Posted on 05/05/2002 11:30:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
by Mark Shea
How I Changed My Mind About Mary
5/6/02
It once seemed perfectly obvious to me that Catholics honored Mary too much. All those feasts, rosaries, icons, statues and whatnot were ridiculously excessive. Yes, the gospel of Luke said something about her being "blessed" and yes I thought her a good person. But that was that.
No Mary, No Salvation
People who celebrated her or called her "Mother" or did all the million things which Catholic piety encourages bordered on idolatry. It was all too much. Jesus, after all, is our Savior, not Mary.
However, after looking at the gospel of Luke afresh and thinking more and more about the humanity of Jesus Christ, some things dawned on me. For it turns out that Luke said more than "something" about Mary. He reports that God was conceived in her womb and thereby made a son of Adam! This means more than merely saying that Mary was an incubator unit for the Incarnation. It means that the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity derives his humanity--all of it--from her! Why does this matter? Because the entire reason we are able to call Jesus "savior" at all is because the God who cannot die became a man who could die. And he chose to do it through Mary's free "yes" to him. No Mary, no human nature for Christ. No human nature for Christ, no death on the cross. No death, no resurrection. No resurrection, no salvation. Without Mary, we are still in our sins.
Too Much vs. Just Enough
This made me see Mary very differently. The Incarnation is vastly more than God zipping on a disposable man-suit. He remains man eternally. Therefore, his joining with the human race through the womb of Mary means (since he is the savior of us all), that she is the mother of us all (John 19:27). Moreover, it means that her remarkable choice to say "Yes" to the Incarnation was not merely a one-time incident, it was an offering of her own heart to God and us. Her heart was pierced by the sword that opened the fountain of blood and water in Christ's human heart, for it was she who, by the grace of God, gave him that heart (Luke 2:35; John 19:34).
Seeing this, I began to wonder again: If Catholics honor Mary "too much", where did we Evangelicals honor her "just enough." Mary herself said "henceforth, all generations will call me blessed." When was the last time I had heard a contemporary Christian tune on the radio sung in honor of Mary? Or a prayer in church to extol her? How about a teensy weensy bit of verse or a little article in some magazine singling out Mary as blessed among women? Aside from "Silent Night" was there anything in Evangelical piety which dared to praise her for even a moment? I was an Evangelical for seven years and I never saw so much as a dram of it.
St. Luke? Is That You?</>
So the question became for me, "How could we talk about something being 'excessive' when we had virtually no experience of it ourselves?" What if it was we Evangelicals who were excessive in our horror of Marian piety and Catholics who are normal? Judging from the witness of the early Fathers and even of Martin Luther (who had a very robust Marian devotion and whose tomb is decorated with an illustration of the Assumption of the Virgin into Heaven) it seemed to me that it was we Evangelicals who were excessive in our fear of her rather than Catholics who were excessive in their devotion.
"Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."
There. That didn't hurt a bit. In fact, I think I heard St. Luke pray it too!
You seem to believe that God lives in time. Once He foreordains something, He is bound from that time forward. God lives in eternity, not time. Mary was redeemed by the foreseen merits of her Divine Son. That is why she is "full of grace." God is not limited by time. Mary was not just a foreordained vessel. She was, and is, a human being with a free will. God knew her response, of course, but He did not force her to make it. All men ought to thank her for saying yes to God.
We probably never will agree on these issues, but perhaps we can agree to pray for each other. May God go with you.
Somewhat similarly, in John, Jesus is described as dwelling among us, "Full of grace and truth". While Stephen is full of grace only in the context of the works he has wrought(through God's power) Jesus is full of grace merely in the act of being (ie-dwelling among us). Mary's nominative fullness of grace is also not related to any works she has performed and is a "state" similar to Jesus' and distinct from Stephen's.
Steve, Gabriel's statement to Mary is very plain to me. She is full of grace. Elizabeth's statement under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is also plain to me: She is the "Mother of My Lord(God)". Mary is the sinless Mother of God. Jesus loves her. I love her. How do you feel about her?
No Mary, no human nature for Christ. No human nature for Christ, no death on the cross. No death, no resurrection. No resurrection, no salvation. Without Mary, we are still in our sins.
These statements are absolutely staggering! Read that last sentence again, folks!! THAT says it all about the effect of the Catholic Church's emphasis on Mary rather than Jesus and says much about the beliefs of the poor poster of this thread.
I think it was babylonian who said praying to Mary is as effective as praying to a doorpost, and I couldn't agree more and would add praying to saints (the ones who've been elevated by the Catholic Church beyond the scripture's promises that all believers are saints of God and that we're joint heirs with Christ.
Also, I believe there were 5 "sola's," which should be taken together IMHO: Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, and Sola Deo Gloria.
God is able to make His grace abound toward all of us!
I am glad to hear that you love Mary. I do too. So does the Lord. In saying it, though, you seem to feel the need to qualify it by saying you love Paul, Moses and David too. So did Jesus. Agreed. Question: Do you love these individuals more than you love your own mother? or your children? Do you love those you have never known more than those to whom you have been closest? You cannot mean to suggest that Jesus loved Paul, Moses and others as much as His own Mother, who raised Him and Cared for Him for 30 years?
I ask everyone to pray for me, both the living and those who have fallen asleep. But I know the prayers of the righteous are dearer to God, as witness Job, whose prayers God demanded in order not to punish his friends, who had told him to curse God. I pray to Mary because I know she is close to Jesus, closer than you and closer than me.
The Good Calvinist that I am will tell you that same irrestible grace works in the heart of all of Gods elect..God selected her THEN he gave her the grace. Why did He select her..???? His own good purposes....nothing in her.Remember the scripture that God chose the foolish things of this world?
