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 not only do you believe the church, the real one not Rome, should be in the business of creating doctrine, but you also belive the Chruch, the real one not Rome, created the bible? Yet it is ironic that Papists are so unfamiliar with the words of the Bible that they believe their denomination created.
***So not only do you believe the church, the real one not Rome, should be in the business of creating doctrine, but you also belive the Chruch, the real one not Rome, created the bible? Yet it is ironic that Papists are so unfamiliar with the words of the Bible that they believe their denomination created.***
Are you demonstrating anti Rome paranoia? I said nothing about Rome. I said the Church. The Vatican is located within Rome; you do have that right, but the Orthodox are located in various other locations. All these make up the Church; it does not include those who walked away.
Now, what is the Church? It is the creation of Jesus, and rested upon the Apostles primarily and the rest of the disciples and their legitimate successors. I find that the children of the Reformation do not know the Bible whatsoever in spirit or in truth. They do, however, have access to a file folder of stock verse, mostly unrelated, and mostly misunderstood, given the quality of debate here.
I have had quoted to me over and over the same group of unrelated Pauline phrases occasionally buttressed with unrelated OT verse which are claimed to prove various things but which invariably mean something either opposed or simply different than the claimed meaning. We give the Gospels and the children of the Reformation return with the unrelated snippets of the Epistles. Are you Paulines or are you Christians. Judging by not only your justifications and proofs, but by your emphases and conduct, surely not Christian.
The Church was authorized to teach, to instruct, to admonish and to correct. Not Simon Magus, one of the earliest Reformers, and not any of the Gnostics nor any other heretic.
We created the Bible, which we give freely to the heretic, the apostate and to the heathen. You are welcome, although, as with most self identified non Christian Christians, I expect no thanks.
I find it interesting that many of your posts fit a profile of one calling one’s self “Dungeon Master”. It is very fitting to the theology of death that I believe that you espouse so vehemently.
Your post is so strange I can’t begin to respond.
Did you see the post where it was implied that I should overlook the fact that the woman in Revelation 12 fled into the wilderness because it is “obscure” and should not be used to question the Catholic teaching that the woman is Mary? But then the same one suggested that the fight into Egypt was the flight into the wilderness. This, even though there is no cross-reference making Egypt the wilderness. We remember that Israel fled Egypt INTO the wilderness. 3-1/2 years in Egypt? I don’t think so.
THE LORD’S BRETHREN (Credit the Companion Bible)
According to Matt 13:55, the Lord had four brothers (i.e., half-brothers, as we say), James, Joses, Simon and Judas. He had at least three sisters also - “and His sisters, are they not all with us?” Had there been but two, the word all would have been both.
The Lord is called Mary’s “firstborn” (Matt 1:25 and Luke 2:7), and the natural inference is that Mary had other children. The [Greek] word prototokos is used only in these two passages and in Rom 8;29; Col 1:15,18; Heb 1:6; 11:28; 12:23 (pl); Rev 1:5, so that the meaning is easily ascertained. Had He been her only son, the word would have been [Greek] monogenes, which occurs in Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38, of human parentage; and of the Lord, as the only begotten of the Father, in John 1:14,18; 3:16,18; I John 4:9. In Heb 11:17 it is used of Isaac, Abraham’s only son according to the promise.
In Psalm 69, a Psalm with many predictive allusions to the Lord’s earthly life, verse 8 reads, “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children”. The Gospel history records His brethren in association with His mother. After the miracle at Cana, which they probably witnessed, we are told that “He went down to Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His brethren, and His disciples” (John 2:12). Later on they exhibit a spirit of opposition or jealousy, for while He is speaking to the people, His brethren, accompanied by His mother, sought Him, apparently to hinder His work (Matt 12:46, 47; Mark 3:31, 32; Luke 8:19, 20). In Mark 3:21 we read, “When His friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him; for they said, He is beside Himself.
The expression “His friends” (could be used of “kinsmen”) is [Greek] hoi par autou, “those beside Him “, and it denotes a relationship so close as to identify them with the “brethren” of v. 31. Again (John 7:3-10), they showed lack of sympathy with His work, and the reason is given in v. 5, “For neither did His brethren believe in Him”.
They are not seen again till, after His resurrection, they are gathered in the upper room with the apostles, and with His mother and theirs (Acts 1:14). Their unbelief had gone. James had become a servant to the Lord Jesus Christ (James 1:1), through the appearance to him of the risen Saviour (I Cor 15:7), and, shortly, is a “pillar” of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13-21; 21:18; Gal 1:19; 2:9,12).
The other brethren seem to have joined in the witness by itinerating; see I Cor 9:5.
