Posted on 05/29/2023 5:05:01 PM PDT by MurphsLaw
John 19:25-34
Friends, today we celebrate the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Mother of the Church.
We hear in today’s Gospel that,
as he was dying on the cross,
Jesus looked to his mother and the disciple whom he loved,
and he said to Mary,
“Woman, behold, your son,”
and then to John,
“Behold, your mother.”
We are told that “from that hour the disciple took her into his home.”
If Mary is the one through whom Christ was born,
and if the Church is indeed Christ’s Mystical Body,
then she must be, in a very real sense,
the Mother of the Church.
She is the one through whom Jesus continues
to be born in the hearts of those who believe.
This is not to confuse her with the Savior,
but it is to insist on her mission as mediator and intercessor.
At the close of the great “Hail Mary” prayer,
we Catholics ask Mary to pray for us
“now and at the hour of our death,”
signaling that throughout one’s life Mary is the privileged channel
through which the grace of Christ flows into the Mystical Body.
God delights in drawing secondary causes
into the dense complexity of his providential plan,
granting to them the honor of cooperating with him and his designs.
The handmaid of the Lord, who is the Mother of the Church,
is the humblest of these humble instruments—
and therefore the most effective.
Now since it was preparation day,
in order that the
bodies might not remain on the
cross on the sabbath,
for the sabbath day
of that week was a solemn one,
the Jews asked
Pilate that their legs be broken
and they be taken
down.
So the soldiers came and broke
the legs of the first
and then of the
other one who was crucified with Jesus.
But when they came to Jesus
and saw that he was already dead,
they did not break
his legs,
but one soldier
thrust his lance into his side,
and immediately
Blood and water flowed out.+++
Watch this space.
Jesus entrusted the care of His mother to John, not the Church.
Mary was the mother of Jesus, not the Church.
The Church is the bride of Christ. It would be incestuous for Christ and His bride to have the same mother.
Galatians 4:26 NKJV
But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.
That sounds like a personal attack, doesn’t it?
Jesus entrusted the care of His mother to John, not the Church.
The Scripture of Calvary puts Mary at the foot of the Cross.
From the Catechism we read:
“There (Calvary) she became the Mother of the Church
when she “accepted her Son's testament of love
and welcomed all people in the person of the beloved disciple
as sons and daughters to be reborn unto life eternal.”
This.
The refusal of some within Christianity to renounce and repent of exalting Mary beyond measure is a major reason the reformation was and is necessary.
Mary was and is a godly example of what a Christian woman should be. For this reason, she would never countenance anyone bowing to her or her image, supplicating to her now in her heavenly abode, or attributing to her attributes reserved only to God alone. Songs of adoration for her in the church would be abhorrent to her.
Like the apostles and angels who men have been tempted to bow down to, she would reprove anyone who did this in her presence. The only reason she does not openly and strongly condemn such directly is that she remains safely in Heaven awaiting the final judgment as all who are with her do.
Acts 10:25-26 NKJV
As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I myself am also a man.”
Acts 14:11-15 NKJV
Now when the people saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” And Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.”
Revelation 22:8-9 NKJV
Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Then he said to me, “See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
I John 5:21 NKJV
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
Mary had the privilege of being the vessel by which the Savior was brought into the world because she was chosen among all women for this singular role. Yet, like her, through the Holy Spirit, all who believe in Him become partakers of His resurrected body and, like Mary, experience the indwelling of Christ.
Colossians 1:27 NKJV
To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Matthew 12:46-50 NKJV
While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.” But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
Those who don't learn that, intentionally or not,
are missing out.
Here we go again.
Please do research before posting because even Mad Marty honored Mary.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/mary-mother-of-god
It is good to study people of the Bible. That is why they are included in scripture. But when their exaltation detracts from Christ, God corrects this error:
Luke 9:28-36 NKJV
Now it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, that He took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening. And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep; and when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men who stood with Him. Then it happened, as they were parting from Him, that Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were fearful as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” When the voice had ceased, Jesus was found alone. But they kept quiet, and told no one in those days any of the things they had seen.
Do you see? Peter put Elijah and Moses in the same category as Jesus and God dramatically corrected this error. It says he said this in ignorance.
The Bible spends MUCH more time talking about the lives of Elijah and Moses than it does about Mary, yet it is obvious they are not in the same category as Jesus. No one is. Not Mary. No one.
When particular churches include her in prayer, hymns, offerings of incense and flowers, and constantly circling back to her as a topic rather than the ONE who ALL scripture is about—Jesus—then it has become idolatry. That’s something better missed out on along with the condemnation and judgment of God that go with it.
