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.
Rational folks wonder, "WHY?"
I can ignore just fine thank you very much! Just ask my wife.
I’ll be back after my fingers heal. :-(
lol! Oh, I’ve SEEN you ignore. In spades! And loved every minute of it...:) What’s wrong with your fingers?
I think you’re onto something.
That was supposed to indicate that my wife saw me typing that. Obviously a failed attempt! LOL
You scared me for a moment. I mean I would hate to insist that you type with your nose or something, but we NEED your input here..;)
TWO? Way more than that - even just upon FR.
Are you also in agreement with him then that NO organized church has any meaning? It is just you and whatever version of the Bible you approve of?
That's a tricky question. I certainly believe that a local assembly is legitimate. I think that the congregational structure, when speaking of larger organizations, is more capable in remaining true. And I think that the more hierarchical the body, the more likely it is to contain unresolvable lawlessness.
And with all that being said, even on the local level, the minute one places the pews, and hangs the sign is the very minute the organization develops an instinct for self preservation which can, and often does lead to doom. When the building fund gets big enough, mammon becomes more important than message. So I am not advocating anything as being perfect.
Thank you - good post all around.
I can't think of any organization for which that isn't true.
Are you saying that God allowed His Truth to be pasted over for centuries - that He permitted generation after generation to live without access to Him? Are you saying that the traditions of men thwarted the desire of God that all men be saved?
Yes, I am saying that the traditions of men damage His purpose... Thwart is probably too strong a word.
I will leave you with the example of the Temple and the Pharisees. The tradition of the pharisees existed many hundred years before Yeshua came to set things right - And every prophet fought the traditions of men, every one... Traditions that were leading generation after generation down the wrong road... And the people seldom listened to the prophets without wrath being brought down on their heads.
So my question to you, don-o, is why one would think that the same condition is not present and working even now, in spite of the fact that John said that the antichrist spirit was already working in his day?
Yup.
And I dare to say that one should look for the Church UNDER the blade of the sword, and not holding it. ; )
Absolutely. And it is an indication of their power (in their mind), that they can 'christianize' paganism through syncretism... Even though YHWH specifically calls such a thing an abomination.
I hadn’t thought of it that way but you are absolutely correct.
There were also churches scattered all over the known world, not just Europe.
No doubt Christianity continued in places not under the control of Catholicism.
Additionally, since salvation is by faith in Christ, where ever people hear the name of Jesus and of His death for sin, they can be saved, even if the message is all muddled up with lots of extraneous beliefs.
Why place confidence in tradition? St Paul told Timothy to commit the message to other faithful men who would then pass it to other faithful men. The epistle of Jude speaks of the faith once delivered to the saints. .
But, perhaps what I mean by tradition is not what you are denouncing. If your beef is with the Roman Church, I cannot enter into that - I am an Orthodox Christian - surely a poor example of one, for sure.
My journey to Holy Orthodoxy made me grapple with the question of the origins of the church, if such could be found. I began as pretty much a Baptist successionist, I suppose. I thought "The Trail of Blood" pretty much summed it up. Don't believe that anymore.
The epistles of St Ignatius rocked my world - especially his words on the Holy Mysteries (Eucharist) and the role of the Bishop.
He was martyred - eaten by lions - rather than renounce around 67 A.D. I found a church that counts him in their number.
But, again, I do not know that this holds any weight for you. Are you a Son of Noah - a righteous gentile? I know only a little of that. I heard Vendyl Jones speak once and was on his mailing list for a time.
John Henry Newman, Cathoic Cardinal, said pagan practices were sanctified by their adoption into the Catholic church.
“”And lest you think that’s all Old Testament stuff and not relevant after Christ.””
Do you carry around a bronze snake on a pole in case you get bit by a snake than too?
A bronze snake would be a graven image and pagan yet God Told Moses that people who look upon it would be healed of snake bites
The reality is, there is nothing in making a bronze snake that heals, this OT Scripture was a typolgy of faith and the Crucifixion of Christ that heal sin.
Also, what you don’t seem to realize is that many pagan things borrowed from Christianity. There is a lot if dumb historians that lack evidence to say Christianity borres from pagans
Case in point is forms of Mithraism..
From New Advent.org...
Some apparent similarities exist; but in a number of details it is quite probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity. Tertullian about 200 could say: “hesterni sumus et omnia vestra implevimus” (”we are but of yesterday, yet your whole world is full of us”). It is not unnatural to suppose that a religion which filled the whole world, should have been copied at least in some details by another religion which was quite popular during the third century. Moreover the resemblances pointed out are superficial and external. Similarity in words and names is nothing; it is the sense that matters. During these centuries Christianity was coining its own technical terms, and naturally took names, terms, and expressions current in that day; and so did Mithraism. But under identical terms each system thought its own thoughts. Mithra is called a mediator; and so is Christ; but Mithra originally only in a cosmogonic or astronomical sense; Christ, being God and man, is by nature the Mediator between God and man.
Obviously that trumps what God said for some people.
I’m curious about one other thing, CB
Many of people I have encountered like you who believe Christmas and Easter are pagan also hold the belief that Eve had intercourse with satan and produced cain.
Do you hold the belief that Eve had intercourse with satan and produced cain too?
Regardless of what gets tossed out here in an attempt to cast the entire Reformation in a negative light and Roman Catholicism, as the perfect representation of the body of Christ, those who are diligently seeking to know God will not be fooled by such devious tactics. Once again, Luther is NOT who non-Catholic Christians follow like Catholics do their popes. He was a man who, as all men are, was a sinner saved by the grace of God. He came out of an oppressive and corrupt religious system and he learned and developed in the faith as all great men of God do.
If Catholics resent the Inquisition, depravity of their popes, terrible misuse of indulgences, oppression and murder of non-believers and believers alike being thrown in their faces centuries after such wrongs were done, then allow the same consideration to those who are the spiritual "heirs" of the Reformation.
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.