, cannot pray unless he abstain from sexual intercourse. Now a priest must always offer sacrifices for the people: he must therefore always pray. And if he must always pray, he must always be released from the duties of marriage.”
n Genesis Jerome engages in more eisegesis of Scripture in his imbalanced view of marital relations:
This too we must observe, at least if we would faithfully follow the Hebrew, that while Scripture on the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days relates that, having finished the works of each, “God saw that it was good,” on the second day it omitted this altogether, leaving us to understand that two is not a good number because it destroys unity, and prefigures the marriage compact. Hence it was that all the animals which Noah took into the ark by pairs were unclean. Odd numbers denote cleanness [so much for the Trinity]. (Against Jovinianus, Book 1, Cps. 7,13,16,33; http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vi.vi.I.html )
Does [Jovinianus] imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?...The truth is that, in view of the purity of the body of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean... (Against Jovinianus )
Similarly, Tertullian argued that second marriage, having been freed from the first by death,
“will have to be termed no other than a species of fornication,” partly based on the reasoning that such involves desiring to marry a women out of sexual ardor. (An Exhortation to Chastity, Chapter IX.—Second Marriage a Species of Adultery, Marriage Itself Impugned, as Akin to Adultery; http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.iii.vi.ix.html)
Augustine, “On Marriage and Concupiscence (Book I, cp. 27):” “...whenever it comes to the actual process of generation, the very embrace which is lawful and honourable cannot be effected without the ardour of lust, so as to be able to accomplish that which appertains to the use of reason and not of lust....This is the carnal concupiscence, which, while it is no longer accounted sin in the regenerate, yet in no case happens to nature except from sin.” — http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15071.htm
More on CFs here http://www.patriarchywebsite.com/bib-patriarchy/deception-jerome-marriage-sex.htm and them and the early church on contraception here: http://divinedisputation.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/the-early-church-and-contraception.pdf
Marriage in Scripture was “leave and cleave,” and the cleaving is part of its definition, (Gn. 2:24; Mt. 19:4,5) but the marriage of the Mary of Rome lacked that. And while Rome considers entering marriage with the intention of never having children to be a “grave wrong and more than likely grounds for an annulment.”[25] , yet she promotes praying to a women who according to Rome went thru with a marriage intending to do just that.
Oh the double mindedness.
Church of God is the Catholic Church. You guys don't even have bishops.
the rest of the world comes to faith in Christ by hearing the Word of Christ.
Yes, at the Holy Mass.
They were not. He was a priest, she was a nun. Neither was free to marry. It was ugly fornication, no better than the homos "marrying" one another.
Same thing, and monastic vows are to Christ -- they are an act of marriage to Christ. You were a catechist? Don't make me laugh.
Sorry, I will accumulate your chatter into a single post.
Matthew 5:36-38
... does not forbid vows, it cautions against elaborate oaths. By your Protestant logic there was no more marriage? Marriage is a vow.
No need to waste time praying to dead people who can’t help me
Without faith, indeed, there is little point in praying to saints, or to that matter, to Christ.
God bless you for your brevity.
I understand that Luther and his "wife", and the rest of the Protestant world thinks nothing of breaking monastic and celibacy vows, but that does not alter the fact that neither was free to marry. Perhaps, Luther was somehow properly laicized, but certainly not the woman, whom he smuggled out in a barrel. It was fornication (not adultery since their vows were not marital).
Well, Protestantism is actually the Catholic fault. We should not have allowed this ugly heresy to take root.
Ah, thank you. Mr. Morality Itself speaks.
Jesus told His Body of Believers - HIS CHURCH - "I will never leave nor forsake you".
Something that is foreign to Catholicism - God's Word. They dabble in God's Word for some sort of credibility but they lack it big time and prove it with their man made teachings.
Catholicism - where worship isn't worship and where remembrance isn't remembrance.
I know, there is a divine permissive will in all that. It was perhaps better for the Protestant infection run its course and now we can say: it was tried and discarded, as a big error. But I can't help feeling sorry for the Protestants mired in their delusions and putting their salvation in serious danger.
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