Posted on 08/18/2019 7:05:12 PM PDT by Al Hitan
Today the Church remembers with thanksgiving the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Historically, this day was understood to mark her dormition, or "falling asleep," which was most anciently regarded as her natural death and burial. From early on, however, the Church considered that she who conceived and gave birth to the very God of very God, by His Word and Holy Spirit, was also resurrected and ascended into heaven, in both body and soul, soon after her death. There is no word of Holy Scripture to teach these traditions as doctrine, but we should not be too quick to dismiss them as merely pious devotion. Such piety, at its heart, is a confession of that which is the Church's faith in Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary's Son, our Savior and our God.
St. Mary is uniquely honored among all the saints of God in Christ, not only by the Church, but first of all by the Lord God Himself. He has had mercy upon her, blessed her with His grace and favor, and chosen her above all other women to bear the almighty and eternal Son of God. She is rightly called, and truly is, the Mother of God; for her own dear Son, the Fruit of her womb, is indeed the one true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity. It is from her flesh and blood that the Lord has taken for Himself a true and natural body, bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, so that henceforth He is true Man, the perfect second Adam, our elder Brother, our kinsman Redeemer, the promised Seed of the Woman, by whom we are reconciled to God. As the ancient fathers of the Church confessed, God thus became like us, in order that we become like Him, by grace. It is that great salvation that we celebrate in commemorating any of the saints, and in particular the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, St. Mary.
She is an icon of the Church, a living Sacrament of Christ, and a beautiful example of faith, of all the true children of father Abraham. Her body was comprehended by the Word and Spirit of God to become the tangible means by which the Son of God became flesh and was given to us, and not only for us, but for the life of the world. It is His body, conceived and born of St. Mary, that our sins and sorrows did carry. It is a human body, like our own in every way, save without sin, because He was born of this woman (born under the Law to redeem us). Thus do we recognize in her an archetype of the Blessed Sacrament of our Lord's body and blood.
What is more, in conceiving and giving birth to the Son of God, she is a type of the Church, the holy mother who surely gives birth to the sons of God in Christ. We too have been conceived and given new birth by the same Word and Spirit of the same Holy Triune God that overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary and knit within her womb the incarnation of the only-begotten Son. Thus are we, like Him, "born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (St. John 1:13).
Along with her vocation as the woman by whom the Son of God was given to and for the world, St. Mary also stands with us as a living member of the Church, the Body of Christ. When the Word of the Gospel was announced to her, she received that Word in faith, obtained in her by the mercies of God, and meekly bowed her head in humble trust: "Let it be to me according to Thy Word." Blessed is she who has heard the Word of God and kept it, who treasured it in her heart, who believed that there would surely be a fulfillment of all that God had spoken to her. In all of this, St. Mary is one of us, a faithful disciple of her own dear Son, and among that great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, of that blest communion, fellowship divine.
When the Church in pious tradition has considered St. Mary to be resurrected and ascended to heaven, already in both body and soul, it is a confession of faith in that which Christ Jesus our Lord has accomplished for us and for all by His victorious Cross, Resurrection and Ascension. We may indeed contemplate that she by whom the Lord became like us, should exemplify the way in which we all become like Him, recreated in the glorious Image of the Man from heaven. Of course, we do not rest faith upon the tradition of St. Mary's dormition and assumption into heaven; faith clings to Jesus Christ alone and finds true peace and Sabbath rest forever in Him. But what we envision concering St. Mary, we understand to be the Church's hope precisely in Christ our Lord, our Savior and our God. For we know that He is the Resurrection and the Life, and that she who believes in Him will live even if she dies; yes, and everyone who lives and believes in Him will never die.
We believe, teach and confess with the absolute certainty of faith that St. Mary is the Mother of God; that the almighty and eternal Son of the living God was born of this woman, born under the Law, to redeem us who were under the Law. In celebrating that marvelous incarnation of God the Son, in which He died and rose again for us men and our salvation, we may also celebrate proleptically the resurrection of the body that all His saints share with Him by grace through faith in the Gospel. And in that glorious light, we sing: "O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises: 'Alleluia!' Thou bearer of the eternal Word, most gracious magnify the Lord: 'Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!"
Not that I can tell. Your link is to a different article.
Not just one but two: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3771894/posts, and pretty much the same provocative foisting of Catholic doctrine, even if by a Lutheran, and dredging up a 12-yearl old post to do it, like gluttons for reproof, or expecting that those who seek to obey 1 Co. 4:6, and not think of mortals above that which is written, should simply stand by and offer no protest. Its not happening.