The natural meaning of the term “His brethren”, in the Scripture record, would never have been challenged, but for the desire, when corruption crept into the churches (Acts 20:29, 30), of raising Mary from the position of “handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38) to the exalted one of [Greek] Theotokos, mother of God, whence it was an easy step to investing her with divine honours, as being herself a goddess. And thus the way was cleared for identifying her with the great goddess of Paganism, who is the mother of a divine son, and who is yet a virgin, a deity best known by the appellation she bore in Egypt, Isis, the mother of Horus. So it was put forth that Mary had no children other than the Lord, and that His brethren and sisters were either cousins, the children of Mary, the wife of Cleophas. Or, as we have heard from Catholics lately, “Joseph’s children from an earlier marriage!”
Those who maintained the former opinion asserted that Joseph was an old man when he married Mary. Of this there is not the least hint in the Gospel records. If he had older children, the right of the Lord Jesus to the throne of David would be invalidated, for the two genealogies in Matt: 1 and Luke 3 show that the regal rights were united in Joseph and Mary.
I actually get what you are saying here. Being an engineer Gajillion bugs me a bit, it's only been 6000 years since creation.
Now wondering and thinking about Mary...that's interesting. People should be wondering and thinking about God and His Son and His plan and His will and His Word. Wondering and thinking is just one more way to say.....worshipping.
Now wondering and thinking about the strange sound my Harley transmission is making might be called worship by someone that wants to be contrary. But clearly when we are wondering and thinking about why we exist and our sinful self and our salvation it is a rather different level of importance.
When a man spends his time wondering and thinking about evolution and how the universe brought him into existance and how morality is relative, that person is clearly an idolator and worships the universe. When a person spends time wondering and thinking about a woman and how she is....you know the list....that is worship. It is invention. It takes a misguided mind to even go there. It makes the bible thumping Christian wonder and think that the Marian wonderer and thinker is not even a Christian.
***Your post is so strange I can’t begin to respond.***
Exposure to the Gospel of Christ often does that to the children of the Reformed. Luckily enough, Jesus comes for all men, not just the self-identified self-created elite selected elect.
Walk the Way of Christ, do not take the limo ride of Calvin.
YEAH, some imply all manner of grace about rubber logic is due the RC org's perspective while they use ever nuance etc. to try and tack the Protty perspective to the rack with. I've never observed The Lord to be very thrilled about DOUBLE STANDARDS.
Did you see the post where it was implied that I should overlook the fact that the woman in Revelation 12 fled into the wilderness because it is “obscure” and should not be used to question the Catholic teaching that the woman is Mary? But then the same one suggested that the fight into Egypt was the flight into the wilderness. This, even though there is no cross-reference making Egypt the wilderness. We remember that Israel fled Egypt INTO the wilderness. 3-1/2 years in Egypt? I don’t think so.
THE LORD’S BRETHREN (Credit the Companion Bible)
According to Matt 13:55, the Lord had four brothers (i.e., half-brothers, as we say), James, Joses, Simon and Judas. He had at least three sisters also - “and His sisters, are they not all with us?” Had there been but two, the word all would have been both.
The Lord is called Mary’s “firstborn” (Matt 1:25 and Luke 2:7), and the natural inference is that Mary had other children. The [Greek] word prototokos is used only in these two passages and in Rom 8;29; Col 1:15,18; Heb 1:6; 11:28; 12:23 (pl); Rev 1:5, so that the meaning is easily ascertained. Had He been her only son, the word would have been [Greek] monogenes, which occurs in Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38, of human parentage; and of the Lord, as the only begotten of the Father, in John 1:14,18; 3:16,18; I John 4:9. In Heb 11:17 it is used of Isaac, Abraham’s only son according to the promise.
In Psalm 69, a Psalm with many predictive allusions to the Lord’s earthly life, verse 8 reads, “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children”. The Gospel history records His brethren in association with His mother. After the miracle at Cana, which they probably witnessed, we are told that “He went down to Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His brethren, and His disciples” (John 2:12). Later on they exhibit a spirit of opposition or jealousy, for while He is speaking to the people, His brethren, accompanied by His mother, sought Him, apparently to hinder His work (Matt 12:46, 47; Mark 3:31, 32; Luke 8:19, 20). In Mark 3:21 we read, “When His friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him; for they said, He is beside Himself.
The expression “His friends” (could be used of “kinsmen”) is [Greek] hoi par autou, “those beside Him “, and it denotes a relationship so close as to identify them with the “brethren” of v. 31. Again (John 7:3-10), they showed lack of sympathy with His work, and the reason is given in v. 5, “For neither did His brethren believe in Him”.
They are not seen again till, after His resurrection, they are gathered in the upper room with the apostles, and with His mother and theirs (Acts 1:14). Their unbelief had gone. James had become a servant to the Lord Jesus Christ (James 1:1), through the appearance to him of the risen Saviour (I Cor 15:7), and, shortly, is a “pillar” of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13-21; 21:18; Gal 1:19; 2:9,12).
