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Catholic Ping!
Here is all you need to know about the catholic church, if you have the guts to read it.
http://bishopaccountability.org/
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bkmk
“While I’m not naive enough to think that listing these 5 facts will render me immune from further accusations of “Mary worship”
No, just bad use of the Scriptures.
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Statements 1-4 are either irrelevant or at best tangential to the issue. After all, even if you have no dispute with any of those 4 assertions, none of those actually establish that praying to Mary, and according her the level of worship that Catholics do, is appropriate.
Number 5 touches on the salient point, that of intercession, but ignores some key matters. First, though the Bible provides evidence of Christians being told to ask each other to pray for them, there is not a single instance of anyone being told to user prayer in order to make that request. Every example is only of one person simply asking another living person to pray for them.
Now, the Catholic counterpoint to that is to say that Christians, living or dead, are all part of the “communion of saints”, so it is therefore no different to ask a dead Christian, such as Mary to pray for you, than it is to ask a living Christian. However, I see a couple holes in that argument.
First, in order for us to accept this argument, the person being prayed to must be part of this communion, or the point is of no consequence. This is only important in the case of asking those not living on earth for intercession, since there is a specific Biblical prohibition against communicating with the dead or with spirits that is relevant to this case. Catholics can argue that Christians who have part in Christ’s resurrection are not “dead” once their bodies die on earth, thus exempting prayer to them from this prohibition. However, only if one was certain of the person’s spiritual condition, be it in heaven, hell, or somewhere else, could one be certain that praying to them would be acceptable and not an act of divination or spiritualism. Thus, one must accept the Catholic Church’s proclamations of the status of Saints such as Mary as absolute, in order to think that this type of prayer is not fraught with danger.
Secondly, we know that living Christians can hear our request and respond, since they are alive and this is just factual observation. On the other hand, we have no real evidence or scriptural examples to say Mary or others who may be in Heaven can actually hear our prayers, or have something approaching omniscience to be able to hear the prayers of multitudes around the world, even those praying silently. Again, we must take the Catholic Church’s opinion on the matter as the absolute truth, or we can’t easily overlook this issue.
Finally, these Catholic doctrines on Mary deal with much more than the simple matter of one Christian saying a prayer for another. The practice of praying to Mary and other Saints imply that their intercessions are more efficacious than the intercessions of others. This idea has a lot of repercussions, and there are more than a few arguments that can be raised against it.
Also, the doctrines on Mary and the saints involve not only simple prayers of intercession, but prayers of reverence. Again, the Catholics invoke the “communion of saints”, as well as the Commandment to honor your father and mother, to answer this objection. Still, the reverence shown to some saints, and especially to Mary, goes well beyond the practice of showing respect to people on earth, and it can be argued that it approaches the level or giving worship to them that is due only to God. The Catholic Church assures us that this level of worship is not inappropriate, but again, we have to accept that they are absolutely correct on that matter, or there is a problem not easily ignored.
In the end, it simply boils down to trusting the authority of the Catholic Church’s doctrine on the matter, in order to put these objections aside. If you are a Catholic, then you will accept that authority, and see no issues at all with these practices. For non-Catholics, there are plenty of reasons to question and object to the practices, but the responses all boil down to “we don’t have to worry about that because the Church says it’s okay”.
I love Mary and beleive that God chose her to be the eathly mother of is son. She has to be special for God to choose her for such a mission. She was obedient to God. I love Joseph, the man God chose to serve as Jesus’ earthly dad. He was obedient to God’s plan, too.
I don’t pray to them, though. I pray to God. I was raised Catholic and from an early age, I knew the go betweens between me and Jesus were not supposed to be there. I bypassed the priest and confessed my sin directly to Jesus and He knew my sorrow and he lifted the burden directly. Until the fifth grade, my mom made me go to confession and I would pray that Jesus would forgive her and the Priests because they did not know we are supposed to talk to Him directly.
I have no idea what Mary is doing in heaven but I think it is safe to assume she’s put to good use by our Father. I don’t think she is supposed to be a go between God and his children in worship so I do not pray to her. But I would not be surprised if she is not sent to help people or involved with a fleet of angels who do help God’s children.
She was full of grace in life and I imagine the same is true in heaven. She was blessed with a heartbreaking mission as Jesus’ earthly mom. The same with Joseph, but sadly, we don’t hear much about him. She is not ‘the mother of God’ as God has no beginning and no end. Some Catholics do worship her and place her above her Son. Some Catholics do pray and pour their hearts out to everyone but Jesus. But this is not true of all Catholics.
If there's a subordinate mediator also, then there is no sole mediator.
Sole means only.
Your thinking is fuzzy.
This also goes along with Mary being without sin.
We are told in the Bible that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Mary was the temple by which Jesus Christ entered this world. Therefore Mary had to be filled with sanctifying grace and without sin. If she had been with sin, that would mean that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, entered into this world by way of an unclean temple. This is not possible, as Jesus Christ was Divine (as well as having a human nature). If Jesus had been just a human being (and without divinity), then the belief that Mary was without sin would be wrong.
May I ask what is your intention for posting this?
I'll just quickly mention some parallels that former Protestant pastor and Biblical scholar Scott Hahn points out between the first chapter of Luke and the 6th chapter of 2nd Samuel, where Luke calls up imagery from David's moving of the Ark and Mary's journey to Elizabeth.
Both "arose and went" (2 Sm 6:2, Lk 1:39) into the same hill country. Both Elizabeth and David feel unworthy (2 Sm 6:9, Lk 1:43) and ask a similar question. The unborn John leaps (Lk 1:41,44) and David leaps and dances (2 Sm 6:16). Both Mary and the Ark stay for 3 months (Lk 1:56, 2 Sm 6:11). In Lk 1:42, Luke uses the same verb for Elizabeth's exclamation as the Old Testament verb used by the levites for chants of praise to God, which is significant because Elizabeth is of Levitical descent (Lk 1:5). The verb is not used elsewhere in the New Testament and is used in the Old Testament only in describing events related to the Ark of the Covenant. Now protestants reading this may say I'm grasping at straws. When I was protestant, I might have agreed with them. But in the Catholic method of reading scripture, these are not mere trivialities.
BFL
I believe John represented the faithful remnant of the Church and Jesus was giving Mary to the faithful remnant of His Church to be our mother.
John was the only apostle who remained completely faithful to Jesus to the end, just as the Catholic Church is the only Church which adheres to ALL Christ taught us. John heard Jesus say things no other disciple heard; the Catholic Church still hears the words Christ uttered that no other church will recognize or remember.
We were given Mary’s love, our Lord’s only earthly possession, just as John, the only true Follower was given His mother. Christ loved Mary and John and gave them to each other. He loved His new Church and He entrusted love of her to us.
I admire Mary. Mary will called blessed by all generations. Just as Job is called blessed (James 5:11). Just as all who are poor in spirit, thirsting after righteousness, etc, are called blessed (Matt 5). All are described by the same word that Mary uses of herself in the Magnificat in Luke 1:58.
Mary chose the opprobrium of others rather than to say “no” to God’s Spirit. She is a model for us.
Just as Job is a model for us.