From early on, however, the Church considered that she who conceived and gave birth to the very God of very God, by His Word and Holy Spirit, was also resurrected and ascended into heaven, in both body and soul, soon after her death.
False. Aa a man by the name of Joseph Ratzinger even states:
Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative... Altaner, the patrologist from Wurzburg¦had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the "apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared.
But...subsequent "remembering" (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it has not caught sight of previously ["caught sight of?" Because there was nothing to see in the earliest period where it should have been, before a fable developed] .." (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones (Ignatius, n.d.), pp. 58-59; emp. mine).
Add to that such scholarly confessions as from Lawrence P. Everett, C.Ss.R., S.T.D. who confesses:
In the first three centuries there are absolutely no references in the authentic works of the Fathers or ecclesiastical writers to the death or bodily immortality of Mary. Nor is there any mention of a tomb of Mary in the first centuries of Christianity. The veneration of the tomb of the Blessed Virgin at Jerusalem began about the middle of the fifth century; and even here there is no agreement as to whether its locality was in the Garden of Olives or in the Valley of Josaphat. Nor is any mention made in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus (431) of the fact that the Council, convened to defend the Divine Maternity of the Mother of God, is being held in the very city selected by God for her final resting place. Only after the Council did the tradition begin which placed her tomb in that city.
The earliest known (non-Apocryphal) mention concerning the end of Mary's life appears in the writings of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia,.. in his Panarion or Medicine Chest (of remedies for all heresies), written in c. 377: "Whether she died or was buried we know not."
...And with the exception of a so-called contemporary of Epiphanius, Timothy of Jerusalem, who said: "Wherefore the Virgin is immortal up to now, because He who dwelt in her took her to the regions of the Ascension,"9(After a very thorough and scholarly investigation the author concludes that Timothy is an unknown author who lived between the sixth and seventh centuries (p. 23). no early writer ever doubted the fact of her death....
In the Munificentissimus Deus Pope Pius XII quotes but three Fathers of the Church, all Orientals. St. John Damascene (d. 749)...St. Germanus of Constantinople (d. 733) ...St. Modestus of Jerusalem (d. 634)...
Apart from the Apocrypha, there is no authentic witness to the Assumption among the Fathers of either the East or the West prior to the end of the fifth century.
The first remote testimony to which Pope Pius XII turns in order to indicate the fact that our present belief in the Assumption of the Blessed Mother was likewise the belief of the Church from the earliest times is the Sacred Liturgy...
...The feast of the Assumption began in the East as did many of the older Marian feasts... However, due to the fact that neither Sacred Scripture nor early Tradition speaks explicitly of the last days of our Blessed Mother on earth and of her Assumption into heaven, the liturgy of this feast did not mention them either. Later, when the apocryphal Transitus Mariae ” in which the death and Assumption of Mary are described in detail ” became popular among the faithful, the facts of her death and Assumption were inserted into the feast... - - https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=469
The eminent Mariologist, Juniper Carol, O.F.M. gives the following historical summary of the Transitus literature:
An intriguing corpus of literature on the final lot of Mary is formed by the apocryphal Transitus Mariae. The genesis of these accounts is shrouded in history's mist. They apparently originated before the close of the fifth century, perhaps in Egypt, perhaps in Syria, in consequence of the stimulus given Marian devotion by the definition of the divine Maternity at Ephesus. The period of proliferation is the sixth century. At least a score of Transitus accounts are extant, in Coptic, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Armenian. Not all are prototypes, for many are simply variations on more ancient models (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. II (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 144).
More (by God's grace) on this papal presumption.
St. Mary
She is a saint, but for the record, "saint" being manifestly used for believers in general:
Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints [qâdôsh=sacred] yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. (Job 15:15)
They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord. (Psalms 106:16)
Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints [hagios=holy], with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: (1 Corinthians 1:2)
To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:7)
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia: (2 Corinthians 1:1)
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; (Ephesians 2:19)
However, if we use capitalization in "Saint" it can infer emphasis, as a eminent status above others.
St. Mary is uniquely honored among all the saints of God in Christ,
Indeed, as she should be, "among" not "above all" as in Catholicism.
