Posted on 08/15/2013 7:03:11 PM PDT by annalex
Once a woman in the crowd surrounding Christ and His disciples cries out to Him:
Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. (Luke 11:27)
What is it? We have, clearly, an act of venerating Mary. Note that the Blessed Virgin is venerated properly: not on her own but as the mother of Christ. Yet the reason for venerating is indeed concerning: it is her physiological and physiologically unique relationship with Jesus that is emphasized. That is not yet paganism with its crude theories of gods giving birth to other gods, but it is lacking proper focus and Jesus corrects it:
Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it. (Luke 11:28)
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| The Virgin with the Child on her knees and a prophet pointing at the star. Catacomb of Priscilla, late 2nd c. Source |
Having gotten past this linguistic hurdle, we can understand clearly what this passage, Luke 11:27-28, does: it establishes veneration of saints based not on their blood relation to Christ but on their obedience to God. It is in that sense that we venerate Our Lady: given that Christ is the Word of God personified, she heard and kept both Him in person as her Child and His teaching, figuratively. In Mary the essence of sainthood is seen in the flesh as well as in the mind. We could say that by the late second century at the latest, when we find evidence of the veneration of both the prophets and the Mother of God in the catacombs, the two reasons to venerate a saint: his martyrdom as in the case of Polycarp, or his obedience to the Word, as in Mary, -- unite into a single practice.
True. Veneration takes these forms:
Have you read it?
Verse 27 praises Mary. Verse 28 explains that path to sainthood are many.
Interesting idea that a passage in scripture could be found "condemning" Mary.
Read the Holy Scripture one in a while with love and attention and you, too, will be Catholic.
Get ye to the Synagog
That is just silly. Luther didn’t invent a new religion.
First, that is what she is, for Jesus is God. Second, Luke 1:43. Third, the Holy Scripture is not a table of ranks and titles.
I don't particularly care what you object to or should object to, but to the extent that something like Evangelicalism must exist, yeah, that sounds about right. Time to come back to the Church, Dan.
Btw, I don’t accept the label “Protestant”; why don’t you call yourselves Christians, if that’s what you are, instead of Catholics?
I haven’t researched this, but I believe “Protestant” applies to only a certain group of Church that were formed during a specific time frame in a specific area. I know many mainline Protestants, including my mother and sister, who are perfectly comfortable with the term “Protestant.” It is much better than being called “non-Catholic.”
Well I gotta go, I’m off to Mass. I had the privilege of cantoring at yesterday’s Mass celebrating the Feast of the Assumption. :-)
Thank you for the ping.
And the stamps?
They use others, but after transubstantiation this is easy.
You should know by now Rome's claims of historical descent are problematic to say the least, irregardless, are you saying historical descent, and or being the steward of Divine revelation and inheritor of the promises of God for preservation and His presence makes or requires one to be infallible?
It is consistent with Roman Catholicism to not really care too much about challenges to her claims or practices, but to presumptuously assert them and foster implicit submission to them, nor are we in the days of the unholy Inquisitions with all its means, regardless of your favor of them, while your response to objections here further confirms the decision to leave Rome by those who searched the Scriptures whether her preaching was Scriptural.
But does she also use metric? 5’5’’ is my height, but lacking a cloud.
Related:
“During the twentieth century, there have been 386 cases of Marian apparitions...Looking at the past, the Middle ages saw a boom in Marian apparitions while the early church years has no recorded sightings - http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-on-marian-apparitions.html
Please don't take offense but the logic of this is just absolutely stupefying. The example used is Mary. Yet Catholics tell us that Mary was protected by God from sin to be a pure vessel for our Lord. Consequently, one has to wonder why would Mary NOT be obedient to God, since God instilled grace into her so she would not sin? So even if Catholics believe that Mary was pure from birth, her obedience wasn't based upon her action or her works because she hadn't done anything nor would she ever sin because of God's grace. Instead Mary's purity was based upon God's action. That is, unless you believe that Mary was responsible for her purity. If that's the case then you're off the reservation.
God puts into us a new heart and spirit to cause us to walk in His ways and obey His commandments. Why Catholics cannot make this leap into believers' lives is the real mystery.
Jesus was also human. She was mother of the human side of Jesus.
Luke 1:43 See above.
Third, the Holy Scripture is not a table of ranks and titles.
From whence do we know that Jesus is the Messiah? The King of Kings if not in the Bible. Regardless Peter was an Apostle and there is no indication his ranking was any higher than the others because like you said "the Holy Scripture is not a table of ranks and titles".
No, that is not correct. I certainly have not considered nor called myself such.
I do have a picture of Mary in my house, but I also have a very large Crucifix near the front door.
These sound very much like graven images. I cannot imagine Jesus or the Disciples having such adornment in their houses nor will they be in Heaven.
Christians believe in an incarnate God, born before all ages, incarnate of a virgin.
A “graven” image of the Jesus reminds us that he is a man not an angel, one like us except for sin, who spoke to us face-to-face, suffered, died and was buried, but who rose again and will come again in glory to judge the world.
That could only make logical sense IF it was "the Jews" whom did not want recognition of Jesus as TRUE Messiah to be supplanted by worship of a new martyr.
We can assume "the Jews" spoken of did not recognize Jesus as Messiah, but thought Him to be just another of the false ones. Which leaves their alleged objection to be something quite different than "Protestant" objections of the "veneration" of both "saints" and objects (relics), for the Jews were not concerned in the least with preserving focus upon Jesus as the Christ.
All that can be safely enough said without even entering into discussion of the historicity of the MartPol (as some term the Martyrdom of Polycarp). Not all versions agree...so it can be asked -- what version are you relying upon? What is it's lineage? Which version to "trust"/ Can any of the versions be trusted... or was the "letter" originally written (or first significantly altered) some time in the 3rd century?
I ain’t worshippin’ - I is veneratin’!
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