Mariaphobic Response Syndrome: Part One

MarkShea.com ^ | 2005 | Mark P. Shea

[Salvation]

 

Mariaphobic Response Syndrome: Part One

Recently, I participated in an online conversation about the Blessed Virgin. As an Evangelical convert to the Catholic faith, I can empathize with the deep fears many Evangelicals have about Mary. It's a terror that runs way down into the guts and marrow of many Evangelicals. It's a deep, unreasoning and nameless fear that does not lose any of its power even when every so-called "basis" for the fear is debunked. And like many irrational fears, it has the odd quality of distracting us from reality and clear thinking.

To illustrate what I mean, let me sum up not a few discussions I have witnessed between Catholics and Evangelicals.

Evangelical: You must not worship Mary!

Catholic: Relax. I don't worship Mary.

Evangelical: Oh, but you do!

Catholic: Actually, I think I'm the only one qualified to make that call, aren't I?

Evangelical: But it looks to me like you worship her! You pray to her and ask her to intercede for you, don't you?

Catholic: Yes, I do like to talk to my mother about things. But I don't worship her and I don't think she's God. She's a creature, a fellow Christian (albeit the great one). How would you feel if I said, "You worship your barber! I know you do, because you sometimes ask him to pray for you?"

Evangelical: That's totally different!

Catholic: Actually, it's exactly the same. Which is why Scripture says don't judge by appearances. If you'd just ask me rather than telling me, I'd be happy to tell you what I worship. I worship Jesus Christ fully present in the Holy Eucharist-body, blood, soul, and divinity.

Evangelical: I don't think the Eucharist is Jesus' body and blood, but simply a symbol. But let's not argue over such fine points of theology as "transubstantiation". We both celebrate Communion in our own ways. And that's the important thing.

Catholic: Did you hear me? I said I fall down in worship and adoration before something that looks just like a piece of bread and a cup of wine. I say "Hosanna" to it. I adore it as the very God of the Universe! The Eucharist is my Lord and my God, my salvation, my life, the very source of my being!

Evangelical: Yes. I think that's a bit overboard, but let's not argue about it. You have your version of Communion and I have mine. Now: about Mary worship--don't you see how incredibly dangerous it is for you to commit the grave sin of idolizing Mary....

If this were the only time I'd seen exchanges like this I would laugh it off as a singular incidence of obtuseness. But, in fact, it's not at all uncommon to see Evangelicals devoting weirdly disproportionate amounts of energy to the strange task of persuading Catholics to cease doing what they are not doing while cheerfully and warmly ignoring what they are doing.

To be sure, that doesn't mean I think Evangelicals should get on the ball and start a campaign against Eucharistic Adoration. On the contrary, I think Eucharistic Adoration the highest duty of the human race and something that should be encouraged till the glory of the Lord covers the face of the earth as the waters cover the sea. But I do think it mighty odd that somebody who doesn't believe the Eucharist is Jesus Christ cares passionately that I not fall down in worship of Mary-whom I do not adore-yet shrugs indifferently when I fall down in worship of the Host.

It gives one the strong impression that there's something other than concern about idolatry here. That something is what I call Mariaphobic Response Syndrome: the irrational terror of the Blessed Virgin that paradoxically makes her loom far larger in many Evangelical imaginations than in Catholic ones.

As a recovering MRS sufferer, I can tell you that she is perhaps the single biggest obstacle facing the potential convert to the Church from Evangelicalism. The papacy? Small beer! The Eucharist? Got it. Sacred Tradition? Not a problem! Mary?

Something in the gut stirs. The terror that the whole Catholic faith is a vast charade flares up in the mind. Say what they will, the "Catholic Mary" is some terrible pretty face on the worship of Babylonian deities! Must. Get. Out! Must. Escape! It's all a trick! Once I'm in the Church I'll be ushered into the Secret Chambers where Scary Marian Rites of Worship take place in the secret rooms beneath the sanctuary! There'll be no escape! I will be forced to worship the Goddess!!!!!

Then you enter the Church and reality hits you: Mary gets small. Or rather, she resumes her normal place. You discover the comic fact that nobody thinks she's another God, as you feared. You discover the even funnier fact that a small minority of Catholics think she's another Pope. But more on that in my next column...

