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.
>>just google “good works”<<
“Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” John 6:28-29
Oh this next is really unbelievable!
Here is how you posted Romans 3:28
Romans 3:28 We are saved by faith, but not by faith alone, and not by the works of the law (Romans 3:28).
Notice the “but not by faith alone” garbage you added? Shame on you. Here it is from scripture
Romans 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Even the Douay-Rheims doesn’t include that phrase.
Romans 3:28 For we account a man to be justified by faith, without the works of the law.
Now let’s look at the previous verse 27
Romans 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
It’s faith ALONE. I don’t know where you get that garbage you posted but don’t ever try to post something like that to me ever again. I can assure you that your credibility with me went right in the non existent category.
All those who have been involved in these discussions need to understand the information you are using to form your beliefs. It certainly doesn’t appear to be genuine scripture.
Wow! Just Wow! I had never read that before. He sure nailed that one.
I think it was actually kindergarten but it’s been awhile.
She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God . . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.
(Commentary on the Magnificat, 1521; in Luther’s Works, Pelikan et al, vol. 21, 326)
All those who have been involved in these discussions need to understand the information you are using to form your beliefs. It certainly doesn’t appear to be genuine scripture.
How could it be when your conclusions are to:
Reject the Creeds of Christian unity,
Reject Christmas as pagan,
Reject Easter as Pagan,
Reject worship on Sunday as pagan,
And many more rejections of common Christianity. Very sad.
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me. (Isaiah 49:15,16)
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
‘’’Do you think that you can toss this out and nobody will notice and correct you again and again and again???...Luther was prone to strong hyperbole””
yes!
Luther was not prone to hyperbole, the internet sources that defend Luther are a joke. Luther hated Jews in the fashion of Hitler in a time when Jewish persecuted of Christians hardly existed
I can go far beyond the following if you want to play the hyperbole game about Luther and everyone on FR can see how psychotic Luther was.
Just a few examples..
Quotes from Martin Luther
‘On Jews and their Lies’
http://www.awitness.org/books/luther/on_jews_and_their_lies_p1.html
It is not my purpose to quarrel with the Jews, nor to learn from them how they interpret or understand Scripture; I know all of that very well already. Much less do I propose to convert the Jews, for that is impossible. Those two excellent men, Lyra and Burgensis, together with others, truthfully described the Jews’ vile interpretation ... If these blows do not help, it is resonable to assume that our talking and explaining will help even less ...
Listen, Jew, are you aware that Jerusalem and your sovereignty, together with your temple and priesthood, have been destroyed for over 1,460 years? ... Let the Jews bite on this nut and dispute this question as long as they wish ... I am not a Jew, but I really do not like to contemplate God’s awful wrath toward this people. It sends a shudder of fear through body and soul, for I ask, What will the eternal wrath of God in hell be like ...
No prophet has ever been able to raise his voice in protest or stand up against them, not even Moses. For in Numbers 16, Korah arose and asserted that they were all holy people of God, and asked why Moses alone should rule and teach. Since that time, the majority of them have been genuine Korahites; there have been very few true Israelites. For just as Korah persecuted Moses, they have never subsequently left a prophet alive or unpersecuted, much less have they obeyed him ...
So it became apparent that they were a defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut ... a disobedient, evil people and as the vilest whore, although they boasted so much of the law of Moses, or circumcision, and of their ancestry ... However wicked they may be, they presume to be the noblest lords over against us Gentiles, just by virtue of their lineage and law. Yet the law rebukes them as the vilest whores and rogues under the sun ... they are full of malice, greed, envy, hatred toward one another, pride, usury, conceit, and curses against us Gentiles. Therefore, a Jew would have to have very sharp eyes to recognize a pious Jew ... this subject is beyond the ken of the blind and hardened Jews. Speaking to them about it is much the same as preaching the gospel to a sow. They cannot know what God’s commandment really is, much less do they know how to keep it ...
be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils ... they know they are steeped in manifest vices mently, just as the devils themselves do. And where you see or hear a Jew teaching, remember that you are hearing nothing but a venomous basilisk who poisons and kills people ... The devil with all his angels has taken possession of this people ... Jews, Turks, papists, radicals abound everywhere. All of them claim to be the church and God’s people in accord with their conceit and boast, regardless of the one true faith ...
If I had not had the experience with my papists, it would have seemed incredible to me that the earth should harbor such base people who knowingly fly in the face of open and manifest truth, that is, of God himself. For I never expected to encounter such hardened minds in any human breast, but only in that of the devil. However, I am no longer amazed by either the Turks’ or the Jews’ blindness, obduracy, and malice ... What do you hope to accomplish by engaging an obstinate Jew in a long dispute on this? It is just as though you were to talk to an insane person and prove to him that God created heaven and earth, according to Genesis 1, pointing out heaven and earth to him with your hands, and he would nevertheless prattle that these are not the heaven and earth mentioned in Genesis 1, or that they were not heaven and earth at all, but were called something else, etc ... Yes, vile devil, just mock and laugh your fill over this now; you will still tremble enough for it ... And as little as they can change flesh and blood, marrow and bone, so little can they change such pride and envy. They must remain thus and perish, unless God performs extraordinarily great miracles ... Therefore, dear Christian, be advised and do not doubt that next to the devil, you have no more bitter, venomous, and vehement foe than a real Jew ... Therefore the history books often accuse them of contaminating wells, of kidnaping and piercing children ... I do know that they do not lack the complete, full, and ready will to do such things either secretly or openly where possible ...
