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.
It actually works better than saying that men that sodomize little boys can still pull jesus off His thone and put him into bread
LOL ...Actually it was the popes that started a new religion and Luther was seeking to REFORM the error and false teaching they had done
BUT the church FORBIDS its priests to marry ...
BTW...I think he was”released” from any “Vow “to Rome when Rome excommunicated him..unless of course you maintain that he continued to have a life long ability to call Christ into bread..and to pass it on by the laying on of hands..
Heretics, Christians and Idolatry is more accurate,
What is implied is that someone who was free to pledge the nun gave permission for the marriage. You just don't know about that part.
Regarding Luther, you have to ask him directly ~ shouldn't be long now, eh? That nun is joyfully anticipating kicking you around the block.
The popes were content with living in debauchery with all it's pomp.
Luther didn't start a religion because GOD IS NOT ABOUT RELIGION. He exposed the pagans and hypocritical liars who keep hostage The Word of God while they twisted it.
HE and millions of others where FREE AT LAST from the cult and Catholicism is still in angst over it. The gates of hell did not prevail against God's Church much to the chagrin of Rome!
Praise God! He is ever faithful to HIS WORD.
No one owes anything to a LIE - one walks away from deception and any vow to that deception. They don't entertain it with asking why. They already know why - satan is hell bent on deceiving - nothing new under the sun.
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
1 Ki 8:46 If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;
Psa 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Gal 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
If she was sinless she wouldn’t have needed a savior.
Luke 1:47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
That is exactly right. And those that hold to Mary’s sinlessness are doing themselves grave damage
Yes a priest burdened by sin can serve Mass, if he is unable to go to confession first. If that is what you meant. For the same reason no matter how far Luther’s consort’s thought were from her vows to God, she still had these vows binding on her.
No. I read the Fathers of the Church every day. They are all Catholic, from the first century onward. The inventions were all Luther's, -- and of course many heretics before him.
Yes, and we also forbid blind people from driving, foreigners from voting, etc. And we forbid married people to marry again. You think the scripture warns about something like that? If someone wants to become a priest there are usually 7 years, if not more, for him to change his mind.
I am not a lawyer; you may be correct. This is why my problem is really with Luther marrying a nun, not himself fornicating around. I also feel sorry for the girl; I don't give a damn about him. His beliefs convict him worse than anything else.
Maybe we should say that Father John Hardon was right. LOL!
It blows my mind that some cannot even accept Catholic definitions.
The Apostles were the first priests and the first Bishops.
No, that is not true in general; women or their parents certainly could ask their superior to be released from the monastic obligation for marriage rather than getting themselves smuggled out like fish. The parents, I hear, were around, too, in that particular case.
How do you imagine it: that anyone could go get a wife in a nunnery like we go to a supermarket?
He sure did; it's called Protestantism. There as a whole denomination named after him.
What lie? People are not tricked into monastic vows, -- they undertake them freely, or the parents do on their behalf till they become of age. They can also get out, -- it is not a prison sentence.
Because what the church that placed this condition upon its religious is one that you accuse Luther of being, that is why.
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