The Worship of Mary? (An Observation)

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.

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.

I stopped here:

“Mary as a ‘co-redeemer’, Mary as someone to intercede for us with regards to our Lord Jesus.”

Mary is NO “co-redeemer”. Mary was not without sin. If Mary was without sin, we wouldn't need Christ to pay our sin debt.

The wages of sin is death. That applies to Mary as well.

Rom.6:23

[23] For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Notice there is no mention of Mary. It is ONLY through Christ, not Mary, that you can have eternal life.

Praying TO Mary, who is DEAD is NOT biblical. Mary will do NOTHING for you. The only One who can offer you eternal life is Christ.

I and other believers, Christians, call high and direct. Praying for others is fine, however WHO you pray TO makes a BIG difference - ONLY to Christ. The Christian God is a jealous God and after sacrificing His only Begotten Son, it is the least a believer in Him can do - to OBEY what is written in the Bible and not heretics.

It works like this for Christians:

Christ is the MEDIATOR.

The Holy Spirit is the INTERCESSOR.

Christ ALONE, died for our sins; not Peter, Paul or Mary.

The punishment for sin, any sin, is DEATH and Christ paid that price by laying His INNOCENT life down for all. The Holy Spirit did NOT die for us. Again, ONLY Christ paid the price. Mary did not die for us.

1 Timothy 2:5

[5] For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

Romans 8:26

[26] Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Notice Mary is not mentioned because she has NO ROLE in this. The Bible is CLEAR on that.

The Holy Spirit is on this earth and indwells within the believer. The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity - three in one as stated in the Bible as well. So, to be a Christian, is to abandon heretical beliefs of Catholicism and become a Christian - a follower of Christ's teachings not fallible mortals with an agenda that is not agreeable to His teachings.

Indeed, I believe that God can use ordinary people such as you have described...I am skeptical, of those who make the claim of being faith healers, by profession....and like others here, I find it incredibly wrong, to charge money for healings...

The reason I am so adamantly against these people charging money, is perhaps a personal reason, but here goes anyway...

When I worked in the nursing home situation, we had one young gal, under our care, who was severely brain impaired, to the point of being completely unresponsive....her parents kept her at home, and actually took such poor care of her at that time, that her contractures, were extreme, as extreme as I have ever seen...and the evidence of bedsore, was all too obvious as well..finally they relented and put her in a nursing home...which I do believe was the best choice, because physically she never got physically worse, once under the care of the nursing staff...if anything she improved under our care...

In any case, her parents, spent every single cent they had, paying faith healers to come to their home, to come to the nursing home, to cure their only child....when certain faith healers were going to be in our area, these parents, would contact the faith healer, and really pay them outrageous sums of money, to come to the nursing home, and ‘heal’ their daughter....the healer came, spent some few minutes with the girl, and nothing every changed in her condition....

The parents spent every cent they had, paying faith healers...no healings ever occurred...all we could do, as the nursing staff, was prepare the girl for the arrival of the faith healer, and let the parents do as they wished....eventually one parent, then the other parent died...they had been older parents when their daughter was born, so by the time of her becoming ill, they were already aged...they spent their entire older age, spending their life savings on on faith healer after another, until they had nothing left, and no more faith healers ever came...

That young lady, is still alive, still in the same condition she was when I last took care of her, more than 10 years ago...that her parents were fooled time and time again, by these faith healers, and lost all of their money paying those faith healers, used to make me sad...on reconsideration, however, what parent would not spend every single dime they had, to cure their child...I am just sorry they were given such false hope, for that is what I consider it, by these faith healers...

In spite of the demonstrated . . . . ‘perspective’ . . . I’m responding to . . . perhaps I can post the following limited to two testimonies which bear on issues discussed as they could well fall under the fair use provision while the permission is pending . . .

FROM:

http://7000.beinhealth.com/boards/showthread.php?t=2669

Progress report on my wife’s battle against cancer

Over a year and a half ago, my wife was diagnosed with stage IV cancer of the Thymus gland, metastisized to the lining of the lungs. We were told there was nothing they could do for us (neither chemo nor surgery would stop it now that it had spread on a cellular level, and it was too broad to be treated with radiation).

