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.
So repeating a mocking and untrue charge is part of that ministry of love you were talking about?
See the post right after yours.
HOGWASH.
Reads like more RC institutional monopolistic elitist arrogance, to me. Perhaps Amy Carmichaels IF has not been read. Or Corrie Ten Booms autobiographical narratives. Even the very intellectually lofty C.S. Lewis and Frances Schaeffer offer plenty of evidence otherwise. Bill Gaithers music offers plenty of evidence otherwise. As does Dennis Jernigans and Fernando Ortegas. Protestant authors offer a wealthan abundant wealth of evidence to the contrary.
Actually, fantasizing that a concocted caricature mangling the authentic Biblical Mary thoroughly out of whack and then pretending that an inordinate focus on the caricature of her is somehow equal to a supreme closeness to God that Prottys cant imagine . . . is . . . words almost escape me . . . outrageously . . . one of the more preposterously arrogant sounding postulations Ive read in a long time.
. . . they are too dazzled to see those words in our language . . . .
LOL.
Dazzled? By RC words?
A weak faith leads to a weak hope.
Agreed.
Though the assumption accompanying that assertion appears to be that Prottys have said weak faith and RCs faith is on the other wonderfully glorious extreme.
Cue laughing dog.
I thought that what God promises is always going to be better than the best we can imagine.
Of course! GOD IS GOD! And He promised such explicitly in His Word. I believe Him, too!
From here it looks like they have some limits on what God offers, and an anemic understanding of "we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is."
Oh, really? LOL.
Not at all. Id wager my expansive expectations of God and His gifts to His children in eternity against any RCs any time.
I agree with your points.
except that for most folks . . . the things I do not capitalize in a sentence end up more highlighted to their minds. LOL.
Thanks thanks.
I believe you are mistaken.
No. wait. I should have said,
"HOGWASH! GTTM!" (guffaws to the max.)Further the other day you put up a post seeming to say that we say that Mary existed before Creation. I asked if you were kidding or not.
If you were kidding, how was that post, alleging that we believe something we do NOT believe, a clash of ideas? If you were NOT kidding, then what kind of clash is it when the one of the ideas is one we repudiate but you allege of us? Find somebody who DOES think Mary existed before Creation and clash with him.
In either case, the clash of ideas description seems false, at least as far as that post is concerned.
But in any event, this is no longer speculation. I don't think it's true of all who disagree with us on FR, but it is now known to be true of some, that their point is not to have a clash of ideas but to irritate, to drive people nuts. And, yes, if someone sets out to irritate me or a group I'm in, I take that personally, as it was meant.
I am delighted to discuss the ideas. I can't wait to start.
I'm surprised you missed an assumption. "feeling hated." Note the condescension. We complain about a feeling.
But I say again, when we have at least a couple of people discussing raising a point to upset us, NOT because of the truth of the point, then the proposition has been shown to be so. Some Protestants here desire and intend ill for some Catholics here.
If we had decided that co-redeemer was a good thing to say officially about Mary, we could mean the junior relationship. You'd have an open and shut case if we started calling GOD co-redeemer. Until then, you only have one of two choices and many, many grounds to think we go with the junior choice.
It didn’t work, I still don’t think there’s an argument there. Lots of noise. No argument.
It’s not just in airplanes:
Co-stars are subordinate to the stars;
Co-conspirators are subordinate to the main conspirators;
Coadjutors are subordinate to suffragan bishops;
Co-dependents are subordinate to their dependents;
we could go on and on, but really there’s little point.
The language offends them, and they prize their offence over any attempts to explain or to provide context.
Many who have fallen into the modern (unbiblical) notions of sign gifts do the same when talking about “tongues” and ecstatic experiences. They get very proud of themselves for being possessed with some kind of wild fire of which the Bible says nothing, and blaming it on the Holy Ghost, become very arrogant. Why, if you haven't experienced it, your salad is short a cherry tomato. I use this as an illustration, not intending to raise yet another doctrine on this thread.
People who have walked a long Christian life in fellowship with Jesus Christ and witnessed countless direct unmanipulable answers to prayer and seen miracle after miracle, and a harvest of souls are told that they got shorted on their french fries because they don't take Rome's Mass or own a figurine of Mary holding Jesus sprawled across her lap -— (were she stand she would be 25% taller than Him).
Emotion or mystical experience become matters of only subjective analysis, and in the Lord's work it is unwise to compare ourselves among ourselves in quantities of fruit, for it is God Himself who gives the increase.
Thanks.
Well put.
. . . even to this Pentecostal. LOL.
It could also be a sign of a sodium deficiency in the diet.
"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." -- Matthew 5:13
I would submit that is our Lord whom we prize, and that which He has given us. Your explanations fall upon deaf ears because they cannot be true. There is no context in which a 'co' of any kind will be sufficient. I will not suffer that credit being taken from Christ by even the least increment, subordinate or otherwise.
That Jesus died for me at Calvary shows His deep and abiding love for me personally. What need have I for any other? My Lord need not be wheedled nor convinced with regard to His concern for me and mine. We stand boldly before the Holy of Holies and simply ask. No "goddess of heaven", no angel, no saint, no "priest" gets credit for that. There is only one Redeemer. There is only one Mediator (Priest). One Savior is all I need.
I had a wonderful beloved friend who had ALS. Her eyes shone with the Love of Jesus. It was a shekinah glory. She comforted us!
Why does that devastating disease seem to attack only the nicest people? Our accountant was a lovely man with a beautiful family who was diagnosed and died of ALS within four short years. It was tragic.
God's ways are His to know and ours to accept. Mercifully, this life is all prelude.
I most certainly do not hate Mary and you are wrong to say so with such regularity. Mary was the mother of the Christ child.
Mary was not, however, a co-redeemer; a dispensatrix of all grace; an intercessor between God and men; nor any of the dozens of other blasphemous titles the RCC sullies her good name with.
She's not my mother.
Where in the Bible does it say Mary leads anyone to Christ?
It doesn't.
The Scriptures and the Holy Spirit lead men to the full understanding of Jesus Christ and the victory He alone won for His sheep on the cross.
Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. " -- Psalm 119:103-105"How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Bring your notes and prepare to explain yourself.
Thanks, FTD!
Amen! Just tonight I posted to the dreaded "hate" assault.
They need a new drug.
Your question itself is faulty and presumes something not in evidence.
There is no Scriptural support for the extra-Biblical teaching of Rome that says saints in heaven intercede on men's behalf.
We do, however, have Scriptural evidence which disputes that error since the Bible tells us the only mediator between God and men is Christ Jesus.
And starting a sentence with "Is it impossible for God to (fill in the blank)" is a child's game. I don't play it. I stick to the Scriptures for my answers.
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