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. Quix has become a dear friend to me and I am a little more than upset about this. He posted well within the boundaries set for him by the religion moderator. I pray he would be allowed back on. He has never attacked anyone, only institutions, and has shown real humility over the years. His devotion to JimRob has been inspiring, to say the least.
It is everything spelled out in #622.Miriam is not special,
except to fulfill prophecy as a maiden
with a clear bloodline to David and having no brothers.It could have been any other maiden
with a clear bloodline to David and no brothers.
Wrong, see the "seventy weeks" prophesy of Daniel.
You are bearing demonstrably false witness against me.
LOL, that’s a hoot (last line, i.e.).
Broodmare.
Catholic teaching may or may not equate Mary with Jesus, but many Catholics do. Maybe they need a refresher course? Thanks for answering.
No, we don’t hate them. We may disagree but that’s not hatred in spite of what they think.
I have NEVER worshipped the Holy Bible. I worship the triune God and none other.
Leaving Gibbon’s sneering atheism, he’s still a good basic source on the linguistic map of the Empire:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_gibbon_1_2_2.htm
“The language of Virgil and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption, was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul Britain, and Pannonia, that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms were preserved only in the mountains, or among the peasants. Education and study insensibly inspired the natives of those countries with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions, as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They solicited with more ardor, and obtained with more facility, the freedom and honors of the state; supported the national dignity in letters and in arms; and at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an emperor whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their countryman. The situation of the Greeks was very different from that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilized and corrupted. They had too much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues, of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to respect their superior wisdom and power. Nor was the influence of the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits of that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the progress of colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the Adriatic to the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia was covered with Greek cities, and the long reign of the Macedonian kings had introduced a silent revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their pompous courts, those princes united the elegance of Athens with the luxury of the East, and the example of the court was imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects. Such was the general division of the Roman empire into the Latin and Greek languages. To these we may add a third distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt, the use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians. The slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion, of the conquerors. Those nations had submitted to the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city: and it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyptian was admitted into the senate of Rome.”
It keeps getting worse and worse. Gadzooks.
Someone waited until the religion mod was gone and then had Quix, who had posted here for years, banned as a troll.
Amazing (and bizarre). How was this done?
Cough, cough (Acts 1), cough.
And just about every other New Testament fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy.
You are simply wrong.
Thanks. I think. Signed, Joya
p.s. Quix will thank you in person
Thank You Jesus !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mad Dawg, will you please stop saying we hate you? When I said Catholics hated protestants, I caught you know what from some of you. So at least give us the same consideration. If I hated you, I wouldn’t give any of you the time of day. My concern is for your eternal life. Period.
Nor did I say it was.
Dear Jim,
I offer you my most humble thanks.
Joya
You aren’t saying enough to even let me know what you are disagreeing with.
You keep bringing in new, somewhat unrelated items which don’t deal with the issue.
I am familiar with Daniel’s 70 weeks of 7s, but I thought you wouldn’t see that as related, because that connection is part of the tribulation interpretation of Revelation, in which the woman cannot in any way be Mary giving birth to Jesus, as it happens in the midpoint of the 7-year tribulation, which is in the future from where we are now.
In that view, the entire Revelation story is an allegory of the end times. And that is certainly something that would take a book to get into in any level of detail.
I don’t have a strong opinion of end-times scenarios, but am pretty familiar with the major competing philosophies. None of them included Mary the Mother of Jesus as a Queen giving birth to anything that is taken up 3.5 years into the 7-year tribulation sequence, at the time when the 2 witnesses are killed and ressurected.
I am more inclined to the belief that most of what John wrote was meant to be interpreted by the church of his day, but not closed to the idea that it is truly an end-times prophesy.
What is that? An indictment? From someone who professes to know nothing?
Having said all that, is entirely plausible, perhaps even likely, that Pilate conducted his trial of Jesus, as an official act of Roman potestas, in Latin.
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