The other brethren seem to have joined in the witness by itinerating; see I Cor 9:5.
The natural meaning of the term “His brethren”, in the Scripture record, would never have been challenged, but for the desire, when corruption crept into the churches (Acts 20:29, 30), of raising Mary from the position of “handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38) to the exalted one of [Greek] Theotokos, mother of God, whence it was an easy step to investing her with divine honours, as being herself a goddess. And thus the way was cleared for identifying her with the great goddess of Paganism, who is the mother of a divine son, and who is yet a virgin, a deity best known by the appellation she bore in Egypt, Isis, the mother of Horus. So it was put forth that Mary had no children other than the Lord, and that His brethren and sisters were either cousins, the children of Mary, the wife of Cleophas. Or, as we have heard from Catholics lately, “Joseph’s children from an earlier marriage!”
Those who maintained the former opinion asserted that Joseph was an old man when he married Mary. Of this there is not the least hint in the Gospel records. If he had older children, the right of the Lord Jesus to the throne of David would be invalidated, for the two genealogies in Matt: 1 and Luke 3 show that the regal rights were united in Joseph and Mary.
Blessings,
Well put.
I’ve always liked Ivory Soap: 99 and 44/100s percent pure!
But.... but... but we bought all this paper! What are we gonna do with it now? (Not to mention all the trouble I went to learning a little EYEtalian. Not to mention my scooter ...)
Ahem. Distinguo: "develop" not "invent". (That's our story and we're sticking to it.)
What I mean is that, and please don't ask me to work the example, we'd say the dogmas are implicit in the initial revelation in Jesus Christ. And I would tentatively add that one of the things we see going on in the NT is the first and critical steps of "Development" and in the way it continues to develop. That is there are controversies to which Paul responds, some quite authoritatively and some with "I say, not the Lord ... ."
In that connection I'd say that WE looking at you would offer, say sola scriptura, TULIP, and the like as examples of "development", though of course not as, say, startling as the Marian biggies.
SO in general without getting into tangles over these particular doctrines I'd say the Scriptural witness is that the Church is certainly in the bidnis of developing dogma.
The new committee later applauded then-Cardinal Ratzinger for being so open-minded.
LOL. "Open-minded?!?"
The committee was made up of sycophants like Leon Panetta. Ratzinger was officially in charge of the "investigation" and subsequent cover-up in Rome for years and years, and nothing was done about the sex abuse scandal until it all finally boiled over in the U.S. press and public opinion.
And further, Keating was not fired; he resigned in protest, saying the RCC was acting like the "La Cosa Nostra."
What a surprise.
Here's an article from the NYT...
''I make no apology,'' said Mr. Keating, who compared some bishops to ''La Cosa Nostra'' last week, suggesting that they were continuing to cover up the extent of molestation by members of the clergy. His comments drew immediate condemnation from the archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, as well as from members of Mr. Keating's own panel, the National Review Board. The board was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to monitor compliance with anti-abuse policies established a year ago by the bishops. In a letter to Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the conference and the man who appointed him, Mr. Keating said he had intended to give up the job after his first year anyway; the position has no time limit. But he came under swift pressure to step down immediately because of the comments. Cardinal Mahony said he and other bishops would raise questions at the bishops' semiannual meeting this week in St. Louis about Mr. Keating's comments. For the time being, the board's vice chairwoman, Anne M. Burke, will take over as leader. She is a justice of the Illinois appellate court. The resignation letter sounded the same law-and-order note that Mr. Keating, a former prosecutor and F.B.I. agent, has used from the beginning. That tone had set him at odds with other members of the board, which is made up of prominent Catholics and includes lawyers, business figures, a psychiatrist and a former White House chief of staff, Leon E. Panetta. The church, he said in the letter, is a ''home to Christ's people.'' ''It is not a criminal enterprise,'' Mr. Keating said. ''It does not condone and cover up criminal activity. It does not follow a code of silence. My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology..." Refusing to back down from his blunt words about Roman Catholic bishops, Frank Keating, former governor of Oklahoma, resigned yesterday as chairman of the church-appointed panel that is seeking to resolve the sexual abuse scandal involving priests and minors.
Apparently, Mr. Keating's fears were realized, regarding "criminal enterprises," and condoning "criminal activity" and "codes of silence."
Further, here is a BBC documentary about Ratzinger's two decades-long cover-up...
Crimen Sollicitationis was written in 1962 in Latin and given to Catholic bishops worldwide who are ordered to keep it locked away in the church safe. It instructs them how to deal with priests who solicit sex from the confessional. It also deals with "any obscene external act ... with youths of either sex." It imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation and any witnesses. Breaking that oath means excommunication from the Catholic Church..." "Crimen Sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became the Pope...
