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.
I agree. If we cannot know for sure that another person is not saved, can we/anyone know for sure that another person IS saved?
Acts 17:10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men.
One has to actually honor the bible to believe the importance of what it says of itself. The RC seems bent on wiggle room to ignore what the bible says.
Sorry, I should have included you also on my last post.
Many 'good', kind, generous people from all kinds of different religions and denominations are going to hell because 'ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God'
I would respectfully suggest that it is up to God to determine who falls short of Him. He will treat us as individuals. Perhaps we should all work harder on our personal relationship with Jesus, to avoid sin and glorify God, including you.
I don't know who you are speaking for but I've never met an RC that studied the bible. I've met many that grew up in RC houses and went to RC schools and were in the presence of bibles all their life. But I haven't ever met one that actually knew what the bible says about much of anything. They are near the bible but they don't honor it enough to know it.
If you don't know the bible, you don't really know much about God. Knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent IS eternal life. So to the protty RC's are on that frayed edge of actually knowing Him and not knowing Him. Hence our constant struggle to move you into the actual bible.
I think we can post verses all day long, but they won't see how they apply. In the end it is an authority issue. Who is going to be in charge.
Are you saying that this is the scripture that determines that we can only act or believe in something if it is specifically in the Bible?
Even if that were the case, I don't see how it would be even be possible. If in Joel Osteen only mentioned biblical passages in 5% of his sermon and the rest is interpretation (which is very good by the way), How do I disregard the 95%?
A text that is very pertinant to the issue of Oral Tradition is St. Pauls letter to the Thessalonians were we read: 2Thes 2:15
'Therefore brethren, stand fast, and hold the Traditions which ye have been taught, whether by WORD, or our Epistle'.
The fact that the Jews mentioned here DID search the Scriptures (which means the Old Testament ONLY) IS NOT the same as saying that something MUST be supported by scripture.
As far as "honoring" the Bible, many Protestants have turned that into a form of idolatry. But, YOU might start by realizing that Bible is generally spelled with a capital "B".
I would suggest that you best utilize your efforts to perfect yourself. Nobody is going to be enticed to study the bible because you insult them. You may deem youself Holier than me, but I care about God's opinion, and will leave it to Him to help me. I am concerned however, that there are people that don't know God at all. If your cruel assessments of fellow Christians are a possible reflection on Christian faith, we are in trouble. It doesn't look very appealing.
Your post is exactly why so many people are turned off from religion. They get a perspective that is ugly and distorted. Our God is Love. We are all his children, even the least of us.
Absolutely true.
Of course, the only ones doing that here are protestants.
Your post is exactly why so many people are turned off from religion. They get a perspective that is ugly and distorted. Our God is Love. We are all his children, even the least of us.
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Wow. Well said, mgist.
LOL
You mean the mistranslated redacted Bible the "reformed" do handstands and back-flips to misinterpret, ignoring the actual commands of Christ while adding sola fide and sola scriptura where it does not exist? That "actual bible?"
These are common anti-Catholic talking points that are often repeated in comic books colorfully illustrated "tracts" that are purchased and distributed in bulk.
Hence our constant struggle to move you into the actual bible.
No, you are trying to move us toward heresy.
And just a reminder, not capitalizing the "B" in Bible is a form of dishonor.
1Jn 5:13 refers to “these things,” which are written in John 5:1-12. Among them:
1Jn 5:2 In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep his commandments.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the charity of God: That we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not heavy.
Ah, works. Not faith alone (faith without works is dead).
Study of Scripture is the first half of every Catholic Mass.
And second half of the Mass is straight from Scripture.
How does a protty, in good faith and with the best of intentions, encourage an RC to honor his bible without ever saying anything about sola scriptura? They are correct to say that there is no verse that says sola scriptura but there is scripture after scripture honoring the bible and people that do so.
The Catholic faith is the highest form of honor of Scripture there is. In contrast, neither sola scriptura nor sola fide is even IN the Bible.
And which verse exactly tells us to "honor" the Bible?
There IS a verse that tells us EXPLICITELY to call (and just a clue: it says CALL, we're not talking about what you think of her) Mary "blessed," why don't you do that?
FWIW, by the middle of the 4th century, +Ephrem the Syrian was describing Mary as "sinless" and immaculate. Ambrose and Augustine used similar language, though not specifically saying she was sinless from conception.
My point is not "So it MUST be true," but rather to say that, despite the saying of some that Augustine was an explicit believer in Sola Scriptura, these guys were not so greatly troubled by appealing now to Scripture and now to Tradition as some are these days.