Copyright 2005 - Mark P. Shea

[Uri’el-2012]

U-2012> When the Roman "church" stops using phrases like "Queen of heaven" and "Mother of god" that would be a first step to following YHvH and His salvation.

What odd sect teaches that belief? Or is it just you and your own private "church"?

I don't know; perhaps this will explain it to you:

Google {mother of god RCC}

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[haffast]

To: UriÂ’el-2012

When the Roman "church" stops using phrases like "Queen of heaven" and "Mother of god" that would be a first step to following YHvH and His salvation.

What odd sect teaches that belief? Or is it just you and your own private "church"?

RCC. Yours?

Pope Paul VI

"In 1965, he writes that the Queen of Heaven is entrusted by God, as administrator of his compassion[95] In his 1965 encyclical Mense Maio he described Mary as the way to Christ, the person who encounters Mary cannot help but encounter Christ likewise.[96]"

"Nothing seems more appropriate and valuable than to have the prayers of the whole Christian family rise to the Mother of God, who is invoked as the Queen of Peace, begging her to pour forth abundant gifts of her maternal goodness in midst of so many great trials and hardships. We want constant and devout prayers to be offered to her whom We declared Mother of the Church, its spiritual parent, during the celebration of the Second Vatican Council,[98]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariology_of_Pope_Pius_XII#Pius_XII

[narses]

You said:

“When the Roman “church” stops using phrases like “Queen of heaven” and “Mother of god” that would be a first step to following YHvH and His salvation.”

I asked you what odd church teaches what you said. Maybe that was not clear. Is this your opinion alone or that of some formal sect?

[narses]

Really? So that whole “eternal life” thing, not true?

What denomination teaches you these things?

[boatbums]

Way to start out the new year with yet another Protestant-bashing thread designed to provoke contention and then they’ll complain that Protestants bash Catholics because they “hate” them. Nothing changes, does it?

[NYer]

Protestants believe that Mary was a sinner in need of salvation through the grace of God the son—just like everyone else. how does that make them “Mariaphobic”?

Well, your statement begins with a misinterpretation of Mary as a sinner. Catholics believe that Mary was conceived immaculate. The Immaculate Conception refers to the condition that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from Original Sin from the very moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne.

There are two passages in Scripture which point us to this truth. We look first at Genesis 3.15, in which we see the parallel between Mary and Eve of which the early Church Fathers already spoke: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." The Jews saw this passage as referring to the struggle between Christ and Satan, and so the Church sees in "the woman" a prophetic foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, # 55).

If there is to be complete enmity between the woman and the serpent, then she never should have been in any way subject to him even briefly. This implies an Immaculate conception.

We can also reason from the text of Lk 1:28, in which the angel calls her "full of grace". In this verse we can see even more strongly the complete enmity with the serpent--for God's grace is completely opposed to Satan's reign. But if Mary was "full of grace," it seems that she must have been conceived immaculate.

For the Greek word in the Gospel is kecharitomene. It is a perfect passive participle of the verb charitoo. A perfect passive participle is very strong. In addition, charitoo belongs to a group of verbs ending in omicron omega. They have in common that they mean to put a person or thing into the state indicated by the root. Thus leukos means white, so leukoo means to make white. Then charitoo should mean to put into charis. That word charis can mean either favor or grace. But if we translate by favor, we must keep firmly in mind that favor must not mean merely that God, as it were, sits there and smiles at someone, without giving anything. That would be Pelagian: salvation possible without grace. So for certain, God does give something, and that something is grace, a share in His own life. So charitoo means to put into grace. But then too, kecharitomene is used in place of the name "Mary". This is like our English usage in which we say, for example, someone is Mr. Tennis. That means he is the ultimate in tennis. So then kecharitomene should mean "Miss Grace", the ultimate in grace. Hence we could reason that fullness of grace implies an Immaculate Conception.

[haffast]

You said:

No I didn't. UriÂ’el-2012 did. He has answered you at #82.

I'm sorry if my post #83 confused you.

[boatbums]

If I didn’t know better, I’d say Sister Angelica was the reincarnation of the dreaded Sister Katherine Marie of my Catholic middle school past! ;o)

[haffast]

Correction: UriÂ’el-2012 at #81, my post at #82.

