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.
What do y’all think of Karl Keating’s book:
Catholicism and Fundamentalism
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I haven't read it. I'm not really much of a student of apologetics, unlike some of those here whose excellent posts I have sometimes read with interest. Some of the very best Catholics are, perhaps ironically, former Protestants. Go figure.
a total 180 from what I experienced in my pastorate
Understand.
Much appreciate your kind reply.
Thanks.
Some folks seem much more . . . invested, captivated, focused in antithesis than as a life-long . . .
Old Testament only.
We not only speak carelessly but we live carelessly. Wouldn’t it be ever so much better if we took Him at His Word and lived according to His principles?
I had a couple of them but gave them away. Now I wish I hadn’t.
It does escape you. It is the example Christ set. He did not write statues, He taught by oral tradition.
That can only be attributed to the joy one feels by ending a self-imposed self-embargo of His Seven Blessed Sacraments.
Yes, I know that. These were written and taught to the early Jews. So there WERE written letters and scriptures in Jesus’ time.
Yeah, the former catholics in our church feel joy by being set free from the bondages they felt in the Catholic church. Go figure.
Yes it would:
Joh 6:43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves.
Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. And I will raise him up in the last day.
Joh 6:45 It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father and hath learned cometh forth me.
Joh 6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father: but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father.
Joh 6:47 Amen, amen, I say unto you: He that believeth in me hath everlasting life.
Joh 6:48 I am the bread of life.
Joh 6:49 Your fathers did eat manna in the desert: and are dead.
Joh 6:50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven: that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
Joh 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
Joh 6:52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
Joh 6:53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Joh 6:54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
Joh 6:55 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
Joh 6:56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.
Joh 6:57 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him.
Joh 6:58 As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.
Joh 6:59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.
Joh 6:60 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.
Joh 6:61 Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard; and who can hear it?
Joh 6:62 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?
Joh 6:63 If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
Joh 6:64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
Joh 6:65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe and who he was that would betray him.
Joh 6:66 And he said: Therefore did I say to you that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.
Joh 6:67 After this, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
Joh 6:68 Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?
Joh 6:69 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
Joh 6:70 And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.
It's easier to pretend "Yay I'm saved and scot free than to take responsibility for ones actions.
That is what makes protestantism so saleable.
Yes, He taught from Scripture and He taught a new oral Tradition.
Evidently an example of RC edifice gibberish.
“I’m asking about the rules, mind you, not just examples.”
That is just the problem with using the early church fathers. They had no just or well-defined principles to guide them in their interpretations of Old Testament scripture, which could either enable them to determine between the fanciful and the true in typical applications, or guard them against the worst excesses of allegorical license. Look at Origen’s handling of the Abraham-Keturah marriage or Clements handling of the Ten Commandments.
They were steeped in the Greek allegorical tradition, looking for the hiddden higher truths or principles, the spiritual treasure concealed under the histories.
I have no association with any RC edifice and I do not post gibberish. My posts consist of(a) full sentences in conversational American English, (b) short expressions of exclamation and/or occasionally (c) pictures.
Atrociously Theological New Yorker?
Active Tubercular Nouveau Yodeler?
Arabic Terrorist Non-Yemeni?
FUNDAMENTALISM: WHAT EVERY [ROMAN] CATHOLIC NEEDS TO KNOW”
Gut reaction: Do not bite.
I like and appreciate and even love some of the Dominican Friars I know. And some of them are scary smart. But the two with whom I've chatted about Buddhism know way less than I, and I don't know that much.
And, well, you know what I think of the effectiveness of adversarial theological discussions when it comes to telling the truth. If such a book were a "How to answer the charges" kind of thing it might have some merit. But I don't even trust an adversarial, say, Orthodox Presbyterian to give a reliable portrayal of Orthodox Presbyterianism. So I would certainly not trust a Cat'lick unless he had a WHOLE mess of letters after his name, and probably not even then, to give Fundamentalism a fair shot.
There are always lots and lots of reasons we make choices, I think. Some of them are known to us and some not. But I think that somewhere in, say, a Jehovah's Witness decision to become and remain a Jehovah's Witness is something that seemed plausibly good to that person. There's even something, probably, that we can affirm.
Most polemical books, especially the popular ones, don't take the time to see the spark of goodness, the little glimmering cinder of what still is a Divine call buried and almost smothered in the ashes of a bad understanding of how to respond to that call.
Yeah. I know. Smarmy. But I don't see how else to proceed in charity or with any hope of real communication.
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"Coming home" has always seemed to me to be the way that Protestants and lapsed Catholics must feel when they find the Church, whether for the first time or after an absence.
It seems to me to express the experience more precisely than any other description, but that is simply my own interpretation.
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