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.
To multitudes of former Catholics who found regeneration in Christ and walked therein, your and Rome’s self exaltation and depreciations of her competition have simply become empty bombast due to the lack of warrant they find for them. “For the kingdom of God is not in word -self declaration] , but in power.” (1 Corinthians 4:20)
Possibly, because I'm not worthy enough to presume I could fall and freely make a mistake to lose eternal love. I just keep loving Christ no matter what life throws at me and understand that trials and persecutions ARE Blessings,even though they hurt deeply,I must remember that my sufferings are nothing compared to His
You’re wrong.
http://catholicprayerstotheworld.blogspot.com/2009/08/spiritual-warfare-prayer.html
Prayer is something that actually brings Catholic’s and protestants together
A cut and paste with no attribution? Dishonesty in prayer. Now there’s one I haven’t seen here before. Oy!
In fact this poster claims ALL organized religions are wrong and that even venerating a simple Cross is pagan. Given that this is the point of view from which he views the world, why should anyone pay attention to his odd, often incomplete and often misread cut-n-pastes?
I don't have to find any of that in the Holy Scripture. The Church was built and empowered by Christ before any of the New Testament was written, by our very Church, and the Holy Ghost dictated what to put in scripture and what to leave to the Magisterium of the Church to teach.
Well, I have no other truth but the one I know; how you take it is up to you.
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem;
Creatorem caeli et terrae.
Et in Jesum Christum,
Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum;
qui conceptus est
de Spiritu Sancto,
natus ex Maria virgine;
passus sub Pontio Pilato,
crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus;
descendit ad inferos;
tertia die resurrexit a mortuis;
ascendit ad caelos;
sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis;
inde venturus est
iudicare vivos et mortuos.
Credo in Spiritum Sanctum;
sanctam ecclesiam catholicam;
sanctorum communionem;
remissionem peccatorum;
carnis resurrectionem;
vitam aeternam. Amen.
In English:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
and born of the Virgin Mary,
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended into hell.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
he will come again
to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen
“” Dishonesty in prayer””
There is no dishonesty in hope and prayer. Again, you reveal the spirit in which you speak
Of course He did. I suppose all those who believed and told they were saved prior to all those other “you must believes” were brought in retroactively or something? One wonders if somehow the apostles just forgot to include all that extra stuff.
Or not! Catholics fall for the strangest things.
I answer posts that ask a valid question or make a reasonable point, so long that they are argumented and not repetitive, without regard to the poster's person. Others I ignore. On longer threads I ignore more often than on shorter ones.
These recent ones were on many people's mind, so I figured I should clarify. My general intention is to post less on this thread as it is not likely to be read this far by anyone other than the posters themselves.
None of us are worthy. We would all fall away if it wasn't for our Lord's substaining grace. That is our nature. It's a matter of trust in depending on Christ to substain us. You prayed:
Sometimes I wonder if people understand 1) what they are praying, and 2) believe what they are praying.
Php_1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
That prayer is in the public domain. None of the many sites that contain it claim any authorship or copyright.
There's a problem with that theory. It requires circular thinking. "It depends on what the definition of is is..."
Jesus made it very clear that He would come to us in the form of the Holy Spirit, to empower and help us. It is that very Spirit which raised Christ from the dead. On the day at Pentecost, the believers received this gift and were said to be drunk!
But, even Peter made it clear that anybody could receive that gift.. anybody that simply believes! ... and they were nowhere near Rome!
Acts 2:8 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
One is only asked to believe what is proposed at the time by the Church for his salvation; not the doctrinal developments that occur later, in response to heresies that spring up later. Incidentally, no one was ever "told they were saved" in the sense modern Protestants put in this formula; we discussed it, based on the scripture, earlier and more than once. They were told to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12) and "make sure their calling ans election" (2 Peter 1:10).
Dear Brother,
I take nothing for granted because I’m not worthy to do so. I knew from the day Our Lord picked me up from the pits that my life was going to be harder than ever before because this world we live in hates Him, and will hate me because of my love for Him when I proclaim this love against everything that this pluralistical society deems as correct.
I understand that real love comes with a cross
Absolutely, and many do. In my church there are converts brought in every Easter, and we are grateful to the Protestant communities of faith that put the love for Christ in them.
Anticipating the question, yes, I know that some also leave; may God have mercy on them. The point is, indeed anyone can come to full communion with Christ, the Church, and His saints.
One wishing to come to the Catholic Church needs to participate in Catholic initiation program for adults. It has several stages of commitment, from pure exploration to preparation for the Sacraments. Fall is a good time to start for First Communion on Easter. Children can be baptized any time with Catholic sponsors. Most Protestant baptisms are valid; if doubt exists, a conditional baptism is done. People who remarried and are sexually active in the civil re-marriage may need to seek annulment of the first marriage or separate and commit to chastity. Inquire at the nearest parish, but my advice is to find out where a good adult initiation program exists and go there.
Former Catholics who dropped out of their Catholic faith can revert any time upon coming to confession, provided that a remarriage, if any, is regularized with the Church.
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