She is rightly called, and truly is, the Mother of God;...We believe, teach and confess with the absolute certainty of faith that St. Mary is the Mother of God; that the almighty and eternal Son of the living God was born of this woman, Again, while "that the almighty and eternal Son of the living God was born of this woman is true,
Based upon the logic that Jesus was God in the the flesh so therefore Mary is the mother of God, but the problem (as I have before times expressed) is that while even if allowable in that specified sense, yet yet this lack of specification of Mary being the mother of the Divine Christ who created her versus what the normal use of "Mother of God" naturally conveys. As would be calling the mother of Mary the grandmother of God (and all the way back to Eve), being contrary to the language of Scripture, and its careful distinguishing btwn the Creator and the created.
While in a specified technical sense Mary could be called the mother of God as the bearer of the incarnated Divine creator Son, like as Israel itself could be called the God-bearer as qualified, (Rm. 9:5) yet the uncritical common use of the formal title "Mother of God" is misleading and even a blasphemous use since its normal denotation is that of ontological oneness, while Mary contributed absolutely zero to the deity of Christ, and was not responsible for the Divine nature that makes Him the very Son of God.
In contrast, the Holy Spirit is careful to add the qualifier "according to the flesh" and emphasizes Deity ("and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever") when stating that the Divine Christ came out of Israel. (Rm. 9:5)
While "mother of my lord" as specifying Christ can be used, (Lk. 1:43) "Mother" of" and Deity are not to commonly go together, and at best, what Ratzingers states regarding "Co-redemptrix" applies to "Mother of God," as concerns the language of Scripture:
"the formula “Co-redemptrix” departs to too great an extent from the language of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings” (53).
“Everything comes from Him [Christ], as the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too, is everything she is through Him. The word “Co-redemptrix” would obscure this origin. A correct intention being expressed in the wrong way. “For matters of faith, continuity of terminology with the language of Scripture and that of the Fathers is itself an essential element; it is improper simply to manipulate language” (God and the world: believing and living in our time, by Pope Benedict XVI, Peter Seewald, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2000, p. 306)
It is from her flesh and blood that the Lord has taken for Himself a true and natural body,
And it was from her parents and grand parent back to Adam that Mary had a body - thus the physical genealogy of Christ does not begin with Mary - and back to Christ Himself.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: (Colossians 1:16)
Scripture does not do as Catholicism does, that of exalting mortals as if God owed them something (and some Catholics even assert "to her, Jesus owes His Precious Blood..."), which is not manner of Scripture, for instead, as David said,
"all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee."
In Catholicism mortals are thought of "above that which is written," making herself as well as them objects of faith.
She is an icon of the Church, a living Sacrament of Christ,
What "Church?" Not the NT church, in which she is only mentioned once in Acts thru Revelation (though Caths try to read her into Rv. 12), and even in the gospels, while obviously significant, yet Ratzinger also confessed, “in the gospel tradition is quite marginal,” (“God and the world;” p. 296)
and a beautiful example of faith, of all the true children of father Abraham.
Indeed. And in a perfect opportunity to exalt His mother above all other mortals as in Catholicism, yet the Lord elevated all who did the will of God, as she did:
Then one [a proto-Catholic] said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Matthew 12:47-50)
And in that glorious light, we sing: "O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises: 'Alleluia!' Thou bearer of the eternal Word, most gracious magnify the Lord: 'Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!"
No, we who are not to think of men above that which is written are not to sing that Mary is "higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim," nor pray to her or any created being. Which is nowhere seen in Scripture, despite over 200 prayers in the Bible , and of this being a most basic practice, the only prayers or offerings in Scripture to anyone else in Heaven is by pagans, including to the only Queen of Heaven see therein, by souls who were as adamant as many Catholics in defending their blasphemous practice.
As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes... (Jeremiah 44:16-17)
Instead, to be as Mary is to sing,
And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. (Luke 1:46-47)
That is heretical, for Christ was God by nature before He took upon the body which God (as the Father, Son and Spirit) had prepared for Him, thru the holy virtuous Spirit-filled women called Mary.
But which did not provide anything Divine to Christ, and thus is to be distinguished from ontologically being the mother of God, and being the mother of the body of the Divine Christ, "according to the flesh," as the Holy Spirit clarifies as concerning Christ coming out of Israel. (Rm. 9:5)
True, but not as denying the virgin birth, which Bible Christians have strenuously defended to their commitment to Scriptural Truth, and likewise find no Scriptural warrant for perpetual Marian virginity (PMV) and sinlessness, and for Scripture not stating these exception to the norm, as the Holy Spirit characteristically does, and if anything, He infers the contrary to these claimed exceptions.
Lodge your complaint to the Protestant who is preaching what you claim is not Protestant theology.
