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.

If you would not seem to contradict yourself (besides modern RC teaching) then these threads could be less.

We see this exchange,

CB: your freind, according to the RCC, will not be saved unless he becomes a member of the Catholic Church.

You: Not entirely correct. He may not have an opportunity to accomplish a formal conversion, but Christ will give him an opportunity to convert in his heart as he dies. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2966953/posts?page=3373#3373

Me: “And thus those Prots, who do not convert to the Catholic church at the end, while having the Holy Spirit and being part of the body of Christ, are lost. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2966953/posts?page=3382#3382

You: >while having the Holy Spirit and being part of the body of Christ, are lost.<

They don’t, aren’t, and yes they are lost if they reject Christ and His Church all the way to their death. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2966953/posts?page=3462#3462

Me: Then all those statements about Prots now being born again and part of the body of Christ, are misleading

You: Yes they are. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2966953/posts?page=4083#4083
.
Are you now contradicting yourself by saying that properly baptized Prots have the Holy Ghost and are part of the Body of Christ, if imperfectly joined with Rome, though they will be lost if they do not repent of all their (unnamed) heresies in at least their deeds (lacking details)?

Which yet leaves those affirming statements about Prots now being born again and part of the body of Christ ,and as saint being misleading.

1 Tim 2:3 - because this subordinate mediation is good and acceptable to God our Savior. Because God is our Father and we are His children, God invites uss to participate in Christ’s role as mediator.

1 Tim. 2:5 - therefore, although Jesus Christ is the sole mediator between God and man, there are many intercessors (subordinate mediators).

1 Cor. 3:9 - God invites us to participate in Christ’s work because we are God’s “fellow workers” and one family in the body of Christ. God wants His children to participate. The phrase used to describe “fellow workers” is “sunergoi,” which literally means synergists, or cooperators with God in salvific matters. Does God need fellow workers? Of course not, but this shows how much He, as Father, loves His children. God wants us to work with Him.

Mark 16:20 - this is another example of how the Lord “worked with them” (”sunergountos”). God cooperates with us. Out of His eternal love, He invites our participation.

Rom. 8:28 - God “works for good with” (the Greek is “sunergei eis agathon”) those who love Him. We work as subordinate mediators.

2 Cor. 6:1 - “working together” (the Greek is “sunergountes”) with him, don’t accept His grace in vain. God allows us to participate in His work, not because He needs our help, but because He loves us and wants to exalt us in His Son. It is like the father who lets his child join him in carrying the groceries in the house. The father does not need help, but he invites the child to assist to raise up the child in dignity and love.

Heb. 12:1 - the “cloud of witnesses” (nephos marturon) that we are surrounded by is a great amphitheatre of witnesses to the earthly race, and they actively participate and cheer us (the runners) on, in our race to salvation.

1 Peter 2:5 - we are a holy priesthood, instructed to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. We are therefore subordinate priests to the Head Priest, but we are still priests who participate in Christ’s work of redemption.

Sorry. What lie? Long-winded sentences of your opinions..

I am sorry if you cannot comprehend that for RCs, "she fosters a false hope of salvation, no matter how nominal, because of infant baptism on proxy faith and confidence in the power of the church by her self-promotion, so that few see their desperate need for conversion by faith as damned sinners who are destitute of any merit whereby they may escape their just eternal punishment and gain eternal life, who can only be saved on Christ's expense and merit, by a faith which will follows Him.

And if you object to long sentences and or paragraphs, let me show you some encyclicals!

Pelikan is a good historian of Lutheran persuasion,who ended up in the Orthodox Church. With all respect to him, on points separating us from him and you, I'd rather hear a Catholic source opining about Trent.

I doubt that, as i have found it is not whether the source is Catholic or not that determine approval, but whether they agree with the poster. You can search The Historical Roots Of The Reformation And Evangelicalism , but in any case, Scripture, Tradition, history, etc. can only mean what Rome says they mean. Thus the classic response by Manning:

. It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine. ...I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves. (Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228.)

The idea that faith "effects" works is an intentionally unclear statement designed to hide the controversy when Protestants are in defensive posture.

A defensive posture results in reaction to the false concept of sola fide which the RC straw man promotes. and i have provided abundant testimony as to the critical importance of works to Reformers (and despite all their talk about works, Catholics come in close to last in evidences of commitment.) .

As for being intentionally unclear, that is what happens when an RC cannot comprehend how faith can works in justification, and reconciling apparently opposing texts. But which the Catholic has no need to do, as all he needs to do if defend Rome, no matter what lack of warrant from Scripture.

No, no kind of faith produces works like liver produces bile: one has to do the works of faith on his free will.

This a very superficial analysis, as what moves the will is what one really believes. Thus, "..according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak; " (2 Corinthians 4:13) And as James teaches, one cannot have a living faith if it is not the kind that produces works.

Do my responses to you then contradict anything I wrote now? and if they do, why would that be "deflecting criticism"?

You are misunderstanding or misconstruing the exchange. You imaginatively stated, "Or is it that when it is time to deflect criticism you all of a sudden get interested in things literal and historical?" To which i responded, "It is you whom i see deflecting criticism, while you seem to have a short memory." Note that the word "while." Faced with evidence that Luther was not alone in adding "alone" to Rm. 3:28 and corresponding sense of the text, you adopt an offensive strategy of charging me with suddenly going historical, and which did not avoid the issue but confronted it, and rather than being something new, which those who follow my posts (and site) can attest is not the case, i pointed you to previous exchanges which attest to that. Of course, i see not even an acknowledgment of your error, while i see you avoiding the part of my post that dealt with the implications of support for Rome's coercive jurisdiction."

. I indeed salute your classic-Protestant position as it is less corrupt than modern Evangelical Protestantism as a whole.

Modern Evangelical Protestantism, even in its present state, outshines Roman Catholicism overall in evidences of faith , though overall both are in respective declining outside relative remnants .

It is still corrupt because it is not Catholic and not scriptural.

In reality, the censure is based upon the former and not the latter, as Scripture is not the supreme authority for her and determinative of doctrine, but she is, having infallibly declared herself infallible. Thus Scripture or whatever need only rubber stamp what she decrees, as it means whatever she needs it to mean, regardless of claims that she goes by it. Like as Manning said.

[Metmom:] The empty cross is a reminder of the victory Christ had over death and the grave.

Of course, and yet your ally here says:

[CynicalBear:] 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.

Very odd.

It isn't odd at all - There is no defense for the Roman holy days. Bowing to Rome is not equal to bowing before the Messiah, hence discarding Roman precepts and ordinations (!!Traditions!!!) can only open one's eyes to the truth, which has been pasted over for centuries.

And I will submit to you that you (y'all) had best try to come up with whatever lame defense you might, as more and more, folks are coming to the conclusion that following the Word requires rejecting the traditions they have grown up in. That the Protestants protested is all well and good, but they did not protest enough!

There is no defense for easter or christmas. There is little defense for anything Rome has devised. And CynicalBear is right in his statement.

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