Posted on 05/30/2008 10:21:34 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007
Some of you will remember my recent decision to become a Catholic. I suppose I should be surprised it ended getting derailed into a 'Catholic vs. Protestant' thread, but after going further into the Religion forum, I suppose it's par for the course.
There seems to be a bit of big issue concerning Mary. I wanted to share an observation of sorts.
Now...although I was formerly going by 'Sola Scriptura', my father was born and raised Catholic, so I do have some knowledge of Catholic doctrine (not enough, at any rate...so consider all observations thusly).
Mary as a 'co-redeemer', Mary as someone to intercede for us with regards to our Lord Jesus.
Now...I can definitely see how this would raise some hairs. After all, Jesus Himself said that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that none come to the Father but through Him. I completely agree.
I do notice a bit of a fundamental difference in perception though. Call it a conflict of POV. Do Catholics worship Mary (as I've seen a number of Protestants proclaim), or do they rather respect and venerate her (as I've seen Catholics claim)? Note that it's one thing to regard someone with reverence; I revere President Bush as the noted leader of the free world. I revere my father. I revere Dr. O'Neil, a humorous and brilliant math teacher at my university. It's an act of respect.
But do I WORSHIP them?
No. Big difference between respecting/revering and worshiping. At least, that's how I view it.
I suppose it's also a foible to ask Mary to pray for us, on our behalf...but don't we tend to also ask other people to pray for us? Doesn't President Bush ask for people to pray for him? Don't we ask our family members to pray for us for protection while on a trip? I don't see quite a big disconnect between that and asking Mary to help pray for our wellbeing.
There is some question to the fact that she is physically dead. Though it stands to consider that she is still alive, in Heaven. Is it not common practice to not just regard our physical life, but to regard most of all our spirit, our soul? That which survives the flesh before ascending to Heaven or descending to Hell after God's judgment?
I don't think it's that big of a deal. I could change my mind after reading more in-depth, but I don't think that the Catholic Church has decreed via papal infallibility that Mary is to be placed on a higher pedestal than Jesus, or even to be His equal.
Do I think she is someone to be revered and respected? Certainly. She is the mother of Jesus, who knew Him for His entire life as a human on Earth. Given that He respected her (for He came to fulfill the old laws; including 'Honor Thy Father and Mother'), I don't think it's unnatural for other humans to do the same. I think it's somewhat presumptuous to regard it on the same level as idolatry or supplanting Jesus with another.
In a way, I guess the way Catholics treat Mary and the saints is similar to how the masses treated the Apostles following the Resurrection and Jesus's Ascension: people who are considered holy in that they have a deep connection with Jesus and His Word, His Teachings, His Message. As the Apostles spread the Good News and are remembered and revered to this day for their work, so to are the works of those sainted remembered and revered. Likewise with Mary. Are the Apostles worshiped? No. That's how it holds with Mary and the saints.
At least, that's how my initial thoughts on the subject are. I'll have to do more reading.
We had a large canvas that mom and dad put over a clothes line. We would drag out mattresses and sleep out overnight. of course, it usually rained and the canvas was NOT rainproof. Then we’d run in the house around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. I still remember it fondly.
When I said, gently roughing it, I was laughing to myself actually...we have camped with the tent in some really primitive places, where there was one outhouse(hold your nose)for all...you provide the toilet paper...one general water pump,(we even camped at one campground, and had to haul water from miles away)... no picnic tables(you provide your own folding table)....no marked campsites, just set up your tent wherever...
At least with the tent just out in front of the house, kids could run in or run home, to use the bathroom....ice cold drinks, necessary in the Carolina heat, were easily available in the house....
So the pretending part of them camping, was great...
Today, now that we are older, the hubby and I ‘rough’ it in our RV, and go to RV parks, complete with sewer, and electricity, TV reception, and internet connections, huge bathrooms and many showers, and the laundromat and store/souvenir shop...
But my memories of really roughing it in the tent, with no luxuries, are quite wonderful....all the RV parks blur together in my mind after a while, but those distinctive primitive campgrounds, remain quite clear and separate in my mind...
Pastor Wright can only pray healing prayers effectively if the person receiving the healing repents of unforgiveness, bitterness, fear, self-hatred, or any other sin that stands in the way of their healing. If they don’t do that, he has no power to do anything else for them. I don’t think our good folks here realize that. He doesn’t claim to be a faith healer in the usual sense.
