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I don't see the above as in conflict with anything I said or think. If the tension is such that we can't' understand it, then why can't there be an aspect which is LIKE (as I said) waiting for permission. It won't be EXACTLY like. Nothing we can articulate about God is exactly like the truth.
Simply because God doesn't wait for our permission. He will arrange circumstances in order to shape our wills, but He is not reacting or being dictated to by our wills at all. God is Sovereign.

I think there's a truth-discerning and a spiritual problem with your discourse on merit. It comes down to picking out and seeing potential bad stuff and feeling perfectly justified in going on and on over and over again incessantly without end about how bad OTHER PEOPLE (like papists) are and the on and on, etc, about how truthful the doctrine one is advocating is. I wasn't so much talking about credit in God's reckoning as credit as we give credit in conversations such as this.
Concerning my long paragraph on merit goes, it wasn't about papists verses Protestants. You got defensive about it, which is interesting in and of itself. It was the division between the lost and the saved. Those who are saved are those who trust Christ as their Lord and Savior. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. We can truly choose to do good and evil. The lost do not have the same ability in the same way. The good that they do is NOT for God's glory. It is with some other motivation and therefore is not acceptable in His sight. The good Christians do can be either for God's glory or for other purposes. When we do things for God's glory, credit is given. When we do things that are for selfish motivation, our works are burnt up. This isn't to imply that we don't do evil as Christians too. We are still in these earthly vessels and wills still sin. In spite of your defensive attitude and the little twist on what I was saying, Christians do sin. But we also do good. There is reward for the good we do that is for God. Our sins however were already dealt with on Calvary.

As to the condemned man, of course I'd open door B, the Jesus door. SO what follows? If a letter form the governor came, and the guy said,"Tell me more about this Jsus," I would. Then, down the road, when he'd made a commitment t Christ and started taking some responsibility for his prayer life, I might talk about devotion to Mary.
Mad Dawg, that is my point though. The whole world has a death sentence over their heads without Christ. Unfortunately, things today are such that people get their news, music, food, everything in quick little spurts. When sharing the gospel with the lost we need to be immensely clear and concise so that there is no question. Most folks will not sit down in a catechism class or in our case a Sunday School class or church service. You just don't get that opportunity a lot. That is why, rather than using Medieval terminology that will have to be explicitly defined and explained over a longer discourse, it is best to make a short statement such as "She is the Mother of Jesus, who was God and came to give you life by taking your sins upon Himself on the cross." If this gets their attention long enough, for the short time you have with most people, any followup should focus on who Christ IS. Drawing attention away from Christ for any other person, be it Mary, myself, my church, my pastor/priest, etc., is not appropriate. The days are evil. People need Jesus. That's why we reject the term "Mother of God" because it causes potential confusion and wrong ideas. You understand the meaning of what the council meant. I do too. We have theologically oriented minds. Most of the world does not but would rather grab on to the easy little soundbyte and either incorporate it into their lives or not. Bringing up church councils etc., for most folks will just cause glassy eyes.

If mother of God implies that Mary preceded God it does so only to those predestined to Hell. What would be the answer to that?
I asked a friend who is a member of our church and is not particularly theologically minded what he thought about it (frankly this guy has no vested interest in being a member of our denomination, though he does profess to be a Christian). He came up with the same response that I feared the term would ilicit. Using Mary "Mother of God" is even confusing to some Christians, particularly babes. Remember, you and I and Kolo and the rest of the folks on this thread are particularly interested in theology and largely history. I believe that our terminology should be precise even when dealing with fellow church members. Mother of God lacks precision. Is she the mother of the Father? Did she precede the Son? Is she the mother of the Spirit? What does it mean? Mother of Jesus is more precise, though in focusing on Jesus the term gets its fullest precision in that we know that she did not precede the Son, but was the vessel chosen by God through which He would incarnate himself.

