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.
LOL Prove that I am changing my tune. Or is that one more false accusation? You made the accusation now you need to back up what you say.OK
Yep, and here’s how God feels about the celebration of Easter
Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.Your words CynicalBear - your words.
LOL Prove that I am changing my tune. Or is that one more false accusation? You made the accusation now you need to back up what you say.OK
Yep, and here’s how God feels about the celebration of Easter
Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter. Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.Your words CynicalBear - your words.
And now that I have posted the very words and links thereto, now what? Do you agree with your bud?
"God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter." "God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter." "God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter." "God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter." "God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter."
There is little to say about that depth of understanding of theological study.
“God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.” “God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.” “God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.” “God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.” “God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.”
Your words CB, you ASKED ME to post them. Happy now?
Hebrews 10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. 19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21 And having an high priest over the house of God; 22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
“no more offering for sin”!! Where does that leave Catholics trying to pay for the sins of those in purgatory?
1 Pet. 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; 10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
We have our own Shepard and “Bishop” in Christ.
1 Pet. 2:25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
We no longer need the “rituals” of the Old Testament, or the hierarchy of the Priests and Bishops of the old Temple.
Gal. 4: 4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Then a word for Catholics.
Gal. 4;8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. 9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
All of the Lent and Easter abomination is pagan and God clearly condemned it in scripture.http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-religion/2686288/replies?c=6
They can be dismissed as slander and calumny.Except, well, I posted his exact words. And I was right. So now where are you?
You said:
All of the Lent and Easter abomination is pagan and God clearly condemned it in scripture.
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-religion/2686288/replies?c=6
Asking those dead for advice or intercession is the sin of Saul.
Here is my quote "I have simply pointed out that many of the customs and traditions of many religions have there origin in pagan customs.
I have also shown from scripture each of those things that were practiced by pagans which God condemned.
All of the Lent and Easter abomination is pagan and God clearly condemned it in scripture.
All of the Lent and Easter abomination is pagan and God clearly condemned it in scripture.
“God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.”
“God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.”
Ditto!
Narses, show me in Scripture where the celebrations of Lent and Easter are established and encouraged.
"I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies" (Amos 5:21–23)
"I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her New Moons, her Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts" (Hosea 2:11)
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