Catholics, Protestants, and Immaculate Mary

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.

I think you have your history boloxed up with your religious beliefs in this one ~ it had been the practice during the early part of the Reformation ~ actually before the Reformation took hold among so many Catholics - for women who dissented to simply be sent off to a convent.

Things were tough in the early 1500s as you know, and women were simply property. Promises which are coerced with threat of violence are not valid ~ I suggest you learn to study that period ~ let's say from 1400 to 1600, with a very open mind. Did you know that Jeanne d'Arc had to be accompanied by loyal armed men day and night to protect her from being raped by her own troops? Even with her security guaranteed by the French royal family, men would attack her or any other woman away from her own male relatives just because they could, and most believed they were supposed to ~ else women would just run wild and ruin everything.

That sort of attitude didn't begin abating in much of Europe until the 1600s, but by then the abuse was pretty much limited to targeting 'witches' ~

No, your charge of fornication remains dependent on the premise of Rome’s authority as supreme, as it disallows liberty btwn the man and his Maker in regard to personal vows not to marry (etc.) except by her consent.

Not all vows are of God, and if contrary to Scripture (and which presuming that all pastors - some converts excepted - have the gift of permanent celibacy, manifestly is) then these are disallowed, as can be rash vows and vows made before conversion. Otherwise if Herod or the Pharisees of Acts 23:12 were converted they will be still bound to murder, and Buddhist monks would be committed to all theirs.

Under the Law the vow of a women is abrogated if her father or husband disallows it in the period that she made it, (Num. 30:5-8) and when one becomes born again then they have God as their Father, and one would not necessarily be bound to voluntary vows made to Him before that time, such as regards religious devotion (not to eat meat, not to marry, etc.), nor rash vows after that which are contrary to Scripture.

And thus if Katharina’s vow was made in a preconverted state then God could give her liberty to marry afterwards.

Paul himself expressed that as an apostle he had liberty to have a wife as did the other apostles incldg Cephas and the brethren of the Lord, just like he could have only lived off of donations. (1Cor. 9:5,6)

WHY would someone have to be hidden in a pickled fish barrel in order to escape a place they no longer wanted to be To sneak around to get it on. Most fornication is done deceptively.

Besides equating Luther's marriage to homosexual marriage, you have further absolved yourself as one who objectively deals with an issue.

You quoted wiki, and i will quote more, besides other sources.

It is certain that her father sent the five year old Katherina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna in 1504 for education. This is documented in a letter from Laurentius Zoch to Martin Luther, written on October 30, 1531...At the age of nine she moved to the Cistercian monastery Marienthron (Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, near Grimma, where her maternal aunt was already a member of the community. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_von_Bora#Marriage_to_Luther

Obstacle to the Free Egress of the Religious. The cloistered religious may not go outside their material cloister without permission...Canonical legislation carefully provides that religious, when not employed in the functions of the sacred ministry, shall reside in monasteries. The Council of Trent had already forbidden them to leave the monastery without permission under pretext of meeting their superiors. The bishop can and must punish the violators of this law of residence (Sess. XXIV, De Reg. et Mon., c. iv).

Those parts of the convent to which the nuns have access are all within the cloister, the choir not excepted. Here the law recognizes no neutral territory. If the convent church be public, the nuns cannot go into those parts accessible to the people. Further, the building should be so constructed that neither the sisters can look outside their enclosure, nor their neighbours see into the court-yards or gardens at the disposal of the sisters.

Obstacle to Egress. Under no pretext may the sisters go outside their cloister without a legitimate cause approved of by the bishop. Such is the legislation of the Council of Trent (Sess. XXV, De. Reg. et Mon. c.v.) St. Pius V. restricting still more this law, recognized only three legitimate causes: fire, leprosy, and contagious malady.

However, cloistered nuns are not absolutely forbidden all intercourse with the outside world. They may of course receive letters; they may also receive visitors in the convent parlour, provided that they they remain behind the grating, or grille, erected there. For such visits a reasonable cause and a permission from the bishop is usually needed .

The conditions for a visit by a male religious are very severe; according to some authors he can only receive permission if he is a blood relation to the first or second degree, and then only four times a year. Further, although an irregular visit on the part of a lay person or secular priest does not constitute a grave a fault, any visit without leave is a mortal sin for the religious. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04060a.htm

On Easter eve, 4 April 1523, Luther sent Leonhard Köppe, a city councilman of Torgau and merchant who regularly delivered herring to the monastery. The nuns successfully escaped by hiding in Köppe's covered wagon among the fish barrels, and fled to Wittenberg. [9]

Luther at first asked the parents and relations of the refugee nuns to admit them again into their houses, but they declined to receive them, possibly as this was participating in a crime under canon law.[10] Within two years, Luther was able to arrange homes, marriages, or employment for all of the escaped nuns—except for Katharina. She first was housed with the family of Philipp Reichenbach, the city clerk of Wittenberg, and later went to the home of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his wife, Barbara. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_von_Bora#Life_as_a_nun

Luther heard of the plight of twelve nuns who wanted to leave their convent but were prevented from doing so by their superiors. Although Luther realized that to aid them was a capital offense, he engaged the services of a merchant who periodically delivered barrels of herring to the convent. The merchant hid the nuns on his cart, making it appear that they were barrels being taken away.

After their escape, the nuns were presented to Luther. He tried to find them homes, husbands, or work, hoping that with time they all would marry. Eventually they all married except one: Katherine von Bora. When Luther met her two years later, she told him that she had not been able to find a husband. Luther decided to take her as his wife.- http://mluther.ccws.org/reformer/xi.html

After a year of marriage Luther wrote another friend, "My Katie is in all things so obliging and pleasing to me that I would not exchange my poverty for the riches of Croesus." Luther, the former celibate monk, now exalted marriage, exclaiming, "There is no bond on earth so sweet, nor any separation so bitter, as that which occurs in a good marriage." - http://www.blogher.com/frame.php?url=http://www.reformationtours.com/site/490868/page/204052

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