I reporting on my experience as a Protestant say that from my experience, on the ground in the real world it never struck me for a minute as meaning that Mary pre-existed God. What it meant was the God is just mind-blowingly amazing. I entertained the possibility of the misconstruction you seem to fear other players, to be designated later, might make, because usually I try to understand the view of the people with whom I am talking. But when I look at reality, I just don't see it happening. After a while, you have to go with reality over conjecture.
With all due respect, you were an Episcopalian. The Episcopal church is very close to Catholicism in a lot of ways. In many ways, particularly today, it has gone away from tradition (which I would not say would be the same for Catholicism). Still, you grew up in a church where these things were likely spelled out for you. If not "Mary Mother of God means this..." then at least with all of the necessarily theological framework surrounding the church's view to support a correct understanding of what was meant. In our community there are probably 80% of the people who don't go to church at all, who have no real theological framework for right understanding. If a Sola Scriptura church went to them and just said what was in Scripture, then that particular confusion wouldn't exist (they would likely have a lot more questions, but that will happen in either tradition). If a Catholic or Orthodox just drops the term, the unchurched are likely to not know what you are talking about. They do not have the theological framework to rest such terms upon to say "oh, by using that term, they mean that the person who was in Mary's womb was God." Such a phenomenon is getting worse as our nation becomes less and less European. Hispanics will have a certain understanding. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, will not.

It's like you guys don't want us to enjoy the wonder of our religion, to be exuberant about it, to scatter praise, to enjoy having our human categories blown wide open by the miraculous grace of God or to use with confidence the access to the mystery His Work gives us. You all talk about God's grace, and we talk about how there are miracles everywhere, and you all scoff at us as credulous. You say God is wonderful and powerful. WE say God is so amazingly wonderful and powerful and loving that He makes a Jewish girl the Mother of God. And you all go ballistic! When we pipe you all want to play funerals, when we mourn you all want to play Senior Prom!
Cute rant. There are reasons though for our objections that have been spread out over 7000 posts on this thread alone. You are aware of the reasons, and they don't include "we just want to be cosmic killjoys for all of the Catholics fun."

You all don't "get" "courtesy titles", and that to me is one of the clearest suggestions that some Protestantism is historically and culturally conditioned, relying on printing presses and the concept of the nation state and a particular family of political theories (with most of which I happen to agree.)
All Christians are equal in God's eyes. Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Colossians 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

One of the things that bugged me when I started going to Mass as an outside was the absence of "prayer books". Then I realized that the Church got by for more than a millennium without prayer books.
My church does not have prayer books. We simply pray from what is on our hearts.

Re: the attack on the Rosary. Two things: (a) can we fight on one front, or do we have to fight the entire war in each post? (b) Duh! Yeah! I grew up not only Protestant but the kind of kid who would read his Bible under the covers with his flashlight. And the kid of kid who condemned RCs for praying the Rosary. One of the ancillary causes of my being open to Catholicism was the sense that some Protestants have that anybody who disagrees with them must be a stupid illiterate unaccustomed to reading Scripture. I don't like closed minds on any side of an argument, and am suspicious when the demonstration of the closed mind is to make ridiculously condescending statements about others.

(Yes, I AM feeling feisty this morning.)

An there isn't really anything to respond to in that portion of your post.

The heart of the Rosary is NOT the repetition, it's the meditation. Also there's no trace in me of thinking I will be heard because (or in anyway secondary) to the number of Hail Mary's I say. I say them because I am already heard, not to be heard. I say them as much to listen as to speak. And I don't say the Rosary to "get" something as if I were putting a quarter in the divine slot machine.

" 2677 Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, "And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"36 Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: "Let it be to me according to your word."37 By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: "Thy will be done."

Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the "Mother of Mercy," the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender "the hour of our death" wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son's death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing38 to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise.
- the Catechism of the Catholic church. Part 4, Section 1, Chap 2. Article 2.http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s1c2a2.htm#2678

in praying the Rosary, RCs DO hope to obtain some special grace. By praying the Rosary they are entrusting themselves to Mary in ways that frankly again put her in the position that Christ Himself is in. When Jesus died on the cross, he said Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit. When Stephen died he said "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." When Catholics die, they are trusting Mary to carry them off to Jesus. But, alas you don't see anything wrong with that. Sigh!

