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!"
Thanks for making my point:
kurios - God
You lie, blatantly: “Most protestants on this forum claim she was not a virgin ...” ebbtide
Amen!
Where the Bible states Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb, the meaning is the Jesus was implanted in her womb. When He implanted in her womb, she gave sustenance to His gestational life. She did not give Him life, she gave life support. Giving life to create an embryo is not what Mary did. Enlivening the Spirit within The Jesus is not what Mary did.
Catholics like vlad, Sal, ebb, and Hitan conflate, conveying the impression that Mary gave life to God so that the devilish mythos of Mary as Queen of Heaven (Semiramis anyone?) can be supported, albeit speciously.
God has no progenitor. He tells us I Am that I AM. The conflating of surrogate mothering with progenitor is devilish, and the truth of that conflating goes right over a Catholic head as evidenced on this forum.
See posts #33, 36, 43 and 53.
I’m not holding my breath for an apology from you.
Mary being blest or not has nothing to with sin...Mary being blest had nothing to do with Mary...It was all God's work...
It is so simple, I can't believe you guys don't get it...Or maybe you do but just deny it...
Why did God use a human body for the mother of Jesus when he could have just created a body for Jesus himself??? If Mary had been sinless which rubbed off on Jesus, Jesus couldn't have been the perfect sacrifice...
God can not sin...Jesus had to be capable of sinning...He had to be able to be tempted to sin...He had to get that nature from a human sinner...
ebb, you’re losin’ it, dude. NOTHING in those cited posts contradicts what I posted, so where you imagine those posts demand I apologize to you for the conflating you purposely do is, well, hilarious!
Aren't all of us God's work? Was not Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Jeffery Dahmer, etc. God's work?
We, including Mary, were all born with free will. And Mary exercised her free will at the Annuciation.
Finally, do you think God would choose a sinful vessel to become Man for our salvation?
Did you just learn a new word, “conflate”? It’s getting tiresome.
Finally, do you think God would choose a sinful vessel to become Man for our salvation?
The prophets, apostles and us are your so called sinful vessels. God has always used sinful vessels for his purposes.
Regarding free will. Do we have absolute free will or does God have absolute free will? We both cannot. So that means our “free will” is subject to God’s discretions. Did Israel have an say in being chosen by God? Did the prophets have any say in being chosen by God?
Jonah tried to not participate, didn’t work.
God is God and we are not. God is sovereign.
God commanded Mary and told her what was going to happen,
Your emphasis on FREE WILL needs further thinking.
You also need to do further reflection on what is “Gods Work” I don’t think you really know what it means.
Are you really serious? You think God is limited in what He can do?
How little faith.
How do you explain Lucifer?
This from someone who has studied both Hebrew and Greek and knows the Bible.
____________
As far as Mary goes, we know that no human being is anything but a creation of God. And God’s creation cannot beget an omniscient God creator. You were correct in saying that in referring to her as the mother of Jesus, the writers of the Bible were merely describing her.
Indeed, I would think that it is idolatry to believe that Mary is the mother of God as if she were equal to or a god herself. We have only one God. The Bible says Jesus set aside his divinity to become a man. And to become a man, he had to gestate and be born by a woman. That does not make the woman the mother of God as if she can of her own create a divine being; she is a servant of God (as she referred to herself), whom God used to beget Jesus. The Trinity is a difficult concept. As they are one, but each part of the Trinity is also distinguishable.
For example, Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, but God, the Father, did not die that day. Jesus died and God resurrected him. Therefore, clearly there is a distinction between Jesus, the Son of God, and God, the Father. So, we also can say that Mary is mother of one and not the other. But Jesus and the Father are also One. It is not something our human minds can fully grasp, but God gave us metaphors to try to help us understand. And the metaphor He gave us for Jesus is that he is the “Son of God” and God is the “Father.” to help us understand that there is a distinction, but they are also One.
Mary is not referred as the “Mother” in the way God is called the “Father,” but she is simply the “mother of Jesus.” She is never referred to as part of the Trinity or is somehow equal to it. But Jesus referred to God as his Father, clearly making a distinction between himself in the form of the Son of God and God, the Father. Indeed, God himself distinguished himself from his Son at the transfiguration when he said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Was He simply speaking aloud and referring to Himself? No, of course not. To believe that Jesus and God are the same for all purposes is to ignore how Jesus and God referred to themselves.
It is only sophistry to try to make Mary out to be the mother of God, the Father, as if she is somehow equal to or grater than God. Indeed, if you want to engage in such sophistry, then when at the time of his death, Jesus declared that Mary was now John’s mother and John was now Mary’s son, this may have been Jesus’s way of removing himself from the earthly mother/son relationship and restoring himself to his divine role as that of a member of the Trinity, but in a way to indicate that Mary was not a part of that divine nature. I’m not saying whether this is why he said this to Mary and John, but I could see an argument for it to avoid people declaring that Mary was somehow more than human or was part of the divine. Maybe he was aware that this was a risk.
It most certainly did because she knew the difference between God and King...If she had meant God she would have said theos and not kyrios...Elizabeth did not recognize Jesus (in the womb) as the God of creation...
We can either accept the Catholic deception or we can read and understand the bible...Neither Elizabeth nor anyone else was looking for God to show up in the flesh...They were looking and waiting for the promised King/Lord/Messiah to lead in the promised physical kingdom...And THAT is whom Elizabeth became aware of..
The diety of Jesus was not the human flesh...His flesh was made in the fashion of a man...The flesh of Jesus could never have made it to heaven...It would have burned up traveling thru the atmosphere...And THAT's the part of Jesus that Mary was the mother of...
And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars:
And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered.
And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns: and on his head seven diadems:
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son.
And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne.
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they should feed her a thousand two hundred sixty days.
And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels:
Do you see any difference between Lucifer and protestants? Did not Lucifer protest the Blessed Mother as the protestants do?
And Lucifer had a superior intellect than any human.
There is no where in the bible where Lucifer protested the blest mother of Jesus...And I don't ever recollect seeing where Protestants protested the blest mother of Jesus...What we protest is the Catholic religion turning the blest mother of Jesus into a demi-Goddess...And those who put her on that pedestal are pagans...
x
Kyrios is *lord*.
God is *theos*.
Elizabeth used *lord - kyrios* not *God - theos*.
She did no such thing. She was given instructions, not asked permission.
The angel told her how it was going to be. She had no choice in the matter.
Absolutely.
He shared fully in our humanity and was tempted in every way just as we are.
Having to grow up in a normal big family as the firstborn to normal sinful parents ensured that He experienced just about every temptation we go through.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.