Testimony of a Former Irish Priest

BereanBeacon.Org ^ | Richard Peter Bennett

[OLD REGGIE]

"God didn't ask her. He sent an Angel to tell her."

Whoa! Dude! Do you understand what you are saying? Why do the Scriptures record her consent?

Luke 1:31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

Please explain the meaning of "you will" and "you shall", the words of the angel sent directly by God.

Do you suppose God was on pins and needles waiting for a (unknown) response from Mary?

[OLD REGGIE]

Sorry, not right at all. God did not force Mary against her will to become the Mother of His Son. That would be impossible. She gave her loving consent to His wonderful plan of salvation, told to her by the angel Gabriel. Full of faith and totally in love with God, she conceived Jesus in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. There was nothing ‘forced” about it.

http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/maryd4.htm

excerpt:
Picture the scene of the Annunciation. God proposes the mystery of the Incarnation which He will accomplish in the Virgin Mary—but not until she has given her consent. The accomplishment of the mystery is held in suspense awaiting the free acceptance of Mary. At this moment Mary represents all of us in her own person; it is as if God is waiting for the response of the humanity to which He longs to unite Himself. What a solemn moment this is! For upon this moment depends the decision of the most vital mystery of Christianity.

But see how Mary gives her answer. Full of faith and confidence in the heavenly message and entirely submissive to the Divine Will, the Virgin Mary replies in a spirit of complete and absolute abandonment: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to Thy word.” This “Fiat” is Mary's consent to the Divine Plan of Redemption. It is like an echo of the “Fiat” of the creation of the world. But this is a new world, a world infinitely superior, a world of grace, which God will cause to arise in consequence of Mary's consent, for at that moment the Divine Word, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, becomes Man in Mary: “And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.”

Wanna try something new, interesting and enlightening?

Rather than resort to apologetics for your information go to the source. SCRIPTURE

[dsc]

“To habitually seek spiritual comfort, protection, succor, etc. FROM ANYTHING OR ANYONE OTHER THAN THE ARMS OF JESUS, THE FATHER, HIS HOLY SPIRIT THE BLOOD OF JESUS, IS IDOLATROUS BLASPHEMY, IMPURE AND SIMPLE.”

Together with selective editing, we often see that old slight of hand whereby a proposition other than that advanced is rebutted, with the intent of fooling people into thinking that the altered idea was actually advanced.

Note above the sly, dishonest insertion of the word “spiritual” into the purported rebuttal. That word changes the entire meaning of the passage in question, and does not occur in the original.

Truly, Satan is the father of lies.

That aside, I defy anyone to produce a scripture that forbids one to seek “comfort, protection, succor” from anyone other than God. Did God give us loving mothers that we might spurn their love? Did God give us brothers that we might make ourselves strangers to them?

God forbids us to make up other gods and worship them; He does not forbid us to take comfort in the company of friends, the companionship of spouses, or the prayers of other human beings.

It is only by inserting the word “spiritual” that Quix can pretend to have a point, and even that is dubious at best.

When someone prays for me in the love of Christ, I find it comforting, and that looks to me like “spiritual comfort.” Is it “idolatrous blasphemy, impure and simple?”

When the Blessed Virgin Mary comes to me and tells me, “No, you will not die from this disease; you’ll be all right,” I find that comforting—because she could only have gotten that knowledge from one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Is that “idolatrous blasphemy, impure and simple?”

When I pray to Sancte Michael Archangele to “cast into Hell, by the power of God, Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls,” and something really scary stops happening, I am comforted. Is that “idolatrous blasphemy, impure and simple?”

When I have had jobs that required me to speak on the telephone to numerous people every day, such as technical support for a major cell phone carrier, I had the experience—infrequently, thank God—of speaking with someone who was mentally ill, who really needed help, but had no one. This was not only sad, but frightening.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

There really is a schizophrenogenic double-bind here...whatever we say, it will tend to be met with scorn and abuse merely because we said it.

Good summary of 99% of the posts from these anti-Catholics.