I understand that God can and does carry our miraculous healings, if that is His choice....I just dont believe that it is through some faith healer that one is going to get healed...as I said, God does not need a faith healer, to help Him along in His healings....God is quite capable of doing that all on His own....
I do believe that God heals as He choses, and I do not question that...what I do question, is those who make the claim that they can carry out faith healings...
I’m going to speak out of my natural understanding tempered by 30 years of Christian faith.
God does not ordain and control everything that happens on earth. There is chance and random circumstance. To me this is obvious. We are told that all things work for the good of those who believe. But ponder this. To me it does not suggest God orders all circumstances but that He ‘can’ weave random events into His purposes and for our good ... if we have and exercise faith.
Sin is in the world. Sin has warped the entire creation of God on this planet. This allows disease, evil of all kinds and suffering to be the norm. Not all the time. But frequently. C.S. Lewis dealt with these questions extensively and from many different vantage points in his writings. Mostly, as he saw it, it comes down to we being tempered and strengthened on the anvil of God. We are being forged into something else. Something greater. We know not what.
Jesus said of the one particular man born blind that he healed that the man’s affliction was not due to his or his parent’s sin but rather that his healing would be accomplished before many witnesses for the benefit of all who saw and the millions and millions that would read of it in His Word.
Doesn’t seem fair does it ... from our human viewpoint? But then we don’t know just how the man might have been rewarded in the afterlife for his lifetime of suffering prior to being healed by The Messiah himself? I’ll tell you this. I’d trade places with him. I’d think it was a good deal. Thirty some years of blindness ended by the touch of the Messiah Himself? Praise God!
Anyway .... that’s my take. The book of Job does a better job than I can of explaining this.
Which one do you want to deal with first?
I'm going to tell you - from your own material - just how "wrong" I am. And then we'll see just HOW "loving" you are.
I believe God uses faith healers, ordinary people like you and like I, to do His will here on earth. I don’t try to limit who He uses. That’s His domain.
Didn’t I say that we would be judged for our deeds????
One question...referring to your point #5....is your reference directed specifically towards me, or towards all Catholics...because if you assume, that I am a Catholic, you would be assuming incorrectly...
Mary lives.
It’s never been established that RC means any specific thing. His posts certainly don’t describe the Catholic Church.
I'm not looking for a faith healer. Especially one that claims to cure lung cancer in his teaser infomercial, but fails to include the spiritual failing in that teaser, so that one must buy the $24.99 book to learn what it is.
Quix, can you not see what a charlatan that so-called Pastor is? I don't and won't repent of anything. That's just ridiculous. And GOOD PEOPLE who are really suffering are surely going to send that quack their 25 bucks for nothing except false guilt induced by a psychopath.
YOU do NOT want to know what I think.
When I was a little girl, and it was rainy downpouring type of weekend, my parents, with not much money to spend on entertaining us little ones, would drag out blankets and sheets, and tablecloths, and such, and then they would let me and my younger brother, rearrange the furniture in the house, so that we could throw our sheets and blankets and such over tables and chairs, and build ourselves some sort of ‘fort’, as we called them...we would drag our bedding in there, and our toys, and spend the whole weekend, knocking down our forts and then rebuilding them...we had such fun, and I am sure, we provided hours of amusement to our parents...
INDEED.
ACTUALLY,
Pastor Wright is all about getting the info out to everyone who will apply it. Even in his conferences, he has folks praying for one another. He has a large team available to pray for folks but I think he mostly directs folks to pray for one another and minister to one another.
He is far form any ego trip at all.
Fascinating all the horrifically WRONG assumptions all manner of folks have formed about him with negligible info.
And Prottys are wailed at for THEIR ASSUMPTIONS AND BIASES about the protected RC’s. Gimme a break.
Good points.
At the announcement that she would give birth to “the Son of the Most High” without knowing man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary responded with the obedience of faith, certain that “with God nothing will be impossible”: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word.” Thus, giving her consent to God’s word, Mary becomes the mother of Jesus. Espousing the divine will for salvation wholeheartedly, without a single sin to restrain her, she gave herself entirely to the person and to the work of her Son; she did so in order to serve the mystery of redemption with him and dependent on him, by God’s grace:
I made very generic comments.
Since the Virgin Mary’s role in the mystery of Christ and the Spirit has been treated, it is fitting now to consider her place in the mystery of the Church. “The Virgin Mary . . . is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer. . . . She is ‘clearly the mother of the members of Christ’ . . . since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head.” “Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church.”
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