Posted on 12/08/2012 2:24:39 PM PST by NYer
Do Catholics worship Mary? This question is as old as the Protestant Reformation itself, and it rests, like other disputed doctrinal points, on a false premise that has been turned into a wedge: the veneration of Mary detracts from the worship of Christ.
This seeming opposition between Mary and Christ is symptomatic of the Protestant tendency, begun by Luther, to view the entirety of Christian life through a dialectical lens – a lens of conflict and division. With the Reformation the integrity of Christianity is broken and its formerly coherent elements are now set in opposition. The Gospel versus the Law. Faith versus Works. Scripture versus Tradition. Authority versus Individuality. Faith versus Reason. Christ versus Mary.
The Catholic tradition rightly sees the mutual complementarity of these elements of the faith, as they all contribute to our ultimate end – living with God now and in eternity. To choose any one of these is to choose them all.
By contrast, to assert that Catholics worship Mary along with or in place of Christ, or that praying to Mary somehow impedes Christ’s role as “the one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim 2:5) is to create a false dichotomy between the Word made flesh and the woman who gave the Word his flesh. No such opposition exists. The one Mediator entrusted his mediation to the will and womb of Mary. She does not impede his mediation – she helps to make it possible.
Within this context we see the ancillary role that the ancilla Domini plays in her divine Son’s mission. Mary’s is not a surrogate womb rented and then forgotten in God’s plan. She is physically connected to Christ and his life, and because of this she is even more deeply connected to him in the order of grace. She is, in fact, “full of grace,” as only one who is redeemed by Christ could be.
The feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception celebrates the very first act of salvation by Christ in the world. Redemption is made possible for all by his precious blood shed on the cross. Yet Mary’s role in the Savior’s life and mission is so critical and so unique that God saw it necessary to wash her in the blood of the Lamb in advance, at the first moment of her conception.
This reality could not be more Biblical: the angel greets Mary as “full of grace” (Luke 1:28), which is literally rendered as “already graced” (kecharitōmenē). Following Mary, the Church has “pondered what sort of greeting this might be” for centuries. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, ultimately defined in 1854, is nothing other than a rational expression of the angel’s greeting contained in Scripture: Mary is “already graced” with Christ’s redemption at the very moment of her creation.
Because God called Mary to the unique vocation of serving as the Mother of God, it is not just her soul that is graced, as is the case for us when we receive the sacraments. Mary’s entire being, body and soul, is full of grace so that she may be a worthy ark for the New Covenant. And just as the ark of the old covenant was adorned with gold to be a worthy house for God’s word, Mary is conceived without original sin to be the living and holy house for God’s Word.
Thus Mary is not only conceived immaculately, that is, without stain of sin. She also is the Immaculate Conception. Her entire being was specifically created by God with unique privilege so that she could fulfill her role in God’s plan of salvation. “Free from sin,” both original and personal, is the necessary consequence of being “full of grace.”
Protestants claim that veneration of Mary as it is practiced by Catholics is not biblical. St. Paul encouraged the Corinthians to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). Paul is not holding himself up as the end goal, but as a means to Christ, the true end. And if a person is imitated, he is simultaneously venerated.
If we should imitate Paul, how much more should we imitate Mary, who fulfilled God’s will to the greatest degree a human being could. Throughout her life she humbled herself so that God could be exalted, and because of this, Christ has fulfilled his promise by exalting his lowly mother to the seat closest to him in God’s kingdom.
Mary is the model of humility, charity, and openness to the will of God. She allows a sword to pierce her heart for the sake of the world’s salvation. She shows us the greatness to which we are called: a life free from sin and filled with God’s grace that leads to union with God in Heaven. She is the model disciple, and therefore worthy of imitation and veneration, not as an end in herself, but as the means to the very purpose of her – and our – existence: Christ himself.
God’s lowly handmaiden would not want it any other way.
THANK YOU for closing out my evening with a good hearty laugh. I soooo needed that tonight. Peace...and a huge smile filled with Christian charity...be with you :-D
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Pinging a couple other Catholics who really did (do) know their Catholic doctrine.
The problem isn’t the Catholics posting a response to actual lies about the Catholic church.
What has happened is that virtually all of the former Catholics have posted what they were taught, raised by the Catholic church to believe, and what they have seen in practice, and that’s where the knee jerk reaction comes in from the Catholics.
The Catholics attempt at refuting it is to accuse us of being poorly catechized, and yet some of those they accuse of that have TAUGHT Catechism classes. Additionally, many of us report the same teaching that Catholics say are lies about the RCC, and yet, until we met on FR, we never knew each other. We come from a geographically diverse experience and yet report the same things.
