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.
priest (n.) ... from Gk. presbyteros
Is it so hard?
If the RCC can’t “mechanically” use those words
In Greek we can. In English we can't. Complain to the man upstairs for His Greek.
I am born again. I was baptized. Properly. In the Orthodox Church. As a baby. Alleluia.
Oh I think not. The error/deception of the RCC was laid bare by showing that the title of priest is not scriptural but simply a made up construct of the RCC to deceptively lead people away from Christ and put undo faith and trust in a fallible man who they call the “vicar” of Christ.
Type of Christ, certainly.
I personally do not accept ... mortals being priests on the order of Melchizedek.
They are through Christ and by the Grace of Christ, Who sent them like Himself. Otherwise this verse has no meaning:
As the Father hath sent me, I also send you (John 20:21)
It is usually a good idea to understand the topic on which you post the Holy Scripture. Do you really think that I am not aware of the content of Galatians?
Well, priests are subject to natural death (we are all immortal though), but they are on the mission from timeless, pre-existing Christ, Who is such priest.
annalex, that is great, glad to hear it! Hallelujah!
If you read back, my question was what happens to someone who is by his own profession born-again but dies cursing God. Since that, hilariously, was difficult to answer for all till you joined this topic, the diversion was about the bad Popes.
As to them, if you don't like them get your own. On balance, the papacy is about the only one institution around us that is doing splendidly well. I can't think of any world leader today, or in the past couple of centuries worth the footstool of the contemporary to him Pope.
Well, I can lead a horse to the water...
Now let’s look at the site you sent me/us to and we find this statement.
This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions;
See what that says? “Etymologies are not definitions”. The meaning of words can change over time. The RCC by using the word priest means something it did not during New Testament times. Catholics are trying to insert the RCC use of the word priest into New Testament scripture and it a blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of scripture to pen the words they did each word meant something at the time. For the Catholic Church to insert it’s meaning on that word in a deceptive manner in an attempt (obviously successfully with the billions they have duped) to make scripture say something it doesn’t is a direct insult to Christ. Shame on you for propogating the deciet of the RCC.
It certainly appears not, especially since you continually insist that we are being perfected in the flesh, completely contrary to Paul's teaching.
Yes and that includes us.
We are Royal Holy priests on a mission from Jesus Christ.
Only the Christ from the Bible is timeless and eternal.
"In most solemn truth," answered Jesus, "I tell you that before Abraham came into existence, I am." -John 8:58
But when the water is mixed with vinegar the horse knows quickly to stay away from the nasty stuff.
you: They are through Christ and by the Grace of Christ, Who sent them like Himself.
You continued:
I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received [them], and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. - John 17:6-8
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. - John 17:16-18
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. – Matt 4:4
Give us this day our daily bread. – Matt 6:11
I am that bread of life. – John 6:48
Maybe...(hope you're comfortable)because "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)We think with our minds but I've little doubt it's the heart that directs the ways or patterns of thought.Wicked things may float between our ears but that's a symptom of the wicked,deceitfull heart.We hold those thoughts captive to Christ but it doesn't mean they won't come back.Since the heart is deceitfull (above all things!)it follows that it lies,to others and to us and it seems bent on our ill.The heart seeks to have it's own glory and to have it's own way.'IT' is lord wether we like it or know it or not. Until we meet God then the battle's on.
1 John 5:13 says at the end "....that ye may know ye have eternal life AND that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God"...which is the work of God(John 6:29) *I think* that 1 John 5:13 is saying You who believe and call on Jesus may know that you have life and that you may do the work of God.I actually believe that you have to know you have life in order to do the work of God. Jesus told the apostles..."I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now" they would bear them later though when the Spirit of truth led them to the truth.
I think we need to know we have life in order to be able to do "the work of God" which will no doubt include many many things we cannot bear yet.
Jesus prayed that the Father would sanctify us by the truth then said "thy word is truth" and since that same word "is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" it won't,to a heart that's desperately wicked and deceitfull,be pleasant.In fact it will be deadly.
Better to be busy doing what heart tells us is the Lord's work than confront that sword.It is our own deceitfull heart that simply will not let us believe what God has freely given us.It's just simply too good to be true and therefore can't be...and then,like Martha,it's straight back to worries and concerns.
Knowing that you have life and that it was paid for with a terrible price,showing us just what lengths God would go to to redeem us and just how much He loved us and that it is ALL on someone else's account,namely, His ONLY begotten Son, is like a bomb going off in the human heart.It paralizes the accuser,not that he'll stop trying but no way is he gonna get much of a feed here anymore,let alone devour anything. It is that fact alone,that we have life in His name,that will quiet our heart,once it sinks in,once and for all! Once we believe that in our heart we will trully be released from bondage to slavery,trully be free and trully cease from our own works.Then that same accuser will be in the dirt under our feet.
FWIW
Well now!
You sound like the sort of individual that is open to instruction and learning!
When would be a good time for my partner and I to visit your home and more fully explain the Restored Gospel® to you and your loving family?
NO!!
I am SHOCKED!!!
 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' |
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