[OLD REGGIE]

Did I tell you about the time that some furrin’ monk Biblical scholar came to my Episcopal Seminary to talk Bible with Dr. Reginald Fuller (who was supposedly a big noise in NT studies) and they had no common language so they conversed in Latin?

Pretty amazing. And it was fluent. It wasn’t really fast, but it was too fast for me to make out anything much.

It wasn't fast because they were thinking in their native tongue and translating - - - that's why.

J2P2 was apparently quite the amazing mind in his salad days. In Weigel’s biography there’s a photo of hum grading somebody’s exam WHILE he is at the same time heading up a viva voce exam. There here innerleckshuals don’t mess around.

Did he think in Latin?

I don’t know why they didn’t translate it “cult” which was certainly a liturgical term of art before it came to mean people in airports with flowers.

As I said before I am confident they were well aware of the English language understanding of the words "worship", "devotion", and "veneration". They chose "worship" so....................?

[dsc]

“Hyperdulia was...invented by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, A.D. 1270...the distinction was developed in 1270...”

So, there was no schizophrenia in the world until the word was coined?

Surely you didn’t intend to assert that the coining of a word necessarily shows that the thing it describes didn’t exist before the word.

Or did you?

[OLD REGGIE]

Very well put! The idea that praying to Mary "deprives" God in any way is tantamount to saying God is a finite being with limited power. The whole idea that God would be offended by someone asking His Mother to intercede is ridiculous. As you said, we're all praying in the Spirit, and He is infinite and omnipotent.

And of course throughout Scripture Jesus is quoted as asking for prayer through His mother....NOT!

[dsc]

“You guys need to do more transfinite math and expand your metaphor base from zero sum finite arithmetic to win/win transfinite arithmetic.”

Why don’t people just do that as a matter of course? Is it that they were never taught, and couldn’t figure it out on their own? That they don’t want to? That Satan blinds them?

It just seems so...obvious.

[dsc]

“You can’t add Mary to the mix without diminishing that which rightly belongs to God.”

That is incorrect.

Even saying that reduces God to the status of a petty, jealous adolescent.

God has eternity, as does every soul. He doesn’t mind if we love those whom He loves.

[Quix]

Yeah. I knew you knew all that.

Thx.

[Quix]

Of course.

[roamer_1]

EXCELLENT POINTS. WELL PUT.

THX Quix. How are you today? You seem to be in fine fettle, as always. :D

[Quix]

There was life and truth in my communication.

Sorry it evidently wasn’t received.

[OLD REGGIE]

“Hyperdulia was...invented by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, A.D. 1270...the distinction was developed in 1270...”

So, there was no schizophrenia in the world until the word was coined?

Surely you didn’t intend to assert that the coining of a word necessarily shows that the thing it describes didn’t exist before the word.

Or did you?

That the thing it describes didn't exist in Scripture? Yes!

[Quix]

And of course throughout Scripture Jesus is quoted as asking for prayer through His mother....NOT!

---

INDEED.

Though some groups don’t seem to detect hints, much less respond well to them. They require holes to be bored and it poured in. And for some, even that doesn’t work.

[Quix]

[Quix]

Not in my construction on reality.

Not in the Bible I read.

[dsc]

“I believe is very personal and which could have prompted a ping to the Religion Moderator if I were the type who cried crocodile tears at every supposed “personal” insult.”

There are no personal insults there. None.

Compared to the slops that some perpetualy fling at Catholics here, those two paragraphs are practically hagiography (in its secular sense of “a worshipful or idealizing biography”).

[Quix]

Good prophetic/inner healing conference this weekend.

Lots of good stuff from The Lord. Very encouraging.

Step by step .. .

Hope you are well, too.

Lots to do still before the hammer falls in our grand land and around the world.

Prayerfully we’ll do what we can. He will have to pick up the gaps and pieces regardless.

[OLD REGGIE]

There are no personal insults there. None.

"That you persist in telling us, and others, LIES about what we believe and what we have told you again and again what we believe removes any chance of a benign or charitable explanation for your conduct. For the sake of your own soul, stop telling those lies. Beg Our Lord for forgiveness, He is a Merciful God, I will join my prayers with yours on your behalf."

I am the "you". That is personal in any language.