Posted on 12/08/2005 9:35:44 AM PST by NYer
To clarify a few things, from a Protestant perspective.
We don't think of Mary as the Mother of God. We think of her as the human vessel who gave birth to God's Son in human form. So, I guess she could be viewed as the mother of God since Jesus was God incarnate, but to call her the Mother of God sounds like she gave birth to God who is eternal, and therefore preexisted God. It's confusing.
We don't pray to the saints. In fact, we consider all Christians to be saints. I don't think of Moses as a "saint" as in someone more special than anyone else who believed in God and obeyed him. Certainly, he was chosen by God to carry out some exceptional plans. But I wouldn't pray to him, or ask him to pray for me. I do ask friends to pray for me, but maybe that's different because they're here on earth right now and are visible to me.
When Mary said all would call her blessed, sure we think she's blessed. But aren't we all blessed by God, some in big ways and some in more ordinary ways? I consider myself blessed. I have been chosen by God for his purposes, to do his will. Although my life probably isn't worth writing about, any small thing I do for God is still helping to glorify Him.
So, I think of Mary more as a "sister in Christ" just as I would think of a friend, or Paul, or John Wesley as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Just some thoughts. Hope you find this interesting. :-)
NYer>Maryiam is the Mother of God. Do you suppose God, who is perfect, chose to enter this world through a sinful woman?
I do not presume to tell G-d what He must or must not do; that would be blasphemy.
Miriam like everyone that accept Y'shua
can cover or remove sin from their life.
Y'shua lives in each of us after we accept Him,
does that mean we had an Immaculate Conception?
b'shem Y'shua
You not only are ignorant, you are tacky.
No, you misunderstand: that she was preserved from original sin (which means lacking original righteousness) and supplied with the original righteousness with which Adam and Eve were created, was by the power of Christ's redemption of the human race. Without her redemption through the Son she bore, she would have been born with original sin (defective righteousness) as all other sons and daughters of Eve are.
The Catholic Church teaches that God preserved Mary from the stain of sin by a singular act of His grace in anticipation of the atonement of Christ (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 491). Why? If Mary is the New Eve (the "woman" cooperating with the work of redemption), it is fitting that she be without sin as was the "old (pre-fallen) Eve." Eve made her decision against God with a will that was unencumbered by sin. It is therefore fitting that the new Eve made her decision for God unencumbered by sin. But the old Eve sinned and brought death to herself and her offspring. The new Eve brings life by her obedience to God’s plan. Is it unreasonable to say that God, for the purposes of fulfilling His plan, preserved Mary from sin in anticipation of Christ’s atonement? Keep in mind that God obviously regenerated Mary in anticipation of Christ’s merits (Luke 1). God also regenerated Abraham, obviously in anticipation of Christ (Genesis 15:6, Hebrews 11:8, et al). The same could be said of David, Elijah, Noah, etc., etc.
Yes, she did. She was preserved from original sin in anticipation of the salvific act of Christ on the cross. Without the cross, she could not have attained heaven either, because she would have had no benefit, anticipatory or otherwise, from Calvary.
She was, literally, a livng Ark of the Covenant for nine months. She carried the Word made Flesh in her womb. The Old Testament ark, so richly embellished as described in Exodus 25, was made as it was because it bore the Word of God in the form of the Ten Commandments. But this also was a prefigurement of Mary's future role. Many people read Revelation 12:1-6 and suppose that Mary is being referred to, and they are correct in doing so. But notice what is described *immediately* before these verses: "the ark of his covenant" (Rev. 11:19). Remember that, in the original text, there were *no* divisions into chapters and verses. An artificial separation appears dividing the end of chapter 11 from the beginning of chapter 12. In the original, they are part of a whole, perfectly self-contained in context.