I challenge you to cite anyone who has said she was not a virgin as recorded in Luke.
I also challenge you to show a unanimous consent among the ECFs that she was sinless.
You will not be able to do either.
Head on back to the caucus threads where your beliefs will not be challenged as few if any respond to your daily posts against your denomination's leader.
If referred to ontologically, versus "according to the flesh" as in the case of Israel providing Christ, (Rm. 9:5) a distinction which Catholics do not make in the same breath when exalting their own (unscriptural) Mary as a demigoddess, and which would mean that Jesus was the father of His mother.
An article from 2007? Are you that lonely you wanted to stir up conversation?
Do you think Mary’s other name was Semiramis? What about the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah?
Which means there are variants definitions of "Protestant." For Catholics, it is anyone who does not submit to Rome, thus creating a Unitarian, Scientologist, Swedenborgian, Mormonic, libertarian, leftist, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc. "Protestant" amalgamation. Which is akin to making Santeria to be Catholic, and or affirming the liberal definition of "Christian."
Then there is the definition which basis a definition on profession of basic distinctive beliefs, which as regards Protestant would mean holding Scripture as being the only supreme wholly inspired infallible standard for faith and morals, with its own manifest hermeneutic, and allowing for more refinement on that basis, while thus affirming other fundamentals such as salvation by faith, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, and basic beliefs such as the Apostle's Creed professes. Which eliminates both liberals and cults, while affirming historical Lutheranism as well as evangelical faith, the latter of which sees Lutheranism arrested form of the Reformation (which is not the work of one day or two, and with Luther himself progressively becoming less Catholic as regards traditions of men).
Then is a even more fundamental view which sees Baptists as preceding the Reformation..
However, the testimony of those who most strongly hold to the authority and integrity of Scripture has been that of attesting and showing far greater unity and commitment in basic beliefs, with a sea of individual interpretation being just what much of Catholicism is.
That was misleading, as if denying the virgin birth.
I also challenge you to show a unanimous consent among the ECFs that she was sinless.
They can respond that "unanimous" does not need to mean unanimous - in complete agreement - which it seems they were not in.
A bad translation which has lead to a whole bunch of bad theology.
I know! I've encountered this before from our RC friends.
And the disagreements of the ECFs on this issue were not "light" disagreements either.
You're making a distinction without a difference, as shown here:
In the New Testament, "Lord" is the Greek kurios, which simply means master, whether referring to God (Matthew 1:20), Jesus (Matthew 7:21), or a general authority (Matthew 18:27).
Well of course there's a difference...You just posted the difference...
kurios
koo'-ree-os
From κῦρος kuros (supremacy); supreme in authority, that is, (as noun) controller; by implication Mr. (as a respectful title): - God, Lord, master, Sir.
theos
theh'-os
Of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with G3588) the supreme Divinity; figuratively a magistrate; by Hebraism very: - X exceeding, God, god [-ly, -ward].
Lord CAN mean God or it can mean your brother in law...It is not a reference to deity, but authority...
Elizabeth did not recognize Mary as the mother of God...She (and the rest of the Jews) weren't looking for God...They were looking for a Messiah, a King...And Elizabeth knew Jesus was that king...
Messiah
mâshı̂yach
maw-shee'-akh
From H4886; anointed; usually a consecrated person (as a king, priest, or saint); specifically the Messiah: - anointed, Messiah.
And that's another distinction WITH a difference...
You're about 180 degrees out...The church doesn't create the body of Christ...The body of Christ of the Scriptures creates the church...
Christians are the adopted sons of God...We aren't born of any church or anyone's mother, other than our own...We are added to the church as we are saved...
Your religion has come up with so many flowery phrases to dupe the masses...
No: the similarity was that of the insistence on worshiping and making offerings to her despite holy reproof. And it remains that the only ones in Scripture who prayed/made supplication and offerings to someone else but God in the unseen world was pagans.
I’ve been curious about His Mother Mary, who my guess is the one human out of all humanity ever that He had/has the closest connection with.
They were linked together at His Conception, before His Birth, and from that moment on my guess is their connection was way beyond words.
And I am also curious about those who know Her now, as well as what they know.
Thanks, again, for helping me with that!
That's not what I claimed. Haven't taken those reading comprehension classes yet, I see.
Thank you.
Just because it is from 2007 makes it no more invalid than say writings from 2000 years ago.
Are you that lonely you wanted to stir up conversation?
On the contrary. I've spent the last 5 days camping with my grandkids. I need a break before we head out again. But, nice try.
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