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.
JESUS, Read the Jewish Scriptures, Spoke Hebrew, Wore Jewish clothes , Ate only biblically kosher food, Kept the Jewish Sabbath, Celebrated the Jewish feasts, Followed Jewish customs, Lived His entire life as an observant Jew. Jesus' followers were Jewish. The New Testament tells us that they worshipped on Saturday (the biblically appointed day), attended the Synagogue and kept the feasts. They acknowledged Jesus as the Jewish King and Messiah, wrote the "Jewish" New Testament, and lived Torah-observant lifestyles (Acts 21:20). Jesus and His early followers were deeply rooted in the rich Hebraic soil of their ancestors. They thought, taught, and lived out of this soil. God planted Christianity in this traditionally rich soil.
They were still functioning under the Jewish laws as Jesus had night yet died and paid the sacrificial price once and for all.
“had not yet died”
Something did 'try' BEFORE Luther posted 95 Theses on the 'gate' while doing the will of The Father. And while Tyndale was doing the will of The Father, he was executed/burnt at the stake for he being proactive in getting the Good News in the hands of the public.
The statement about 'the gates of hell not prevailing against His Church' shows us that His church is supposed to be on the offensive, not the defensive, in our spiritual warfare.
Thankfully -- Luther, Tyndale and others were on the offense and were pro active. Certainly, if they waited for 'permission' they wouldn't have received it.
Jesus was 'prophesying' when He said that because He knew evil would 'try' to come against the Good News which is His Church and He was telling us 'the gates of hell' will NOT be successful. As ALWAYS, Jesus The Word is right.
No wonder they have a 'mirror' handy while posting.
Son OF God/Son OF man - is how JESUS is described. Theotokos is a Catholic 'invention' as all their teachings/traditions are.
So your saying Jesus and His family respected their Jewish tradition throughout His entire life, because Jesus hadn't died yet? Okay, Do you think Jews for Jesus are not entitled to Salvation because they continue to honor their Jewish traditions? Do you think,Protestants like Lutherans, and Episcopalians are also not entitled to Salvation for their traditional beliefs?
Do you think that God's covenant no longer exists for Jews? Or is it just Catholics?
If that were true, y'all wouldn't feel the need to post threads and come on them so much to state hundreds of times how all the Protestants "vandals" are wrong, heretics, not Christians, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. In fact, if it really were of no concern, it would not have been made a mandated article of faith for all Christians. AND it would have been something the Apostle John would have at least mentioned if it were so important a belief for the church seeing as he supposedly cared for Mary until her death.
As it is, all you have is legends, myths, hypotheses, dreams, wishes and coulda, shoulda and wouldas to back up some of these extra-biblical stories. I'll stick with the faith God ensured we would know about because He included them in Holy Scripture.
Please go back and re read my answer to you. Would you please show from my answer where I referenced “tradition”?
If you don’t understand the difference between before Christ’s death on he cross and after I’m afraid this forum is much too limited to get the point across. You really need to understand the difference before the way of salvation makes any sense to you. >>Do you think that God's covenant no longer exists for Jews? Or is it just Catholics?<<
God’s covenant with the Jews was “forever” and will again be evident at the start of the tribulation. It’s the Catholics who believe that the church has replaced the nation of Israel.
He was paraphrasing St. Augustine who said; "I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church." - (St. Augustine, Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, 5,6)
"Henry Edward Manning stated it well at Vatican II."
Cardinal manning did NOT make that statement at Vatican II. He died in 1892, sixty years BEFORE Vatican II. Neither did he make it at Vatican I. He wrote the Temporal Mission of the Holy Spirit in 1865, five years BEFORE Vatican I.
The controversy regarding this began when it was cited out of context by William Webster. It was debated publicly in letters to the London Daily Times in 1875 between Cardinal Manning and various Protestant apologists including Lord Renesdale.
Peace be with you
I will explain the subject and the Nestorian heresy, but I will not debate its merits. This was settled nearly 1600 years ago. Give it a rest.
Peace be with you
“But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine.... I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves.” He did believe that to question what the RCC teaches regardless of whether there is either scripture or tradition to back up those teachings is both heresy and treason.
Annalex,
Have you ever read Martin Luther’s 95 Theses?? There were very good & valid reasons for the rebellion of The Reformation. The Catholic Church was VASTLY corrupt! And changes became inevitable...brought about by some extremely courageous men... IMHO.
The controversy began when Rome was exposed for being out of context with God's Word.
It was debated publicly in letters
It was debated publicly in 95 Theses.
Controversy has it's roots in Genesis - when evil is in opposition with The TRUTH. Did God really say?
Let's put a rest to this as this is just another one of Rome's teaching were they are 'ASSUMING'. No truth in it. At least Rome didn't make an *ss out of those who stood/standing for TRUTH regarding an 'Assumption'.
Yes I have.
There were very good & valid reasons for the rebellion
The Theses were all reasonable questions and the need for reform in the Church was there, and the Church was reformed. But the so-called Reformation, whatever its original impulses were, created a self-destroying scattering of sects, all loosely centered around counter-biblical premises of Scripture Alone and Faith Alone, and on anti-clericalism. The Protestant Reformation did nothing good and is headed toward the trash heap of history along with the Donatists, the Iconoclasts, and sundry Gnostics.
If you were to read the post you are responding to, you will be able to find a clear indication that I speak of Protestant belief system as a whole, and not of her personally, in the very paragraph you are quoting, and I also explain what was broken by Protestantism, so have someone read my post to you, please.
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