Already slender, she then lost 20lbs. and hardly had the strength to get out of bed.

But then she went to Pleasant Valley - For My Life. She had to be wheeled through the airport in a wheel chair because she was so weak. After the first day, she wanted to go home, but she stuck it out and came back a changed woman.

I joined her at PVC five months later, and the staff couldn’t believe how great she looked. It was an amazing, beautiful week. When we returned, she continued to walk so much stuff out of her life (a lot of new age junk that crept in under the guise of “alternative medicine”.)

Because the Drs. already let us know that there wasn’t anything they could do, we decided to pass on getting any additional scans. But then a month ago she got pneumonia, for which she got a simple chest x-ray. The Dr. said he thought he could see the initial tumor in the x-ray, and it only looked slightly bigger.

We were, of course, hoping it was completely gone, but after a year and a half, if it was only slightly bigger, we would consider that a blessing.

Well, a follow up x-ray was recommended to verify that the pneumonia was gone, so my wife decided she was ready to get the scan to get a clearer picture of what’s going on. In deciding between an MRI and a CT scan, we learned that while an MRI has no radiation, a CT scan is the equivalent of over 10 x-rays all at once. Needless to say, we went with the MRI, and the next morning the Dr. called me at work with the results.

He said, “Tom, good news. My hair is standing on end. I’ve heard of this happening, but in my 40 years of practice, I’ve never seen it before. The tumor is shrinking. And some infiltrates in the lungs that had been present are gone.

Can you believe it?”. “I can”, I replied, “but it IS amazing - and she hasn’t had any treatments”. “Well praise God!”, the Dr. replied.

So God is prevailing over this thing, and He is blessing Andrea’s faithfulness to do whatever the Lord shows her. She still gets weak and her lungs still get wheezy, but overall, by God’s provision, she is making forward progress. Next week, we’re going to the conference at Strawberry Lake in Minnesota, That should be good!

Please continue to pray for her - a complete healing and strength to keep fighting the good fight.

Thanks!

Tom

RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS:

FROM:

http://7000.beinhealth.com/boards/showthread.php?t=5228

Trigger Finger, Rheumatoid Arthritis

It is time to let you know that God has been working in my life and there has been some exciting healing!!!

I went to PVC in Aug 2005 with painful hands and feet and trigger finger some of my fingers and “frozen” index fingers.

When I left PVC, the pain was gone in my feet and hands and I was able to hold my pen properly again.

However, after about 1 year, the pain started increasing again so that I could hardly walk down the stairs. By Feb. this year, my other fingers had also frozen to the point that I had to be creative in the way I picked up and held things. My index, ring and pinky were frozen on one hand and my ring and index on the other.

I remember listening to one of Pastor Henry’s tapes in which he said that walkout begins for some further down the road when symptoms start coming back because we really hadn’t learned how to deal with some of our issues.

Time has always been a hard thing for me because there just isn’t enough of it, and it takes TIME to work through things. I knew there was drivenness in my life (a root of trigger finger) and it has been a slow process learning that I don’t have to “do it” or be part of “it”. “It” will be there tomorrow and if it is not, that is ok too.

I also had to deal with bitterness. I began speaking healing over my hands, commanding them to be unfrozen and would manually move my pinky finger. It happened gradually, but my pinky and index fingers began to move and start triggering again.

The swelling went down and now my fingers don’t click or trigger anymore and I can close my hands completely and they don’t hurt anymore!!!! I can pick things up, grasp door handles and open bottle caps. My feet don’t hurt anymore either! PRAISE BE TO GOD! I haven’t been able to pick up my guitar for 2 1/2 years. I was able to play it last week!

So keep plugging on and don’t give up! I am working on issues dealing with allergies and nasal polyps still, but I have hope it my God, who has began a good work in me (and you) and will be faithful to complete it!

Lyn

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