Yesterday evening at Mass, my pastor said in his homily that Ephrem said the sinlessness of Mary was a tradition from the Apostles. FWIW. I can find nothing like this on line but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and evidently not all of Ephrem's work is on line yet
Now if we're going to assume for other reasons that the great apostasy happened at or around Nicea, this could be taken as evidence: A lying Syrian deacon whom tradition places at Nicea, fall even deeper into sin and apostasy by making up this so-called tradition. The winners write the history, and so there you have it.
But if we don't take recourse to that blanket condemnation, we have evidence of writers for whom the appeal to tradition was meaningful and not problematic epistemologically.
I was musing yesterday during my 80 miles of motor scootering hither and thither that what "the world" sees of the Catholic Church looks to 'the world" like pageantry and legalism.
But simple worship makes lousy TV or Movie footage, and the chaste liturgy I experienced among Trappists in Missouri is not as cinematic as some more elaborate stuff. The world is not going to see a simple, quiet morning Mass unless the world gets its behind into the church to look.
And I conjecture that the appearance legalism arises from an attempt to systematize and organize several centuries worth of ad hoc decisions, acts taken in response to problems and disputes.
And this systemization is precisely to avoid the grounds for the other perception of the Catholic Church, unbridled and dictatorial exercise of power. Having worked for a sheriff who would lay down a dictum as for the ages this year, and the following year act like he never said any such thing (to be fair, I think it possible that his memory was beginning to go), I appreciate that the mere record of acts is a kind of check on the otherwise capricious and unbridled exercise of power. As citizens of a nominally democratic republic, we may not appreciate constitutional or traditional limitations on the exercise of power in other forms of government. But it is useful to recall that the 15th or 16th century yeoman of England considered himself a free man under a king.
Systematization and laws have to do with a dialectical tension between obedience and freedom. Where there is no systematic presentation there is little freedom (in the secular sense, because the authority or power center can say, I don't care what we said or you heard yesterday, NOW I tell you to do THIS, and you must do it." But I digress.
Arising out of the 13th and 14th century universities of Paris and Bologna, and other such institutions I think we can see that there was a growing interest in an orderly and systematic presentation of the truths of the Faith. While it's good to tidy up around the edges off things, I personally think it can be carried on too far.
Especially in matters of the heart, in relationships, between now and the eschaton, there are going to be loose edges.
And, believe me, having been on the outside looking in, I GET the appearance of legalism. But on the inside, and as that weird hybrid, a "lay religious", I have to report it's not like that. There IS a certain discipline to praying and reading Scripture (at least a little bit) 4 times a day (more when I can) AND going to Mass and praying a Rosary almost daily. But it's more like the discipline of wrestling 4+ matches a day or maybe being a physician and seeing 4+ cases a day. Every time it's different.
Say there was a rule that you have to talk to your spouse 4+ times a day. Today might be boring, or it might be the day when she says, "If you leave the toilet seat up one more time I will tear you limb from limb," or he might want to say, "I just wanted to tell you that, taken all in all, you have been a great gift from God to me, and I thank God for you and I thank you for you," OR, [moment striking terror into the heart of every male] she might say, "I think we should talk about our relationship." Even if this encounter, of a string of them is dull, that dullness is itself interesting and important.
And, to use a well-worn metaphor, it's like the rules of a sonnet. They don't prohibit spontaneity, they channel and focus it and magnify its energy.
YES it's possible to write a glib sonnet. I did once. So it's possible to keep God at arm's length. But that is the fault of the worshipper, not of the worship.
But my alleged point is that one could say the POINT of a Church is not to have a reliable, systematic, comprehensive doctrine. The point is to be in Christ, and to approach Christ, and to live in Christ (and He in us).
Everybody should read a little theology. Some are called to devote their lives to it. But our call is to know and to be known. And, in the process and in the occasion, that's going to be messy. And I'm fine with that. A little anxiety and mess liven things up.
But it's that kind of acceptance of loose ends, that may be seen to be operative in the less than systematic approach Catholics take to Scripture and tradition. We see what looks to the "scientific" mind like a wild exegesis of the OT in Hebrews, the apparently malleable and plastic (not to say "Rubber") typological approach of the Fathers does not provide Newtonian or mathematical rigor. But it does exhibit hearts on fire. And when all the arguing about merit and grace and free-will and predestination is hushed, what we want is to be plunged into the living fire which burns but makes us whole. We certainly don't want to stand around on its edges vying with one another for the most precise and comprehensive description of it.
/rant off. I have to work today. SO I won't be able to follow this up too much.
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