Mary is NOT God. It's amazing that, no matter how many times we Catholics deny the charge, here on FR or elsewhere, we are continually accused of worshiping Mary and calling her divine. She is a *creature*, just like the angels, the saints, us, the animals, the plants and plain ol' dirt. But, would you say that an angel is more exalted in creation than a lump of mud? Are YOU more valuable than a worm? You already know the answers to these questions. But contained in the questions is a valuable point: there is a hierarchy to God's material creation just as there is in His spiritual creation (the angels). Mary is exalted above the rest of us, because she was the sinless God-bearer literally fulfilling the role of the Ark, only she did not merely carry a representative of God's word, she carried GOD Himself.
You deny, of course, that she was sinless. Nothing in the Bible *explicitly* says she was, so she couldn't be, etc. This underscores one of the problems with Sola Scriptura. You completely ignore the witness of the Church through history in matters not specifically addressed in Scripture. The only bridge between the time of Christ and our own, in terms of visible church structure, consists in the existence of the Catholic/Orthodox Churches. BOTH of them have continuous, uninterrupted and profound histories of veneration of Mary and the other saints. NEITHER of them has ever worshiped Mary or the saints as part of the Godhead. But isn't their combined witness in this matter telling? Protestantism is a Johnny-come-lately to this issue, and has jettisoned consideration of it, as it has jettisoned consideration of any teaching not specifically found in the Bible. But it misses so much in doing so! How arrogant for it to assume that the two elder witnesses to the constant teaching of the Church have no idea what proper Christian teaching is!
You balk at these things, not because they are wrong, but because they simply are not part of your *own* tradition. But, in rejecting the teaching authority of the Church, which predates the first word written in the New Testament, you reject, in reality, any credible and authoritative link to Christ's will for His future followers. Has it ever occured to you to ponder the witness of the only two groups who can claim apostolicity that have survived to the present? What if they ARE right about this and other issues?
Your situation is similar to being a Canadian and deciding that this or that phrasing of the US Constitution is "wrong" and needs fixing. But you do not have proper standing, even if you find things that are less than ideal in the wording!
You had better be *sure* that you're right in such matters as the one discussed here on this thread. For you to be right, there has to be a (minimum)1400 year gap, from the time of the last Apostle, where error was taught to the Christian believers. That puts little faith in Divine Providence, or the plain words of Matthew 28:18-20. If that 1400 year gap does *not* exist, you are on the wrong side of the issues. Without benefit of the Sacraments taught and dispensed throughout the 2000 year history of the Church, you will only have the uncertain supposition that God will honor your honest intentions with mercy to fall back on.
And that is of course true. But rather than dispute meanings here, let me simply say that when I pray to Mary (and I have done so usually in addition to direct prayer to Christ), what I am asking for is that she join her very powerful voice to mine: "pray for us who have recourse to thee".
That quote from Proverbs is actually one of the verses we cite for the idea of intercessory prayer. I.e. if the prayer of a righteous availeth much before God, then even more so those Christians that are purified in heaven already and have no stain of sin attached to them. I realized that you may not believe that earthly Church can communicate with the Church in heaven. But supposing you did (and we do!), it would be a natural extension of asking folks to pray for you.
You were right when you wrote, "since Jesus was God incarnate" "she could be viewed as the Mother of God." Why not stop there? It's simply a fact. And the negative you add does not necessarily follow: she was human and gave birth to a divine Person, the Second Person of the Trinity. When a human mother gives birth to a human child, the mother preexists the child. But even you would agree that this was not a merely human child, that the prexistent Word by uniting with the human nature provided by his mother, came into a new union-existence (called the hypostatic union) but did not come into His own Existence at that point. Mary preexisted the hypostatic union, yes, because it was her body and her will (cooperating with God's eternal design) that made this union possible.
If that to which Mary gave birth was the Eternal God incarnate then it has two aspects: it is the Eternal God and it is incarnate. Mary as mother did not preexist the God aspect but did prexist the incarnate aspect becaues this is an in - carnation, something that has a beginning in time even though the Person who is here incarnated is eternal and always existed. His Incarnation did not always exist.
