Posted on 11/20/2016 10:43:00 AM PST by NRx
Among the greater mysteries of the New Testament are those surrounding the Mother of God. A large segment of modern Christianity has become tone deaf in this regard, a result of centuries of antagonism towards certain aspects of older tradition. It is a deafness that grieves my heart, primarily in that it represents a great gulf within the broader experience of the faith. A few years after my reception into the Orthodox Church, a friend from my Anglican past asked me if I ever thought of returning. He had no idea of how foreign the thought was to me. But within my mind, the first thought was the absence of Mary. I think I said something to the effect that I could never consider leaving “my mother.”
I’m not sure what those who are strangers to Mary imagine goes on in the life of an Orthodox or Catholic Christian. I cannot speak for Catholics (they’re more than capable of speaking for themselves). First, I know that there is nothing even remotely like worship accorded to her. The entire experience of veneration seems to have been lost within Protestant thinking. I often use examples of patriotic feeling, or some such inadequate experience, to suggest analogies. But, in truth, it is an experience that has no parallel.
For one, I have no conception of Mary apart from Christ. She is not someone-in-herself to be considered alone. The traditional title affirmed by the 3rd Ecumenical Council is “Theotokos,” the “Birthgiver of God.” In the same manner, we say of Christ, “born of the Virgin Mary.” Christ is the God become man, and His humanity is utterly and completely derivative of Mary. He is bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. It is the nature of our humanity that if we speak of His Body and Blood, we cannot do so in a manner that excludes her from that reality.
But saying this can easily be lost in words of doctrine. Doctrine is always a discussion of reality, and it is the reality we want rather than the words. The Body and Blood of Christ are not an abstraction. They are a sweet warmth within the experience of the believer. How would I describe to the non-Christian the experience of communion? There are no words that I would ever exchange for that singular taste.
The oldest known devotion to Mary can be found in the words of a hymn that is documented to have existed and been sung before the middle of the 3rd century. It remains a very important hymn within Orthodoxy to this day:
Beneath your compassion,
We take refuge, O Theotokos:
do not despise our petitions in time of trouble;
but rescue us from dangers,
only pure, only blessed one.
Anyone who might suggest that this hymn represents some pagan-importation is simply historically ignorant. The 3rd century is the great century of martyrs when the Church was in constant conflict with the official paganism of the Empire. There is no historical legitimacy for a claim of a paganizing of the faith during this period. Honoring Mary, including asking her intercessions, was perfectly at home within the mind of the primitive Church.
But what heart first uttered this cry to the compassion of the Theotokos? How did the Church learn of such a thing? That compassion is well described, for it was prophesied in Scripture.
At the time of Christ’s presentation in the Temple (at 40 days of age), Mary is warned about his coming role in Israel, and told that “a sword will pierce your own soul also” (Lk 2:34-35). This is more than maternal grief. Her union with Christ, expressed in the words of her innocent humility, rendered her uniquely vulnerable at the Cross. Christ is wounded for our transgressions, but she is wounded as well. The Church’s instinct and experience says that she is vulnerable to the sufferings of all.
The word translated “compassion” (εὐσπλαγχνία) is itself worth noting. It seems to be a Greek effort to translate a Hebrew word (רַחֲמִים rachamim) and indicates a deep pain identified with the womb. It is the very deep heart of maternal suffering.
The fear of this experience and knowledge, I suspect, is driven by the centuries-old accusation of “Mary-worship,” as well as an idea that anything or anyone given honor other than God represents competition for God, and denigrates His glory. People might argue with the form that honor has taken over the centuries (icons, candles, hymns, prayers, etc.), but at no time has there ever been any intention of offering worship. Indeed, that would be condemned as the worst of heresies.
But we have forgotten the ancient Christian ethos of honor and veneration. The Scriptures nowhere describe God as “alone.” Instead, He is consistently depicted as the Lord of “Hosts” (a vast crowd). The God made known in Christ is a relational God who is Himself described as “love.” The honor and veneration given to the saints within the Church is simply the liturgical expression of love. It is not worship. Generations of Christians, however, have become estranged from the court of Christ, and fancied the Kingdom either as a democracy, or the King without His entourage. They have forgotten the place of the King’s mother and the honor due His friends. In short, we have become rude in our spiritual bearing and made ourselves strangers to heaven.
God is a generous God, quick to forgive. He has not allowed us to destroy the ethos or the witness of the Apostles’ successors. The reality of His heaven abides. We can regain was has been lost, beginning, perhaps, with careful consideration of the doctrine and practice involved (free of passions and mischaracterizations). But only time and usage heal what is essentially a relational matter.
Perhaps reciting the words of that ancient hymn that has found its place on the lips of saints through the ages would be a good place to begin.
We need all the friends we can find!
Written in honor of the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, November 21
The church founded by Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, is the judge of heresy, not you.
I know what she’s thinking because she is a Catholic, and every Catholic has always been taught that it is a mortal sin to give adoration to any person or thing other than God.
