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.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 john 5:5)
This is the work of God
Grace and peace
That is a great observation, a very concise definition.
Cults always leave you hanging, never knowing if you've done enough, and of course, the cult gets to determine just what it is you have to do.
God says...
1 John 5:13-15 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
That includes giving us eternal life as it is God's will to save people.
As always, that only shows that such folks cannot ever address a direct quote of Jesus Christ without trying to pretend that either Christ was too stupid to know what He was saying, or that Scripture does not mean what it clearly says. That's the only defense those who worship their own, Most High and Holy Self have, diversion and attempts to hide the actual words of Jesus Christ.
Why would anyone who actually believes that Jesus Christ is God take a clear, explicit, statement by Jesus Christ Himself saying He is God and play their little games to avoid that clear statement by Jesus Christ Himself? There's only one reason anyone would do that; they follow Eve rather than Christ and cannot accept His Word.
John 10:23 And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch.
John 10:24 The Jews therefore came round about him, and said to him : How long dost thou hold our souls in suspense ? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
John 10:25 Jesus answered them : I speak to you, and you believe not : the works that I do in the name of my Father, they give testimony of me.
John 10:26 But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep.
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice : and I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:28 And I give them life everlasting ; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand.
John 10:29 That which my Father hath given me, is greater than all : and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father.
All it takes is the single statement by Jesus Christ Himself and the Self Alone crowd go into a frenzy of distortion, diversion, and anything else they can think of to avoid admitting that Jesus Christ is God.
John 10:30 I and the Father are one.
Once again, as is so often the case, the Self Alone folks contradict Scripture whenever it suits their Self Worship agenda.
YOUR bible seems to DISAGREE!
If those 'christians' are spouting FALSE doctrine; you damn well BETTER speak up against them!!!
"...Be not afraid, only believe." (Mark 5:36)
QUICK!
Will SOMEone please drill a hole in my heAD BEFORE IT EXPLODES!!!
It's a red herring.
A statement designed to get you off the trail and into doing something else.
B O O M !!!
Too late...
Galatians 2:15-16 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Here in Ephesians Paul says that salvation is not by "works". He did NOT say "works of the Law" or "the Law" but simply "works", thereby including anything that man would add.
Ephesians 2:8-10 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.
What Jesus did with the beatitudes was not establish another system of works but cut to the heart of the Law, to show us what God's standards really are and how we cannot reach them. Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He understood the Law and the purpose of it.
Galatians 3:21-25 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a lawhad been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
Jesus didn't come to establish another Law which could not save anyone. If that was the case, He might as well have saved Himself the trouble of instituting the OT Law and gone right for this in the first place.
But no works, no matter how good and how pure the intent can save anyone.
Hebrews 9:22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Forgiveness can't be earned. If it is, it's not forgiveness but wages due.
Isn't ONE exploding head good enough for you people???
Yup
Yes; He DID do that a lot!
Jesus answered, The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps Gods commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Kinda cuts to the chase; don’t it!
Humm... that's funny; it doesn't read 'mother' to me?
“Do you simply believe everything you read or someone tells you just because?”
Like your canards about what the Catholic Church teaches? What odd cult or weird website teaches you these falsehoods that you repeat here?
This one....
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1D.HTM
If you check my posting history, you'll find my comments about Catholic teaching back up by this site only. Knowing the neighborhood so well and the shrieks of *anti-Catholic website* that so often pass the keyboards of Catholics, I use that site only for doctrinal issues.
In order to distinguish what I post from that site, vatican.va, I post the references from it in green.
If you peruse my posting history, look for anything posted in this shade of green and check out the website address. It will verify what I'm saying.
From everything Ive seen the mother of God term goes all the way back to the council a Ephesus when they were trying to placate the populace that worshiped the queen of heaven. The merchants who made the trinkets were upset that they were losing income from people who converted and no longer needed them.
b. Do not make the thread "about" individual Freepers, that is also a form of "making it personal."
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Thats pretty much what I thought also. Trying to deflect. Its the old they do it too meme.
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