If you do not want to believe me, read Lyra, Burgensis, and other truthful and honest men. And even if they had not recorded it, you would find that Scripture tells of the two seeds, the serpent’s and the woman’s ... Why, their Talmud and their rabbis record that it is no sin for a Jew to kill a Gentile, but it is only a sin for him to kill a brother Israelite. Nor is it a sin for a Jew to break his oath to a Gentile. Likewise, they say that it is rendering God a service to steal or rob from a Goy ... The Jews still persist in such doctrine to the present day. They imitate their fathers and pervert God’s word. They are steeped in greed, in usury, they steal and murder where they can and ever teach their children to do likewise ... there is no remission of sin for these Jews, no prophet to console them with the assurance of such forgiveness, no definite time limit for their punishment, but only interminable wrath and disfavor, devoid of any mercy ...
If they weren’t so stone-blind, their own vile external life would indeed convince them of the true nature of their penitence. For it abounds with witchcraft, conjuring signs, figures, and the tetragrammaton of the name, that is, with idolatry, envy, and conceit. Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us ... Alas, it cannot be anything but the terrible wrath of God which permits anyone to sink into such abysmal, devilish, hellish, insane baseness, and arrogance. If I were to avenge myself on the devil himself I should be unable to wish him such evil and misfortune as God’s wrath inflicts on the Jews ...
There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses, namely, that God has struck them with “madness and blindness and confusion of mind.” So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite an their murdering, cursing, blaspheming, lying, and defaming ...
They will argue that the exclusion of works are regards what actually appropriates justification is that of the law, but you will not find these verses infallibly defined thusly, and which is contrary to Titus 1:5 (written to an uncircumcised Greek) ,
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; “ (Titus 3:5)
The RC often uses a straw man in arguing against sola fide, supposing that it teaches works as being superfluous.
But as Reformers make clear, the “kind” of faith that appropriates justification is the kind that effects “the obedience of faith” towards its Object. And in which justifies a soul as one who possesses true and complete faith, as per Ja. 2. (And who contradicts both Paul in Rm. 4 Moses in Gn. 15:6 IF he is speaking exactly in the same sense of appropriating justification as Paul is).
Thus Paul also states, “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. “ (Romans 2:13) For believers seek to fulfill the righteousness of the law by the Spirit. (Rm. 8:4) and manifests “things which accompany salvation.” (Heb. 5:9)
And which faith has great recompense of reward, (Heb. 10:35), as seen in God rewarding men for the manifestation of this faith, that of works.
Thus God justifies the UnGodly by faith, (Rm. 4:5) but this is a confessional type faith, (Rm. 10:9,10) and if it does not produce holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, then it is not real faith.
As light and heat go together, so faith and works, although it is faith that justifies in heart, and which effects confession which justifies one as having salvation saving faith.
“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. “ (Romans 10:10)
And Rome actually believes that one can be justified without works, according to her baptism by desire, out of a perfectly contrite heart. And which is necessary even for her to allow, to allow, as in the contrite criminal of Lk.23
What potty language or the reference to it?
I wonder if you could defend satan with the same mentality?
Wrong! Nothing you posted proves this wrong
Also,Nothing you posted in the writings of a few Church fathers denied adoption is united with the love of God like I said , nor did they say anything about possibly falling from that love.
Sorry, dear brother , but you're grasping at straws.
I'm not a Lutheran, but it gets tiring to constantly call people on their dishonest playing of the Luther Card. We should be aware when they do it and have a proper response. Though we do not follow men, nor do we believe ANY man is infallible or sinless - but the God/man Jesus Christ - we shouldn't allow the reckless smearing of a man born 500 or so years ago who bravely stood up for the truth of the Gospel.
So Luther did not act infallibly when he promulgated his doctrine of "the Bible alone"?
Same Stuff Different Day is not potty language. Typical of Catholics to interpret things ‘their way’ to suit their agenda.
I agree! And just remember, that like Luther talked about Satan and his tricks to discourage believers and to get them to doubt the grace and mercy of God, so he is talking about those who do the same things as Satan does to believers. Those who torment and accuse of heresy those who proclaim the Biblical truth of the Gospel are doing the work of the devil. Those who mock and refer to others as “swine” are not acting in a way that honors God but, in fact, they are joining with the devil and his demons to rile up others to anger and to get them to act on that anger and sin. We should rebuke them with Scripture - just as our Lord did to Satan - and we should speak the truth in love. When that does not quiet the raging, then ignoring them is the best we can do for them. Let the Holy Spirit convict them of their unrighteousness and let those who read their un-Christian ravings be able to recognize who the genuine Christ’s ones are. They will know we are Christians by our love.
“… I certainly would not call you heretics, as our sophists do [a.k.a: “elite educated Catholics”], because you do not honor or call upon the mother of God or any of the saints, but cling alone to the only mediator, Jesus Christ, and are satisfied that in heaven as well as on earth each one is obligated to pray for the other. For there is nothing in the Scriptures about the intercession of dead saints, nor about honoring them and praying to them. And no one can deny that hitherto through services for these saints we have gone so far as to make pure idols out of the mother of God and the saints. We have placed more confidence in them, on account of the services and works which we have done for them, than we have placed in Christ himself, with the result that faith in Christ has perished.”
It truly is sad to see the schizophrenia some have over Martin Luther. I think if they actually read the writings of the man, rather than take snippets from works of other "apologists" who also misuse his works, they would be less ignorant about the man and a little more understanding and appreciate the greatness of the man and what he was able to accomplish to the glory of God.
NO MAN is infallible. But the doctrine of sola Scriptura is neither Luther's unique idea nor a false concept because fallible men support it. Something can be true even if NO ONE believes it. Do you agree?
But LOLFOTFLMAO is okay, I guess, right?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.