One and only one man accomplished the redemption of fallen mankind: Jesus of Nazareth. Not Paul. Not Peter. Not Elijah. Not Moses. Not Mary. 100% Jesus. 0% anyone else.
Philippians 2:10-11 NKJV
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Acts 4:12 NKJV
Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
NO ONE BUT JESUS. NOT MARY. JESUS IS LORD AND SAVIOR.
Look what Jesus said about John the Baptist:
Matthew 11:11 NKJV
Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Was Mary born of a woman? Yes, she was. This means that Jesus said John is greater than His mother Mary. Yet look at what John said about Jesus:
John 1:26-30 NKJV
John answered them, saying, “I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.” These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.’”
John 3:30-36 NKJV
He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
Obedience to the Gospel allows us, formerly enemies of God, to be brought into a relationship with Him and His Son, Christ Jesus. We are NOT brought into a relationship with Mary. Mary is dead. Her soul is in Heaven, awaiting the resurrection like all believers who sleep in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:16-18 NKJV
Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
“Christ loved his Mother, like no other...
Those who don’t learn that, intentionally or not, are missing out.”
You seek to ADD something to Christ. Anyone who has Christ is not missing out by not involving Mary in their prayers and worship. Christ plus nothing.
Colossians 2:8-10 NKJV
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
This is what you’re doing here. You’re relying on the traditions of men and setting aside the word of God to keep your traditions. Believers are complete in Christ. Not Mary. Not anyone else.
Matthew 15:3-9 NKJV
He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
I have proper regard for Mary and other godly examples found in the Bible.
I do not need Christ plus Mary. I do not need to have a relationship with Mary or any other dead saint.
As I pointed out how the scripture makes this exceedingly clear in the previous post, the inclusion of Mary and other saints in worship and prayer is totally contrary to the commands of God which are being continuously disregarded to keep the traditions of men.
You make shrines for her which is FAR more than Peter wanted to do for Elijah and Moses (NOT KNOWING WHAT HE SAID), yet you ignore the reproof he received and the correction: THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, HEAR HIM.
Your religion teaches people to speak to Mary in prayer, to sing her praises, to make images of her supposed likeness, to bow down to these images, to pray toward them, to offer to those images incense and flowers, and even to devote the bread of the Lord’s supper to these idols rather than Christ who gave His body and blood. The stench of this idolatry has reached to heaven and its foul smell will bring the wrath of God on the false religion of Babylon disguised as Christianity, and Babylon will be swallowed up in the depths of Hell. True worshippers of Christ will “Come out of her my people...”
Revelation 18:4-5 NKJV
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”
To be clear, this applies to the false religion of Babylon that infiltrates all of the religions of the world, including Christianity, and all of its denominations. I’m not just picking on one of them. But it so happens that the sin of idolatry is a major aspect of this false religion that has corrupted Christianity. It cannot be swept under the rug. God will NOT share His glory with anyone else.
Isaiah 42:8 NKJV
I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.
Nope, you obviously don’t know about the Catholic Church, the one true faith.
Please read more than a Jack Chick tract, such as Catholic sources.
I read the text at your link. Here’s an excerpt:
“All three [Marian] doctrines do indeed have biblical support—though, as I argue in my new book The Obscurity of Scripture, Catholics need to be wary of how they employ such evidence, lest they imply to their Protestant interlocutors that only Scripture is an authoritative source for Christian doctrine. Doing so effectively gives rhetorical ground to Protestants, given that as Catholics, we do not accept sola Scriptura.”
This is pretty much what I said in the previous post. Scripture claims to be authoritative. Scripture records both Old Testament prophecy and Christ own words condemning the practice of allowing tradition to usurp the commands of God found in scripture. And that’s exactly what you’re doing.
The Catholic Church has stood firm on some biblical doctrines when many Protestant churches strayed. For example, in the area of sexual immorality and abortion, Catholic doctrine has remained unchanged even when many Christian denominations turned their backs on God.
But the reason we hold to doctrines about sexual purity and abortion is not because of tradition but because of the Bible. “You shall not murder” covers all kinds of murder, whether it is by poisoning, strangling, shooting, stabbing, or when it applies to ripping a baby apart in his or her mother’s womb.
And this is exactly why the commands against idolatry apply to Hindus and Buddhists who make prayers toward and offer incense to images, and they apply to well-meaning Catholics who do similar acts to images supposedly in the likeness of Mary, other saints, and angels. I’ve given plenty of scripture on what and why. Yet you prefer fidelity to your traditions rather than the commands of God.
