I often see a hint of jealousy in the protestant angst directed at the doctrines on Mary.
Why didn’t God choose to do that for all of us?
He did.
Mary is saved by the shed blood of Jesus and her sinlessness is a result of her perfect unity to Him, by virtue of the fact that He was carried in her womb.
Do you believe that when one is united to Jesus it is easier to avoid sin?
I do, so if Mary was perfectly united to Him, and she was, then it is Him working within her that accomplishes the avoidance of sin and not anything she has done. She was/is completely obedient to His Word, no different than what we are all called to be.
There is nothing in Catholic teaching that says that Mary has done anything on her own.
She is who and what she is because her Son, Jesus, is who and what He is.
FOTFLOL!!!
In your dreams. It never entered my mind...
It's merely projecting....
Since we don't believe most of what Catholicism teaches about Mary in the first place, how could be jealous of what God did (didn't do) for her?
I am just as saved as Mary or any other believer who has put their faith in Christ and am seated in the heavenlies with them.
Ephesians 2:4-10 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
I wonder if you are aware that certain sects of Orthodoxy disagree with the Roman Catholic doctrine of the sinlessness of Mary? Our FRiend, rzman21, posted a thread yesterday that spoke about the Veneration of the Holy Virgin Mary in the Syrian Orthodox Church. In it, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2835243/posts the writer said:
It is noteworthy to mention that the conception of Mary took place according to the natural law for she was of a man (Joachim) and a woman (Hanna). Mary is the daughter of two barren persons just like Isaac, Samuel and John, the Baptist. She inherited, just like them, and like other people, the original sin of Adam and Eve, which is the sin of all humanity starting with Adam who represented his race when he committed sin so his descendents were charged with sin, which could not be obliterated from falling humanity except by the incarnation of the second hypothesis of the Holy Trinity. That’s why the Apostle Paul says: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom.5: 12), and David said: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5.). Of all those who put on flesh, it was only Jesus Christ who was excepted from the legacy of this sin. “Who took everything we have except sin” and who became the propitiator for the sins of the whole world. “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God”. (R.3: 23,24). “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world”, so by one man it was obliterated (Rom.5: 12:15). Just like all other people, the Virgin Mary, who was, most probably, born in Nazareth, was not without sin.
It seems that since the Catholics have no problem accepting the Orthodox within their fellowship - who in addition to not holding to the sinlessness of Mary also reject obedience to the Pope of Rome among other issues - they would also find it within their charity to receive other Christian faith traditions that hold to the basic tenets of what it means to be a Christian. It seems that most of these calls to "ecumenicalism" from the Catholic Church all too often come with strings attached that insist Rome is over all the Christian faithful.