[boatbums]

Is Jesus God? Was Mary Jesus’ mother? That’s all that the Church means by the title. The Church does not teach that Mary existed before God.

Absolutely, Jesus is Almighty God incarnate. Mary gave birth to that incarnate (in the flesh) man who is Jesus (Immanuel - God with us). Did the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, exist before he took on flesh?

I think the title for Mary of "Mother of God" has done nothing to help explain and expound upon the doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of Jesus Christ. It was superfluous, really, and we see the fruit of that over reaching and un-Biblical nomenclature in cultures all over the world where Mary is exalted OVER God and where discussions such as these do nothing but fuel dissension and conflict between fellow Christians. I do not believe Mary would approve of it.

[bubbacluck]

I'm curious.

What's to keep God from allowing ALL of us to be conceived immaculately? If He could remove original sin from Mary, he could certainly do it with even me or you?

Jesus wouldn't have had to even be born and then die a painful death.

To me, declaring Mary as immaculately conceived opens a huge can of worms.

[Uri’el-2012]

Is Jesus God? Was Mary Jesus’ mother?

That’s all that the Church means by the title. The Church does not teach that Mary existed before God.

The question is why would any "church"
use such an obviously deceptive title ?

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[narses]

“When the Roman “church” stops using phrases like “Queen of heaven” and “Mother of god” that would be a first step to following YHvH and His salvation.”

What odd sect teaches that belief? Or is it just you and your own private “church”?

[Mad Dawg]

Jesus wouldn't have had to even be born and then die a painful death.

FWIW, the doctrine is that Mary's protection from original sin was made possible by Christ's redemptive work.

[count-your-change]

I read the article and I tell who he is with more detail.
It's a silly little blog and nothing more. “Mariaphobic”? What sort of nonsense term is that? Fearful of Mary? Who is this purported Evangelical? Aren't Catholics supposed to be evangelicals too?

Like I said. A silly little blog.

[bubbacluck]

Okay, thanks. So she was redeemed retroactively?

[Uri’el-2012]

U-2012>When the Roman “church” stops using phrases like “Queen of heaven” and “Mother of god” that would be a first step to following YHvH and His salvation.

What odd sect teaches that belief? Or is it just you and your own private “church”?

The Roman "church" created by Pontiff
Constantine at Nicea in 325CE.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[bonfire]

The Catholic obsession with Mary continues..........

(Jesus WHO?)

[Mad Dawg]

I think the title for Mary of "Mother of God" has done nothing to help explain and expound upon the doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of Jesus Christ. It was superfluous, really,...

It seems
here
that one of the triggers to the Christological controversy was precisely the use of "theotokos" in objection to which Nestorius argued in a way which was taken by some to 'divide the person' of Jesus Christ. The term was not so much used in Trinitarian debate but in Christological debate. It assumes the Son is divine, "Consubstantial with the Father" but it specifies the charcter of the union of the divine and human natures. It asserts that the union is so complete that the be the mother of Jesus is to be the mother of God.

IN the biology of the time, some assumed that the mother provided the "stuff" of which the child was made, while the father provided what you might call the "humanness".

Our thinking about heredity, DNA, etc. informs and changes that thinking. Both mother and father provide "stuff" which organizes the other "stuff".

But my mother is not the sole source of what makes me me, nor was Mary the sole source of what made IHS IHS. But I am one thing, and my mother was the mother of that one thing. And IHS is one thing (at least, so we teach) and Mary was the mother of that one thing (while not its sole source.)

And the one thing that IHS was was God the Son of God. Therefore Mary was the mother of God the Son of God, who is God. Therefore ...

God-bearer (Theotokos and, in a slightly different sense, Deigenetrix) and God-birther (Deipara) are synonyms, with different emphases. "Tokos" still shows up in "Dystocia" as related to birth but has a sense of the "Carrying" as well as the "delivering." But of course these words came up when the natural outcome of carrying was delivering or birthing and embryo transplantation was unthought of. A mother birthed what she had carried and carried what she would ultimately birth.

[tbpiper]

Relax. I don't worship Mary

Do you (catholics) pray to Mary? If so, does that mean she's somewhat omniscient? Being human, who does she hear first and in what order? Should Paul have said 'for almost all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God'? And finally, what's the point of praying to Mary or any other saint if God has given us direct access to Himself?