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To: MrClose
Scripture says that "Flesh and Bone" CANNOT enter the Kingdom of Heaven!

Which is what makes it all the more astounding that Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven. God makes the rules, you know.

171 posted on 02/25/2007 10:24:12 AM PST by Tanniker Smith (A husband is what's left of a sweetheart after the nerve has been killed. -- Lou Costello)
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To: Tanniker Smith

Martin Luter's Devotion to Mary


In his sermon of August 15, 1522, the last time he preached on the Feast of the Assumption, he stated:

There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know. And since the Holy Spirit has told us nothing about it, we can make of it no article of faith…It is enough to know that she lives in Christ.

Luther held to the idea and devotional practice of the veneration of Mary and expressed this on innumerable occasions with the most effusive language:

The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart. (Sermon, September 1, 1522).

[She is the] highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ…She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. Still honor and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures. (Sermon, Christmas, 1531).

No woman is like you. You are more than Eve or Sarah, blessed above all nobility, wisdom, and sanctity. (Sermon, Feast of the Visitation, 1537).

One should honor Mary as she herself wished and as she expressed it in the Magnificat. She praised God for his deeds. How then can we praise her? The true honor of Mary is the honor of God, the praise of God’s grace…Mary is nothing for the sake of herself, but for the sake of Christ…Mary does not wish that we come to her, but through her to God. (Explanation of the Magnificat, 1521).

Luther goes even further, and gives the Blessed Virgin the exalted position of "Spiritual Mother" for Christians, much the same as in Catholic piety:

It is the consolation and the superabundant goodness of God, that man is able to exult in such a treasure. Mary is his true Mother, Christ is his brother, God is his father. (Sermon, Christmas, 1522) Mary is the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of us even though it was Christ alone who reposed on her knees…If he is ours, we ought to be in his situation; there where he is, we ought also to be and all that he has ought to be ours, and his mother is also our mother. (Sermon, Christmas, 1529).




and there is a whole lot more at: http://www.chnetwork.org/journals/mary/mary_5.htm


208 posted on 02/25/2007 9:57:17 PM PST by Danette ("If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.")
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