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Whatever,
Nurse R.
Posted on 12/17/2010 7:31:07 AM PST by marshmallow
Back when I first joined YIMCatholic, I was going to write posts about my conversion. I hammered out seven posts in pretty rapid succession and then, I stopped writing them until recently.
Many of my posts now are simply my observations of the world which are colored through the lens of a convert to Catholicism. It would be difficult for them not to be. Other posts I've written are of the "look what I just found!" variety, and the "I want to share this with you" type. Call them the discovery posts if you will.
Recently I gave a talk on the Communion of Saints for my parishes RCIA group. Consequently, I've been answering questions of potential converts that have prompted me to explain my conversion to others.
Basically, this has resulted in my having become a neophyte evangelist of sorts for the Church. And though this blog space isn't the forum for heavy-duty apologetics, because others do that better elsewhere, I have always seen my role here at YIMC as one of evangelizing.
Back to my conversion story, when I was first confronting the idea of becoming a Catholic, I had to look hard at the question "Why am I Protestant?" Having just moved cross-country following my retirement from the Marines, I found out that my mother no longer went to church where we had gone when I was growing up. Instead of the non-denominational church I grew up in (and which we were a founding family of), I learned that she now went to a Presbyterian church instead. Hmmm.
Rather than start visiting all kinds of churches, which appealed to me about as much as shopping for a new car, my family and I kept going to the local Catholic parish in our new town while I did research and home improvement projects. One of the first things I looked into was the problem of Catholics and their obviously misguided devotion to the Virgin Mary.
The funny thing is, I had sat in the pews in the Catholic Church with my wife for close to 18 years and I had never really noticed any wacky or overly zealous devotion to Mary. Not at Mass, anyway, and as we didn't stick around much after the conclusion of Mass, I didn't see anything that made me uncomfortable. Truthfully, I was surprised about this and it's probably a big reason why I continued to sit in the pews with my patient Catholic wife for that long a time.
This didn't stop me from believing that weird Marian devotions were happening though, and I assumed talk of her perpetual virginity was just "crazy talk." Like most, I had no idea what the Immaculate Conception was either and I just thought people were referring to Our Lord's conception. I was ignorant, plain and simple. But I had in mind a mission to correct the wrong religious track that my family was on so I started planning the military campaign to retake the spiritual territory I had ceded to the Church. My first target was what I thought would be the easiest: Mary.
Before I went on my "destroy Marian Devotion" offensive, though, I knew I would have to do a little homework. Planning ahead, you see, I figured the best place to start was with the guys who picked up the Protestant Reformation football and ran with it for touchdowns. Follow the winners Frank, and victory will be yours!
But get this. Much to my surprise, nay, shock(!) I had to throw a penalty flag on myself and look for a different angle of attack. Because what I found out was that the Big Three "Reformers" all agreed with the Catholic Church's teachings on the Mother of God!
Here is what I found, courtesy of the site catholicapologetics.info,
Martin Luther:
Mary the Mother of God
Throughout his life Luther maintained without change the historic Christian affirmation that Mary was the Mother of God:
"She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God."
Perpetual Virginity
Again throughout his life Luther held that Mary's perpetual virginity was an article of faith for all Christians - and interpreted Galatians 4:4 to mean that Christ was "born of a woman" alone.
"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin."
The Immaculate Conception
Yet again the Immaculate Conception was a doctrine Luther defended to his death (as confirmed by Lutheran scholars like Arthur Piepkorn). Like Augustine, Luther saw an unbreakable link between Mary's divine maternity, perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception. Although his formulation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not clear-cut, he held that her soul was devoid of sin from the beginning:
"But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin..."
Assumption
Although he did not make it an article of faith, Luther said of the doctrine of the Assumption:
"There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know."
Honor to Mary
Despite his unremitting criticism of the traditional doctrines of Marian mediation and intercession, to the end Luther continued to proclaim that Mary should be honored. He made it a point to preach on her feast days.
"The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart."
"Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing." Luther made this statement in his last sermon at Wittenberg in January 1546.
John Calvin:
It has been said that John Calvin belonged to the second generation of the Reformers and certainly his theology of double predestination governed his views on Marian and all other Christian doctrine . Although Calvin was not as profuse in his praise of Mary as Martin Luther he did not deny her perpetual virginity. The term he used most commonly in referring to Mary was "Holy Virgin".
"Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God."
"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ." Calvin translated "brothers" in this context to mean cousins or relatives.
"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."
"To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son."
Ulrich Zwingli:
"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."
"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." Zwingli used Exodus 4:22 to defend the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."
"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin."
"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother."
"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."
I remember being blown away by these revelations. I had gone to Christian churches my whole life and I had been told what I was supposed to believe, and I had never been told these things about Mary. I felt a little bit like the fellow wearing tan below, even though I was really acting like the guy wearing black.