This illustrates the fact that most Protestant objects to veneration of Mary result from never really thinking the issues through. What you view as a telling argument against Mary as Mother of God actually underscores how real the incarnation was: If God truly became incarnate in time through a birth, then God had to have a mother in time. When we say "Mary Mother of God" we do not say Mary Eternal Mother of God but Mother of God. Of course it's a stupendous miracle and mystery that a mere woman becomes mother of the Eternal God but no more stupendous than the claim, which you Protestants share with us Catholics and Orthodox, that God the Worde truly became incarnate, in time, from a mother.
Apologies then, because Father Clarence was dead wrong and a better informed priest would never say such balderdash. Praying to saints is in addition to, not exclusive of, praying to God.
In fact, our Litanies to the saints *always* start with prayers to the Holy Trinity first and foremost before invoking any of the saints.
The only reference in the Holy Word of G-d
to a "Queen of Heaven " is Revelation 18:7.
b'shem Y'shua
How does that righteous idignation feel? Pretty good I bet. lol.
Do you not then believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Now I'm confused. :)
We don't pray to the saints. In fact, we consider all Christians to be saints. I don't think of Moses as a "saint" as in someone more special than anyone else who believed in God and obeyed him. Certainly, he was chosen by God to carry out some exceptional plans. But I wouldn't pray to him, or ask him to pray for me. I do ask friends to pray for me, but maybe that's different because they're here on earth right now and are visible to me.
I don't usually pray to saints, either. I'm an "Our Father" or "Hail Mary" with lots of "Acts of Contrition" kind of person, probably more than my share of the last.
When Mary said all would call her blessed, sure we think she's blessed. But aren't we all blessed by God, some in big ways and some in more ordinary ways? I consider myself blessed. I have been chosen by God for his purposes, to do his will. Although my life probably isn't worth writing about, any small thing I do for God is still helping to glorify Him.
Yes, we are all blessed by God, just by being here. Who else, though, is the Mother of Jesus?
So, I think of Mary more as a "sister in Christ" just as I would think of a friend, or Paul, or John Wesley as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Just some thoughts. Hope you find this interesting. :-)
It is indeed. Prior to this thread, I was unaware that Protestants differed from Catholics on this issue. I'm glad this article was posted. Thanks for your post. :)
I can not follow this and it is in no part of the Holy Word of G-d.
b'shem Y'shua
Yes, there are, but I can't get to my church library where I am now. I'll follow through on this one.
No problem and thanks.
Did you even read this post?
I see this comment often when anyone discusses intercession by the saints in heaven. However, if you look at what you are saying and the verse in question, I see the concept of praying to Mary as reconciliable with the verse. Jesus is the mediator between man and God the Father.(Man - Jesus - God).We pray to Mary to intercede with her son, Jesus on our behalf. Her intercession does not interfere with Jesus' role as the mediator with God. There is a 3 step process then.(Man - Mary - Jesus - God the Father.)IN my view it is the same as if I ask a friend to pray for me. In that scenario, we have Me - Friend - Jesus - God.
Akin mentions the role of Mary as the Queen mother to Jesus. We see in the Old Testament that Solomon gives great honor to his mother Bethsheba and says that he can deny her nothing. Certainly, Jesus who would perfectly keep the commandment to honor his mother would listen to her entreaties.
That may be your Protestant perspective, but plenty of Protestants are fully on board with the definitions of the Second Ecumenical Council, and endorse the titles of "Mother of God" and "Theotokos" for Mary. Among them you'd find Martin Luther and lots of company.
Thank you for agreeing with Catholic dogma. :-)
You will not convert a Christian, to worshipping or praying TO Mary.
Well, there's already about a 1.3 billion Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Christians who do what you wrongly describe as "worshipping Mary", so it's fair to say we have a pretty good head start.
There are a few, but not many contempary ones since around the time of Vatican I.
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