When Peter wanted to make shrines for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, he was reproved. When people wanted to bow before apostles and holy angels, or make sacrifices to them, they were reproved. Bowing to images, praying to them, and making offerings to them are always condemned in the Bible. There is not one example of anyone being directed by God to do so.
2 Kings 18:3-4 NKJV
And [Hezekiah] did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.
Even though God commanded Moses to make the bronze serpent, it had to be destroyed because it had been turned into an idol. According to scripture, Hezekiah did the right thing. Yet some refuse to heed the command of God against idolatry, choosing rather to give it some other name than the scripture gives it.
I’m going by the Bible, not Chick tracts.
You’re basing your defense of idolatry on tradition.
Is it untrue that the Catholic Church approves of, financially supports, and instructs Catholics to bow and pray toward images of Mary, other saints and angels? Are not offerings of incense, food, and flowers made toward images of Mary as practices sanctioned by the Catholic Church?
This explains it perfectly.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/dulia-hyperdulia-and-mary
Btw your so called reformers such as Mad Marty supported Marian doctrine.
I’m not Lutheran. I seek to understand and follow the Bible. Traditions and history not found in the Bible may be helpful to understand the context of what is written, but these do not supersede the authority of the Bible.
Your link merely justifies and excuses the scandalous practices while avoiding many of the specific violations I provided examples of.
“The Catholic Church teaches that God alone is worthy of worship — and that devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.”
You likewise skipped over answering the specific examples I provided. I can fully and appropriately honor Mary as an important figure in the Bible and the works of God without doing ANY of the practices that your church not only permits but demands of its adherents. The Bible devotes only a small amount of information to the subject of Mary, and the centrality of Mary is in no way supported by the scriptures. Even John the Baptist, according to Christ, was greater than Mary.
Again, do you and your church not advocate the following?
1. Making and maintaining images of the supposed likeness of Mary.
2. Bowing to said images.
3. Praying toward said images.
4. Offering incense to said images.
5. Offering flowers to said images.
6. Singing hymns praising Mary.
7. Dedicating the bread and cup of the Lord’s supper to Mary.
8. Building shrines in honor of Mary.
9. Doing similar things for other saints and angels.
10. Teaching that these are essential (or, as the above article says, “intrinsic”) practices of the Christian faith.
The church is not infallible. It is made of fallible people who are capable of sin. Revelation 2 and 3 call several churches to repent. Idolatry is specifically mentioned in 2:14. There are consequences for stubborn unrepentance.
Your just straw-manning Marian devotion.
The Church venerates Mary as a Saint-
NOT Worship- and not put ahead of or equal to the Triune Godhead.
Those are just lies of men use to disparage the Virgin and her Church.
As Mother Teresa aptly noticed...
"No Mary, No Jesus...
“Whose Bible you want to study from? Which translation of the many Bibles our there?”
I go by the Textus Receptus. If scholarly research could possibly show that there exists historical evidence for very minor corrections to be made to this body of texts, I am open to the possibility. But, generally speaking, the identity of the canon of scripture has long been settled. The specific canon of books is almost entirely identifiable from within the text itself, but history confirms this and, more so, the Holy Spirit confirms God’s word.
Most of us read and study scripture in our native language. Thus translations are helpful. I prefer the New King James but was raised studying, learning, and memorizing from the King James. There is not much in the way of doctrinal difference between the more popular translations, but I don’t care for the higher criticism that arose in the 1800s that tended to undermine the received text.
But the scripture are inherently powerful. Christ said even though heaven and earth pass away, His words would not. God created all things by the power of His word. His word can not be destroyed. See Hebrews 1:2, 4:12, Isaiah 55:11, Jeremiah 23:29, and Matthew 24:35.
The Word is accessible:
Romans 10:8 NKJV
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach)
It is the job of the Holy Spirit who indwells believers to guide us in what is the correct meaning of the Bible:
John 16:13 NKJV
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
1 John 2:27 NKJV
But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
I would rather have the Holy Spirit teach me than a clergyman who does not even have the Spirit. If they had the anointing John spoke of, they would be taught by God directly and would not continue in the abhorrent practices forbidden by the Word of God.
“Your just straw-manning Marian devotion.”
I described 10 practices forbidden by God that are practiced by those who claim it is “Marian devotion” and set aside the commands of God to keep manmade customs and traditions.
Is your Mary the true Mary of the Bible? Is your Jesus the true Jesus of the Bible?
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 NKJV
But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!
Mary did not tell people to follow the traditions of men. She told people to obey her Son Jesus. If you truly want to honor Mary you would listen to what she said.
John 2:5 NKJV
His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
It is better to obey than to worship God as we see fit.
I Samuel 15:22 NKJV
So Samuel said: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.”
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