I have been told I get to the point a bit too quick sometimes :>)
yes I agree that is a scary statement..it does indeed make Mary the saviour...People need to read their Bibles .How did Jesus view his mom?
Mat 12:48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
Mat 12:49 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
Mat 12:50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, and Sola Deo Gloria.
Do you take her word over the word of God..didn't you tell me God did not HAVE to uses Mary..now you say no Mary no Jesus?
Mother Teresa also said
Mother Teresa said, "He [God] is our father, He is father to us all whatever religion we are" (Meditations From A Simple Path, p. 6).
and,
Mother Teresa, and those who worked with her, never tried to convert to Christ the dying people for whom they cared. Instead, "Mother" Teresa declared: "If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are. ... What God is in your mind you must accept" (from Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work, by Desmond Doig, p. 156).
"These people are waiting to die. What are you telling them to prepare them for death and eternity? She replied candidly, 'We tell them to pray to their Bhagwan, to their gods.'"
Do you also agreee with all of this?
I think she was a compassionate lady but her words do not point to Christ!
The sad part of all this, RNMomof7, is that we are so close, but yet so far apart.
As the daughter of a (once)staunch Protestant father and a devout Catholic mother, I might have a bit of a more enlightened perspective on how these disagreements play out in real life.
The truth of the matter is that, despite Catholic tradition, the Bible does NOT say Mary was conceived sinless. On the other hand, there is nothing to prove she was conceived a sinner, either. Even if we have to resort to the argument about the verse that "all men are sinners." Well, St. Stephen was a man. Mary was not.
But let's not try to count how many angels dance on the head of a pin.
The concept of the Immaculate Conception came about after a Marian apparition to St. Catherine Laboure, in the Rue de Bac, in Paris, in 1830. Read the story here.
It was the first in a series of Marian apparitions in France in the nineteenth century, the most famous of which occurred at Lourdes, about 27 years later. If you recall the movie "Song of Bernadette," you might remember that Bernadette Soubirous spoke patois, had virtually no education, never left her village, and could never have heard the term "Immaculate Conception." The local priests had never heard it either, and were amazed to hear such a thing coming from the mouth of an impoverished teen-ager. It became official Catholic doctrine several years later.
But I know that won't convince my Protestant friends.If you don't believe Mary was conceived without sin, you probably don't believe she was appearing to anyone, either, at least as a messenger from God.
No one can be converted, or "saved" if you want to call it that, without the grace of God. Mother Teresa understood her mission, as well as the lesson the British learned in Ireland: that it impossible to convert a people from the religion they were born to if they aren't open to conversion, and/or without the direct intervention of God.
She simply showed mercy instead.
Mary, and I speak only from my own experience, is WAY beyond us, in terms of purity and holiness, and yet closer to us, in a sense, than God, because of her pure humanity. She was a daughter of God, because of her immaculate nature, and a mother of God, and that unique role is what makes her so special to so many Catholics.
For the Protestants -- many Catholics believe that the verse about "putting enmity between you and the woman" means that in the last days, there will be a HUGE attack against the Blessed Mother, and the Catholic Church, and that she will crush the attack with her heel.
For the Catholics,(and the Protestants, too) read the thread on my homepage entitled "Lux Mundi -- a Word to the Scoffers,Secularists and the Discouraged."
It is long, but it is worth the read.
Btw, my father, who served as an assistant chaplain in WWII, said he only decided to marry my mother, despite opposition from his family, after a strange incident he experienced while driving through a tunnel. He said he saw a flash of light, and a beautiful woman who told him "It will be all right."
And it was. Plenty of problems, but no divorces, no violence, no arrests, no alcoholism, no illegal drug addiction, no injuries from horrible accidents, thank God and Jesus. And all three adult children (and grand children) still go to church every Sunday, which is pretty unusual for Catholic families of that era. It took him 35 years to convert, but my father eventually did, although he had some real difficulties going to confession, and giving up meat on Fridays in Lent.
My father died three years ago, and I miss him very much, because he taught me just as much about God and Jesus as my mother, and I love both my parents for that, and God, and Jesus, and yes, Mary as well.
Because if it wasn't for Mary, I might not be here.
Since Jesus Himself said, "I and my Father are One", I believe that God cannot be subdivided either. God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has a unique relationship with Mary. She is the daughter that God the Father showed to the serpent in the garden of Eden with the promise that her offspring would crush his head. She is the Mother of God the Son, who gave Him His sacred humanity. She is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, who overshadowed her at the Annunciation and again at Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. How could God not love her more? He has done more for her and she has done more for Him.
As far as your Greek distinctions, I believe I am right. You'll have to check with a scholar, though, because i don't fill the bill. Even if I were not, the fact that the Church has defined the dogama of the Immaculate COnception would be enough for me to believe it, even if it did not make logical sense (ie-Why would God, if He could choose His own mother, which He could, not choose the Holiest Mother He could, that is: one who was sinless) Of course He would and Of course He did. Have a great day.
The passage you cite in response to another post, Matthew 12:48-50, is frequently cited, by those who detest Mary, as evidence that Jesus had no more regard for her than anyone else in the crowd. If you really believe that, you must think Jesus paid little attention to the Decalogue, number 4, to be precise. What Jesus said was actually a high compliment to Our Lady. "Whoever does the will of my Father is brother and sister and mother to me." No creature ever did the will of the Father more perfectly than Mary. She completely fulfilled God's will in her life to such an extent that He called her "Full of Grace". I don't find that scary at all. Neither did the protestant poet Wordsworth, who called Mary "our tainted nature's solitary boast."
As I told you earlier, God ould have chosen to redeem the human race in any number of ways. He could have chosen to become man in any number of ways. He did not have to be born. He chose to come to us through Mary. I choose to go to Him in the same way He came to me, through Mary.
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