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.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
“Maybe you should post a scriptural rebuttal to what CB said or quoted.”
Why? What point is there in “rebutting” ding-dong nutcase views that attack mainstream Christian practice? Need I defend celebrating Easter and Christmas? Really? Shall I also defend the Triune God? Baptism? What else must I defend against goofy solo heresies? And why?
“Maybe you should post a scriptural rebuttal to what CB said or quoted.”
Why? What point is there in “rebutting” ding-dong nutcase views that attack mainstream Christian practice? Need I defend celebrating Easter and Christmas? Really? Shall I also defend the Triune God? Baptism? What else must I defend against goofy solo heresies? And why?
And yet they have “badgered” me to quote what CB said, and to defend my views. Odd. If they ASK me for what I post, how is my asking them to respond to THEIR request “badgering”? Especially when they asked again, again and again, as in this case?
How many times have you been asked the same question over and again? What are the post numbers?
So that you can put this side issue to bed.
4204
4211
4215
4198
And many prior.
ROTFL
So a rebuttal of goofy is what is needed to set aside goofy? Why?
You ask for "context" and then proceed to give a short few sentences of what was an entire sermon! I gave you a link to it. How ridiculous to claim Luther advocated gross sins. He most certainly did not and, if he had even suggested such behavior was sanctioned by God's grace, he would have NEVER had the followers he did. Don't you see what you are doing by making such silly accusations? You have cherry-picked pieces out of a mountain of work (probably from anti-Protestant sources) and falsely used them to try to prove a point NONE us us is even asserting. We don't follow after fallible men - we trust in what God's holy and infallible WORD says.
Really, stfassisi, you accomplish nothing by tossing out your "Luther Card", like some use a race card. It reflects badly on the one who relies upon it to trump another's point. It won't work! Has it yet?
Why? Because sometimes theological giants make mistakes and if they actually are theological giants then Scriptural authority should shut them up.
OK, except it has gone on for two days.
OK, except it has gone on for two days.
Sorry, those who mock Easter and Christmas a pagan have to deal with their own issues, I will simply mock them as they pop up.
Practice makes perfect,I wish you well in your endeavor.
For someone who seems to only be able to post mocking cartoons, rote "prayers" in foreign languages as if they were talismans and repetitive, meaningless accusations without ANY context or explanations, I'd say the REAL game player is quite obvious - and not just to me!
Yup; Scripture gets ignored all right.
When Jesus answers, point blank, a direct question, it gets ignored.
What part of MUST is so invisible to Catholics?
And what part of Acts chapter 15 is so abhorent to them?
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Good!
Go for it!!!
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