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.
And what young Jewish virgin would turn down being mother of the Messiah? It was the dream of every Jewish girl. She wouldn't have been crazy enough to turn that opportunity down.
So much for venerating her for doing what anyone else in a similar situation would have done.
Yet it wasn't until I met an Evangelical Christian that I saw someone that really, truly believed in Christ and LIVED that way. What an awakening! Sorry but my experience tells me that rude language, jokes, sex before marriage, excessive drinking, smoking (cigarettes and pot) are matter of fact for many Catholics. Sin really is no big deal because theoretically there are so many loopholes that everyone’s going to heaven anyway. Basically to me, the great majority of Catholics who are welcomed into church every week have no intentions of living like Christ to the best of their ability. Sin means nothing to them. No repentance.
I can imagine the arguments burning in your brain as you think, “Well, doesn't this butthead know anything about all the supposed Christians who did this and that...”. Guess what! It's very simple that ANYONE, even if they claim to be Christian, who ignores God's word and makes no attempt to follow Christ, is in fact not a Christian. I hear supposed Christians on the tv and radio all the time who make my stomach turn. Yes, there are many, many frauds out there. I can only speak for the church I chose to attend, that if it's known that someone is intentionally walking in sin, and has no desire or intent to change, they will be shown the door. They don't belong there. But it's an awesome church and within minutes of being in there, one knows that they are surrounded by the real deal. As I said since meeting my first true Christian, “they talk the talk, and walk the walk”. Repent and believe. And it will show in your walk. Christ's word. You can see by tagline that I think highly of Sarah Palin. I think she's a great example of a true Christian. It radiates from her and draws good people to her. And consequently her faith, as genuine and obvious as it is, repels those who live outside of God's word. BTW, this is my 1000th post. Cool that it's defending God's word.
Got proof?
And not one other priest ever did that, eh?
Yeah, right........
Maybe its like public schools and child molesters? Quietly move them to a different school district and pay off the victims. hush hush.
If the professor want to do this then he needs to deal with the undisciplined excess of Catholics who give more praise and adulation to Mary than to Christ Himself, including a parallelization that essentially deifies her, while he must also include the Orthodox as his enemies as they also deny the Immaculate Conception and her Ascension.
You mean infalllbly, or what level of magisterial teaching (encyclical, etc.) has forbidden it?
And are all methods of interrogation endorsed by the prosecutorial profession today, and should former Catholics be prosecuted in some way, and what kind of interaction can lay have with them?
Correct.
An account of your life that MANY former Catholics can attest to, myself included.
But like we have all heard, we're liars, we never *really* understood true Catholic teaching, we were *poorly* catechized, they're not really representative of Catholics, they're not *real* Catholics - they probably do not go to mass every Sunday (Just find some that go to mass every Sunday and they'll be *different*), you will likewise be accused.
That seems to be SOP
I don't know. However, the use of it in late Medieval times was the best practice of the time in the legal profession. It was never a theological decision either way. Modern Catechism forbids it on the general grounds of human dignity.
Let us be reminded that the topic on hand is the Immaculate Conception of Mary, not the Holy Inquisition or child abuse.
Mary had no choice in the matter.
Like any sinner, she would not have chosen grace of her own accord.
As I scan through the Religion Forum I see the same anti-Catholics still decrying the sins of others going back hundreds and thousands of years. The notion that sin is somehow exclusively a Catholic problem causes me to reflect on Luke 18:11.
What is ignored is the real progress the Church has made in rooting out the evils. Prior to 2001, the primary responsibility for investigating allegations of sexual abuse and disciplining perpetrators rested with the individual dioceses. Also ignored is that the consensus of the leading psychology professionals was that pedophilia was a curable medical condition. In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger convinced John Paul II to put the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in charge of all investigations and policies surrounding sexual abuse in order to combat such abuse more efficiently. From that moment the future pope dedicated every Friday (a day of great symbolic signifigance to Catholics) to personally read every reported abuse and wept often. Driven by a desire to clean up what he called the "filth in the Church" he worked "sine acceptione personarum" (without exceptions) to tirelessly to contain and prevent the problem. He has brought many changes to Church law and has relentlessly pursued prosecution and laicization where warranted. Last year, in a Church of over 40 million practicing Catholics, there were a total of seven credible report of abuse. Statistically speaking the safest place a child can be in in the presence of a priest.
Even seven cases is seven too many and there is still a lot of work to be done, but I can say this; every employee, catechist and volunteer in my diocese and every American diocese who deals as a representative of the Church with children and adults must receive mandatory safe environment training, be finger printed and a background check run. Policies and procedures prevent circumstances that might lead to abuse or even the opportunity for abuse. I only pray that all other religious and secular organizations where the actual incidence of abuse is significantly higher act a faithfully and effectively as the Church already has.
Peace be with you
When a priest is found out he is laicized: removed from active service of any kind. He has the ability to say a Mass privately, as he remains a priest.
St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah
That is a lengthy thread; what exactly, is there to support your accusation that there was "rampant" abuse in the Catohlic Chuuch "for a thousand years"?
Every evil of the world was started with the Protestant Revolution, eh?
Sexual morality was significantly relaxed by the so-called reformation. I mentioned Luther fornicating with nuns, but generally the Protestant Reformation brought about, gradually, liberalization of divorce and remarriage, use of contraception, and today, some Protestant denominations endorse abortion.
Bears no resemblance to Christian hierarchy.
God->Jesus->YOU&ME
Yes, there are people of Protestant persuasion that lead holy lives and are examples of others; and conversely there are lukewarm Catholics who are not witnessing their faith and do not live it out.
This does not take away the fact that Protestantism is a heresy and an error, that leads millions away from Christ through its counterscriptural doctrines of Faith Alone and Bible Alone, and through its false either-or dialectics in general, as this article shows. It can provide a spiritual high once and again, — that part is true.
You should come back home, to Christ, and drop this Protestant foolishness.
It seems that Donatism is yet another heresy alive and well within Protestantism.
Peace be with you.
Please, drop the pomp and circumstance, praying to “Saints” (dead mortal humans) and all the add-on’s and maybe it will actually be a real Christian church again.
Are you saying that the torture has been infallibly forbidden, and if not on what level has it been? Or in other words, could that be changed?
Lest there be orders inordinately devoted to one person above what is written.
“And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. “ (1 Corinthians 4:6)
Most people with passing knowledge of this jerk's biography know this.
Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, when he arranged for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels.
Note for an occasional dense reader: nuns cannot legitimately marry unless discharged properly by their superior. Getting a nun smuggled in a barrel is not a legitimate discharge of the monastic vow.
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