Every Catechism ever published in the last 2000 years teaches the same thing. This is how I know that this woman is not worshiping a creature.
So, I’m not the one claiming telepathic powers. You are.
You claim to be able to look at the photograph and see that the woman is offering adoration to Mary. You haven’t revealed HOW the photograph provides you with this information.
It is about Christ. Everything points to Jesus Christ.
You say: A mother, by definition, PRECEDES her child...
FALSE: A mother, by definition, provides the ovum, gestates, and gives birth to her child.
Mary provided the ovum, gestated, and gave birth to Jesus Christ, so that hem the Second Person of the Trinity, could live in the world as man.
Because Jesus Christ is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, Mary is called “the Mother of God,” precisely as Mary is the mother of a carpenter, the mother of a Jew, the mother of a preacher, etc.
Because Jesus Christ is not God the Father, Mary is not the Mother of God the Father. Because Jesus Christ is not the Holy Spirit, Mary is not the Mother of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus Christ is not the Trinity, Mary is not the Mother of the Trinity.
Because Jesus Christ is God, Mary is the Mother of God. She became the Mother of God IN TIME, at the moment when the eternal Word became flesh in her womb.
In the New Testament, there is no mention of THE NEW TESTAMENT.
20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
More Catholic logic?? I’ve seen you’re arguments before and they aren’t grounded in solid Scripture.
Jesus is a carpenter.
Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of a carpenter.
++++++++++++
Jesus is God, the Second Person of the Trinity.
Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of God, the Second Person of the Trinity.
++++++++++++
Two questions:
Is the first syllogism formally valid or invalid?
Is the second syllogism formally valid or invalid?
I'm not sure what's so hard for Catholics to understand about that.
CANON I.-If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:CANON II.-If any one saith, that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly, and to merit eternal life, as if, by free will without grace, he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty; let him be anathema.
CANON III.-If any one saith, that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without his help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so as that the grace of Justification may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema.
1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.Salvation only through God's grace is indeed a doctrine of the Catholic Church.1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God's gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.
1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:
Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself. (2 Cor 5:17-18.)
No, the term mother implies a maternal relationship. Jesus is God. Mary is his mother. Mary is the Mother of God. Anything else that you think is implied by the term is denied by the definition that the Church gives to it.
Catholics can’t “get” your objection because you persist in GROSSLY DISTORTING the meaning of “Mother of God.”
Since your distortion is not what Catholics believe, your constant repetition of that objection is 100%, absolutely, totally irrelevant.
When you can ACCURATELY STATE WHAT CATHOLICS BELIEVE, then any objection you may have might be interesting.
As long as you continue DISTORTING the meaning of the title “Mother of God,” then your objections to it are misdirected, pointless, and uninteresting.
It is exactly as though you stubbornly kept saying, “Catholics believe the Pope is a flying monkey. I keep EXPLAINING to them, OVER AND OVER, why the Pope isn’t a flying monkey. But they just don’t listen to me!”
BTW: It does not matter whether any of my premises are “faulty.” My questions to you:
Is the first syllogism FORMALLY valid or invalid.
Is the second syllogism FORMALLY valid or invalid.
Answer the questions before griping about what Catholics do or don’t do, or say or don’t say.
I disagree. There is plenty of honor and recognition of the saints that have gone before us with no estrangement. Read Hebrews 11, you'll see. But, I ask, how can something be rudely forgotten when NONE of the Apostles nor anywhere else in Scripture encouraged believers to venerate and pray to Mary and her "entourage"? It's not there. If there is scant early evidence of prayers to Mary - and nothing any earlier than centuries after the last Apostle died, then it is questionable where it originated. That is the real reason some reject it, not out of any dishonor, rudeness or animosity. It is kind of patronizing to conclude "we" are missing something in our walk with Christ because we don't join in.
Good point!
The term “merit” refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members..., (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2006) Regarding those who cooperated with grace, Trent concludes that:
Canon 32 similarly states,
"If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema." (Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 32. Also see The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1919 ed., Decree on Justification, Chapters V, VI, VII, X, XIV, XV, XVI)
Shortened, this teaches, "If anyone says that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God does not truly merit eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself, let him be anathema."
An additional teaching is that this justification can be increased by doing works which are enabled by the grace of God dispensed through Catholic sacraments, and which grace includes that of the merits of saints. (Indulgetiarum Doctrina 4)
The Roman Catholic Council of Trent "infallibly" defines that one is,
This is your own fantasy. It is not what Catholics believe, and it is not what they mean by the title "Mother of God."
As long as you keep railing against something Catholics don't believe, they will just laugh at you.
The title "Mother of God" means that Mary BEGAN to be the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when he BEGAN to be God Incarnate, in her womb.
So you see, the title "Mother of God" does NOT mean or imply that Mary pre-existed God, and does NOT mean or imply that God had a beginning.
As long as you insist on distorting the meaning of "Mother of God," and railing against your fantasy version, Catholics will continue to laugh at you.
I forget the Catholic need to redefine words to fit their world.
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