And then I thought, "methinks they dost protest too much." And like young Skywalker above, I too leaped with faith and lived to tell the tale. I didn't land on my feet though. Instead, I landed in the lap of Blaise Pascal.
And so began the process of my going back to the Scriptures and to the Church Fathers and back through the history of the Catholic Church, and finally back into the arms of Christ's Church Herself.
Perhaps this post is a prequel in the 2BFrank saga. Sheeeesh!
To read more about the Protestant Reformers views on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to track down the footnotes too, head on over to catholicapologetics.info. Head over to Scripture Catholic too, and bring your Bibles. Then head over to the Vatican and look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well.
Says you, millions disagree. Why is your opinion of any more value than mine and theirs?
Iscool is right - The woman's children are identified as those who have the testimony of Christ, and keep the commandments of God:
Rev 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
(e-Sword: KJV)
Rome, who believes the woman is "Mary," who claims to be her children, do not keep the commandments of God.
The road to hell is wide. the road to heaven is straight and narrow - few will find it... That "vast majority" seems to be an handicap.
...And so Pharisaic, incidentally.
Just going by the number of posts read on this thread and how they come across as seen by SOME others with a well known anti-Catholic bias.
There. Fixed it.
Maybe not. It sure looks like you might require some serious help to discern that language and custom 2000 years ago and half-way around the world in a Jewish environment might be different than what your "basic English words in a protestant Bible mean."
If you are accustomed to seeing only a bigoted anti-Catholic biased so-called mental health instructor on these threads, then you likely have no experience with true professionals. Nurses are not "employees." We are licensed by the state and before I retired, I worked on contract. Legal parameters for nursing practice are clear in regard to respecting client religion, whether it's Ba'hai, moslem, Christian, Jewish, whatever. Clients are allowed free access to the religious director of their choice, as are all patients in a hospital, unless for some reason such as dietary observance, there would be some sort of interference with treatment. That never happened in my practice.
On the other hand, this is my private, retired life. I have had a number of interactions with other professionals here on FR, mostly private. Based on your post, your knowledge base regarding what goes on in hospital treatment and how nurses interact is very limited. This is not a problem, unless you are trying to project your own bias onto me, with wild speculation liberally thrown in.
Terrycarl,
This whole discussion has nothing to do with me and any measure if self-importance; please don’t go down that road!
I’m glad that we agree that God can do anything. He IS almighty. Period. My question, based on your response is this: who are you (or any of us, but particularly the Roman Catholic Church) to decide what is insulting to Him? We certainly have Scripture to guide us. But nowhere in Scripture does it say that Mary was sinless. But, there are MANY passages that affirm that we are ALL humanity is sinful—except for Jesus.
As for old relics and bones? That’s God’s business as well; all I want to do is to, with His grace and mercy, serve and worship him—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ALONE. Just as we have been commanded to do.
Hoss
I like him, too.
PhotoBucket has quite a collection. I should scan them again.
BTW, I’m willing to share the html coding of my links with those of like precious faith and perspective of our sounding board group. I now am getting them alphabetized in a Word file. Just let me know.
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
I didn’t realize Alice’s rabbits were so intent on chasing their tales in cirular pretend-’reasoning.’
INDEED TO THE MAX.
LOL.
I think I catch where you are going with this. Okay, not all Catholics have prayers to Mary in their taglines. Only some Catholics have prayers to Mary in their taglines.
....”the basis for determining truth from error is not based upon even WHO it is that is teaching it, “we or an angel from heaven,” but whether it is the same gospel that they had already received – and this gospel is recorded in Scripture..................How do we determine whether a church is teaching correct doctrine or not?
.... The only infallible standard that Scripture says that we have is the Bible...... (Isaiah 8:20; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Matthew 5:18; John 10:35; Isaiah 40:8; 1 Peter 2:25; Galatians 1:6-9).
This is a really great post Cynical Bear....it goes to the heart of all which matters....thank you for posting it.
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
You mean the magic White Hankys didn’t take care of that?
What a surprise!
/sar
Clearly . . . sigh . . .
Lore prevent me from ever being a tare!
INDEED.
And, as usual, Jewish Mammas and RC Mammas seem to rather chronically beg to be put in their places.
Then stop praying to her and believing she’s sinless and bestowing upon her the blasphemous title of co-redeemer and handing over to her the office of mediator between God and men.
If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it’s still a fallen creature like the rest of us.
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
Rome is a carnal religion.
If the Rabid Clique RC’s hereon are any clue . . .
I think the
Vatican AIWSOTARM
has gone well beyond RELIGION into a DEMONIZED OBSESSION PILE OF HELLISH RITUALS AND FANTASIES.
What I find most amusing is that it’s their tradition that says tradition is equal to Scripture in authority.
So convenient.
...And so Pharisaic, incidentally.
INDEED.
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