Humph! So now we're bad because we are really efficient in our use of time? Sheesh! Can't win for losing!
;-)
I'll refer to my earlier argument about how the apologetic enterprise gives a distorted view of the Church as a whole.
I think a guy like de Montfort lays himself open to suspicions like those you mention. But, and I guess I can't say this often enough, until I started playing the FR apologetics game I didn't, in my standard day, think about Mary all that much. My reading project, which will soon take me from FR, is going to be the so-called social encyclicals of that past 120 years, some of what Ratzinger wrote on Liturgics, and the collection of stuff which make up J2P2's "Theology of the Body". Then I'm going to re-read Fides et Ratio as dessert. That's going to take me months.
A part of the Dominican thing is to have a greater than usual devotion to our Lady and I guess in an average week I say at least 6 rosaries. But as I've tried to say, at least for me the Rosary is not as much about Mary as it appears to be. And she is mentioned so rarely in the Liturgy of the hours that I always have a kind of little whiplash when she does appear. "Looky that!"
Of course the question of when "some" becomes "too much" is going to be rough to resolve.
You should have asked us. She's there, alright. Front and center.
Wow, the New York Times and BBC, those are certainly unbiased sources on religious matters.
I have news for you, you can choose to ignore it or not, but the media assault on Catholicism is targetted just as much at evangelical Protestants as it is at Catholics. If you think that the left would somehow leave you alone if they succeeded in destroying the Catholic Church in America, you are sorely mistaken.
In my Internet study group, one of the participants is a lawyer who represents a “radical” Marian group that is constantly being charged with plagiarizing other groups apparitions and messages from Mary. Like the “prosperity gospelers” there is a lucrative underground in the “prayer” seminars.
LOLOLOL.
Only one who has never read the Bible could say something so astoundingly fleshly and anti-Scriptural.
Through these threads I have come to a greater appreciation for what Christ means by the unpardonable sin of speaking against the Holy Spirit.
And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." -- Isaiah 11:1-4
"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power" -- Ephesians 1:17-19"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." -- Matthew 12:31-32"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
It is quite remarkable that the BBC is taken to be a reliable source for this matter. I suppose we should follow their lead on global warming as well, since they know as much about the latter as about the former.
The following excerpt from the canons may shed some light on the misinterpretation:
|
Canon 904. Ad normam constitutionum apostolicarum et nominatim constitutionis Benedicti XIV Sacramentum Poenitentiae, 1 Iun. 1741, debet poenitens sacerdotem, reum delicti sollicitationis in confessione, intra mensem denuntiare loci Ordinario, vel Sacrae Congregationi S. Officii; et confessarius debet, graviter onerata eius conscientia, de hoc onere poenitentem monere. |
Canon 904. In accordance with the apostolic constitutions, in particular the constitution Sacramentum Poenitentiae of Benedict XIV of 1 June 1741, a penitent must within one month denounce to the local Ordinary or the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office a priest guilty of the crime of solicitation in confession; and a confessor must, under a grave obligation of conscience, inform a penitent of this duty. |
It may be also helpful to know that there are other processes in which secrecy is enjoined. Reasonable people will acknowledge that it is at least possible that a reason for such secrecy is that it enables people to speak without fear of what they say being repeated out of context on such Forums as Free Republic.
So we shouldn't necessarily ignore what comes from these outlets; we need to see if what they are saying is accurate.
What was inaccurate about anything written in these stories from the NYT or the BBC?
The fact is Keating was not fired; he quit in protest of the on-going cover-up. A cover-up, thanks to Ratzinger, which had lasted two decades, if not two centuries before this latest public airing.
$660 million paid out last year by the L.A. Archdiocese in one day in one city for sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests.
That's where you should be rightly venting your frustration.
Yes, all Christianity is under attack. It always has been. But by the grace of God, a remnant remains and it always will remain until Christ returns and history ends.
I AM NOT trying to defend the actions of a handful of clergymen, nor am I trying to defend the Church’s reluctance to address the problem sooner.
I am simply trying to point out that the left’s war on Catholicism is actually a war against ALL traditional Christianity in America. You can focus on our differences all you want, but sooner or later you will need to realize that we are all under attack for our shared beliefs. We are not that far behind the Europeans and Canadians where Christian leaders are being threatened with prosecution and in some cases charged simply for affirming values that ALL traditional Christians subscribe to.
1548 In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis:
It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).
Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.
Wow. And they don't see how this incorrect understanding of Christ and His clergy contributes to the flagrant sins of its monastic, imperial priestcraft?
Here's the corrected sentence, according to God's word...
the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ. is Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 10.
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