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.
You are talking about a woman that loves Jesus, and Jesus loves. A woman that God loves. We can agree that she was saved and in heaven, right? Therefore she has eternal life, right? We love the mother of God, but do not put her before God. Love in our faith, is not idolatry.
It's sad that you have so little love, and it seems a cultural lack of respect for family authority and honor. That is ok, but please understand that in many families, including Jesus' Jewish family, a mother has a place of honor. In your dislike and misunderstanding of Catholics, you are demeaning and disrespecting our Savior's mother. May God bless you.
And you are PROUD of it?!?!?!
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Hebrews 11:35-40
35. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37. They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38. the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. |
Are you SURE you ain't a MORMON???
Oh?
Where's the beef?
Where's the EVIDENCE to make this, yet another charge, provable in court?
See above...
“Catholics bear responsibility for not realizing what the bible says on this matter.
They're WORSE than dead: their BRAINS are gone!
{klaxon sound}
Wrong again:
John 14:11
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me;
or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
Poor baby; memory is SO bad that you've forgotten that in this very thread; one of your own has said "...grace AND works..."
Ya can't get THIS right; either??
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives the following English translation of the Apostles' Creed.[18] In its discussion of the Creed,[19] the Catechism maintains the traditional division into twelve articles, the numbering of which is here added to the text.
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That damn Paul was WRONG again!!!
1 Corinthians 12:27
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
They DO?
And here I thought they BELIEVED what John recorded in his gospel: chapter 3 verse 18!
Well: we'll just SEE how ROME treats Obamacare and it's abortion requirements; won't we!
A yearly memorial meal that JEWS eat to remind them of what their GOD had brought them out of and through.
Humpty says...
"BAH!", says Screwtape.
Any fool can get 'saved'; but what KEEPS them is going to be where the rub comes in! See if we can get them DOUBTING. No; it doesn't matter WHAT they doubt; just DOUBTING something. We can work from there....
Nope.
She is waiting in her grave, just like I and you will be, if He tarries.
Your analysis of the REASONs for my behaviour will nbot be addressed, as your credentials speak for them selves; but the 'demeaning' & 'disrepect' is in your eyes only.
The RCC has raised her up to where she SHOULD NOT BELONG: sharing GOD's glory.
So anything less than that gives you the willies!
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