Actions speak louder than words. My son attends a RC high school that just built a grotto. I regularly see RC's kneel down in front of the statue of Mary praying to her expecting their prayers to receive special treatment because of it. This behavior is promoted and thought to be pious.
You can try and finesse this blasphemous behavior any way you want, but Bible reading Christians know it's wrong.
Ex.20:4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image...(5)you shall not bow down to them nor serve them...
. I regularly see RC's kneel down in front of the statue of Mary praying to her expecting their prayers to receive special treatment because of it. This behavior is promoted and thought to be pious.And?
Do people bow to kings, salute officers in the military, doff their hats in respect to others? How is this worship? It is VENERATION of the most HOLY women of all times. Is the Mother of God NOT worthy of veneration?
Why does your son attend a Catholic high school?
Wait. You can SEE what people expect?
Wow! What does it look like? What is the appearance of an expectation? Do they have colors? If not, how do you see them? Are you psychic?
You might on some occasions see me kneel in front of an icon of Dominic. I'd be interested to know what else you saw at that time. But I can tell you confidently that you would not see an expectation that I would receive treatment any more special that that which you receive from God. To God each one of us is "special."
“Actions speak louder than words.”
I agree.
“My son attends a RC high school that just built a grotto.”
You send your son and your money to support this.
“Actions speak louder than words.”
Indeed they do.
Well I have been known to visit a candle grotto, and to light a votive candle testifying to my desire of lifting a prayer on behalf of a fellow suffering human being, via the ministration of the blessed Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven — Mary. Though I find there is no statue of Mary within these precincts, I do understand that this holy place is devoted to her, and she to it.
Whether the suffering subject of my prayer is Catholic or not, it makes no difference to me. Or to Mary. The particular candle grotto I attend (as often as I can, which is not often enuf — it's a long trip from where I live) is the Shrine of the Divine Mercy, on Eden Hill, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
I find it an island of sanctity and peace in the sh*tstorm of the Kultursmog in which we all seem to live (and to be choking in) nowadays....
Of course, the entire place is devoted to the Holy Mother of God.... Her "place" in Catholic theology is (humbly) presented in the great fresco over the Alter in the main Shrine....
So when one lights a candle on behalf of a suffering loved one here, in this sacred place, one does so in honor, in appeal to the blessed Mother of God.
Catholics are "so close to the ground" of human experience that they actually think a mother may have some influence with her Son — even if He is God Himself.
Go figure.
I am really sick and tired of trying to "build a bridge" between Pentacostals and Catholics.
In the end, God still probably sees each as members of the One Faithful Body of Christ.
Even if so many of His children do not.
God bless.
Good night.