Now honestly, if that many people from all different areas report having the same teachings, what would you consider the reason to be? That the RCC taught it wrong, or that everyone just happened to learn it all wrong the same way?
One would think the odds of everyone all getting the same things wrong in the same way to be astronomical, but it never seems to occur to them that the RCC is the problem. No, we all just happened to misunderstand it all in the same way. Really?
They just cannot bring themselves to admit the RCC might be wrong.
**Why did He need a pure womb?**
Duh!
Because he was without sin.
Sorry, mm, but the Catholic Church is right. What are you going to tell Jesus when you meet him at the moment of your death? Are you going to tell him that you didn’t accept his mother as a holy person?
I wouldn’t even bother f it wasn’t for all the protestant bashing going on
No, I do not accept his mother as a “holy person”, where in the Bible does it say we should all worship Mary?
Jesus is my savior. Not Mary. Nowhere in the Bible does it confer divinity on Mary or anyone but Jesus, the Father (God) and the Holy Ghost.
The Catholic Church can tell you to worship St. Pedro Patron Saint of Olive Garden for all I care. But the protestant bashing is getting ridiculous. Simply because we do not accept all the manmade worldly add-on’s and the unbiblical fluff does not make us Satan. I do not follow earthly men who declare themselves infallable and merchants of God.
It is all about the message and not the messenger.
and an impure womb would be the babys fault, how?
"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour" (Psalm 8:3-5)
"Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." (Malachi 3:16,17)
The Bible does not ask Catholics or Christians to “worship” Mary, but to esteem her as the Mother Jesus Christ, true God and true man.
I’m sorry for you that such esteem is lacking — or at least that’s the way it seems to me.
Catholics worship only God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Where are you getting ideas about worshipping Mary?
Maybe a pamphlet? Maybe some preacher who hates Catholics?
And?????
How would that have made any difference to Him?
No, I'm not going to lie to Him. She's holy as all true believers are.
And just why would he ask me what I thought of His mother? Is there an entrance exam to get into heaven?
The RCC is wrong. Mary was a fallible human being who needed a savior, by her own admission. She was human, and since she had a human father, she had a sin nature and sinned, just like the rest of us.
I hear Catholics praying to Saint this and Saint that. I hear them saying “Hail Mary”.
Those are dead humans. They cannot hear you. They are not divine. But those are the human ancestors you name your temples for.
You guys spend more time praying to and talking about the background characters than the star of the show.
“esteem”?
I have esteem for George Washington.
Catholics worship Mary.
The Souls in heaven, both Mary and the Saints are alive. You have two natures, right? A soul and a body, correct?
The body dies, but the soul lives.
The saints and Mary hear our requests and send them to Jesus.
It’s really that simple.
Haven’t you ever prayed for someone who just died in your family? In someone else’s family?
Have you ever prayed for anyone who is living?
Well the saints and Mary are living in heaven!
ROFL and where does it say this? Where does it say that far into the future there will be a human called a "Pope" who will decide which dead humans get to pass prayers to Jesus?
Jesus is Lord. He does not need a Secretary. You have just ATTRIBUTED more power to these dead humans than to Jesus Christ. Do you realize that?
Good thing Jesus and God can hear you even when you put the wrong address on the envelope I guess. Well, we should hope.
I do not believe that human beings get to assign power to dead humans to help out poor old weak Jesus who would never hear from us otherwise. Wow.
I have never prayed TO a dead person.
LOL
That is not Christianity.
Have you really looked at the mysteries of the Rosary? Almost all of them have Biblical references. That’s what we mediate on when we pray the Rosary.
The Annuniciation
The Visitation
The Nativity
The Prsentation in the Temple
The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple
The Baptism of Jesus
The Self-Manifestation (miracle) of Jesus at the Wedding of Cana
The Proclamation of the Gospel (by Jesus) and the Call to Conversion (by Jesus)
The Transfiguration
The Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper
— so far — are these all about Jesus?
The Resurrection
The Anscension
The Descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts)
The next two — some Christians have a problem with —
The Assumption
The Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven
— OK, back to Jesus —
The Agony in the Garden
The Scourging at the Pillar
The Crowning with Thorns
Jesus Carries his Cross
The Crucifixion
Like I said above — these are all about Jesus except the two about Mary.
Did you not realize this?
How sad, if you didn’t.......everything about Jesus is from the Bible. Do you have a problem with that?
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