Shall I say that every Protestant who carries a Bible to church is a hypocrite because Clintoon made a point of being oten seen with his Bible? (Of course, he just had a bible cover and the latest Playboy inside but who's counting?) YES, maybe some Catholics are trying to cook the books with God by praying Rosaries. Certainly many Protestants of my experience think the Bible, the physical concrete one(s) I have is/are a sacred object. What other book comes with zippers? (I'm red-green color-blind. Somebody once gave me a VERY nicely bound and printed red-letter Bible. I didn't even know! All the letters looked black to me ...)
Huh?????? Is praying the Rosary or is it not prescribed for future avoidance of sin at confession? As to hypocrisy, all of us to a point are hypocrites. Thankfully, Jesus took care of our hypocrisy on the cross.

My glib retort, which doesn't convey much, is that Jesus was talking about VAIN repetitions done to impress God. MY repetitions are full, not vain, and not done to impress anybody. Moving right along ...
K.

It's a whole lot easier to think that when one doesn't learn what the teachings are and embraces (as is done a LOT on this forum, though not much by you) false, sometime grotesquely false parodies of them.

Surely you are not trying to point the finger at me. If I wished to learn about Catholic beliefs I could be like others, go to Chick.com and get a certain impression. I don't do that. I go to your Catechism. I go to Catholic devotional websites. My degree in history taught me to look for primary sources. I do that. What you, a former Protestant, does is not necessarily what the rest of the church does either. You have been able to reconcile Catholicism with your belief system by opening yourself up to sources outside of Scripture. Most Catholics don't even go that far as most Catholics haven't studied Scripture like you have. Incidentally, most Protestants haven't either.

I heard that excuse in Juvenile and Domestic Relations court. YES there are some pretty snotty folks on the RC side, and I WISH they'd take a chill pill. But for ANYBODY to suggest to me that I haven't read and considered our Lord's sayings on prayer and to try to teach me those passages again at worst borders on the incredibly offensive, and at best is boring. Do you REALLY think I'm unaware of that passage and haven't had it thrown in my teeth about a kafillion times before?
I was asking how you reconcile yourself to it. Specifically, these were my words "Do you not ever wonder if what you are doing with the Rosary is spoken of in Scripture when Jesus said "Matthew 6:7- But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." I didn't say, Mad Dawg, you just don't know Scripture. I asked a question.

A priest buddy is going to Medjugorje (I am NOT responsible for Yugoslavian spelling. If they can't decently give their villages good English names, I can't be expected to write in their "vain bibble-babble".[Twelfth Night, Shakespeare]) I'll bet he'll say a Mass every day. When I go our parish Church for Rosary, the Rosary takes 20 minutes and is followed by a mass of, say, 45 minutes. On Fridays there is a devotion to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament - maybe 20 minutes, a Rosary, then a Mass. maybe 65 minutes for God Almighty and 20 minutes for the Rosary, which as I said, while Marian, is more Christo-centric than "Mario-centric". But no amount of evidence and context setting will help my point. This is where you all would haul out the "Eyes to see, but seeth not" stuff.

No. We would say one minute of devotion to anyone but Christ is a minute too much. We can learn from the lives of those who have gone on before, including Mary. We do not give ourselves over to them though.

Who do YOU think put Mary on the toast? (I suspect Photoshop, but that's just me.
I don't know. I haven't tried it, but I bet one could cut out a stencil or something with some sort of protective material and stick it in the oven and get the image on the toast. I may try that with some parchment paper. I bet it would work. It would block out the heat rays from the broiler while browning the surrounding area.

(Did you get my Freepmail with the joke?)
I did. Cute joke.