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.
Thank you.
Yes, that it is. It is certainly true of Roman Catholics who want to retrofit church history in the attempt to somehow prove they are THE church. However, history is not their friend. From the link http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/search/label/%22Holy%20Orders%22:
I’ve recently picked up this fascinating work. I’m reading through it, and on another topic I’ve found another statement that I thought I’d pass along:
In Trent’s Decree on Holy Orders, Canon 6 states that there is in the Church “a hierarchy instituted by divine ordination, which consists of bishops, presbyters and ministers.” While this teaching conforms to the idea of existence of such offices from the beginning of the Church, it does not harmonize with the historical facts. The Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium [28] offers a more realistic view based on a more secure historical consciousness and exegesis of Scripture. Here we read “Thus the divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times (ab antiquo) have been called bishops, priests, and deacons.” Hence in no way does Vatican II affirm that the priesthood was instituted at the Last Supper in the sense understood by Trent (pg 378).
Interesting that, as I’ve suggested that Rome is “recalibrating” its understanding of the papacy, it is also “recalibrating” its understanding of succession.
[The astute Roman Catholic apologist here will chime in and say, “oh yeah, well, it doesn't deny it.” See below on the use of fuzzy language.]
That statement by Kilmartin aligns with something else I’ve posted recently:
“Elders in Every City” Roger Beckwith, who is an Anglican, in his work, “Elders in Every City: The Origin and Role of the Ordained Ministry” (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press ©2003), noted the use of fuzzy language in the preface to the Ordinal in the Book of Common Prayer to describe the existence of “Bishops, Priests, and Deacons” in the church:
“It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and the ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church” Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.”
Of this statement, Beckwith says:
This is a very carefully phrased statement which, through loose interpretation, has been misrepresented both by its defenders and by its critics.
For, in the first place, it does not say that this is evident to those “diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors’; in other words, it is evident from Scripture and the Fathers taken together, but not necessarily from one of the two taken singly. If we have difficulty finding the threefold ministry in the New Testament taken by itself, the preface does not say that we should be able to find it there.
In the second place, the preface does not say that “by the Apostles’ decision there have been those Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church” but from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church”; in other words, from the period before the last of the apostles died there have been three orders of ordained ministers; and the last of the apostles, St John, is stated by Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3:3;4) to have lived until the reign of Trajan, who did not become emperor till AD 98. Since the threefold ministry was [evident] when Ignatius of Antioch was writing his letters, about AD 110, it can hardly have arisen later than the beginning Trajan’s reign, in other words, later than the end of the apostolic age. So the preface to the Ordinal is stating the simple truth in saying that it dates from the apostle’s time. But how far the apostles were responsible for the development which took place is left an open question (Beckwith pgs. 9-10)
Roman Catholics and Anglicans both have a reason for pushing the “development” of the notions of “holy orders” for “priests” and of “apostolic succession” for “bishops” back as far into history as they can. And in doctrinal statements, both seem to agree, while some of these ideas were present around 100 AD (and though Ignatius spoke of “bishops”, it is clear that he attributed nothing approaching the kind of authority that the Apostles had!), it is clear that (a) neither of these certainly were instituted by Christ, and (b) neither of these existed in New Testament times.
Robert Reymond summarizes:
It is enough to say in response that episcopacy receives no support whatever from the New Testament. Whether it has been beneficial or not to the church is highly debatable, depending upon one’s view of its development in church history since Cyprian (c. 250), whose views of episcopacy gave rise eventually in the early medieval period to the papacy and to the papacy’s many subsequent doctrinal heresies and political and social abuses of power. As for the claim by the Roman Catholic Church and the other Episcopal church bodies that their authority has come to them through an unbroken line of succession from the apostles themselves down to the present, it is enough to say, first, that such a claim is simply unsupported by history and not verifiable, and second, that even were such an unbroken succession true in some instance, such Episcopal succession per se would convey no particular authority or guarantee apostolicity to the one so graced. Mere unbroken apostolic succession is not the New Testament criterion for ministerial authority (“A New Systematic Theology of the New Christian Faith,” Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., ©1998, pgs 905-906).
Kilmartin is a fascinating read, by the way. I was surprised to learn that it was Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) whose “metabolic understanding of the change of the nature of the Eucharistic elements” was “a new concept” [late 4th century!] which led to the medieval doctrine of Transubstantiation (pg. 22, and at least some of this work seems to be available through Google Books). So, again, while the early church was faithful to practice what the Lord had commanded, the uniquely Roman spin on what essentially had been a good thing, was changed by Roman [western] novelty.
Yes, let's hold to the actual truth.
Malarkey! That "line" started WAY before Martin Luther was even born. Just read St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah if you want proof. Is there nothing that cannot be blamed on Luther? How ridiculous can someone get???
Indeed. Thank you!
Ok...
The Last Supper, an ANNUALLY observed full meal in rememberance of GOD's protective love, has morphed into a barely recognizable nibble of a wafer and a sip of wine nearly every time you darken the doors of the church.
And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
(Mark 14:12-16 ESV)
Luke 22:19
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
Yes, Luther started the Protestant Reformation and there is a church named after him, the Lutheran Church. That is my grasp on history. Deal with it. Also, sweetheart, the less you post the better.
Yes, they sneaked out instead of seeking a proper dispensation for the girl. Crooks.
What disaster? We are the same Church we have ever been. Our popes for the past several centuries were all wonderful. Those who were not so great, unlike Luther and the rest of Protestant shysters, did not start a new religion -- they in fact left no noticeable legacy to their feebleness. Catholicism is going to dominate the new century. God is with us.
Of course we do. God knows his elect and leads them, and passes over the rest. Devotion to Mary and to the saints is a sure sign of Divine election.
Their efforts return to dust. Rejoice.
No, that is not the monastic practice and has not been for centuries. A monk or nun start on their journey by shedding pride and arrogance, and pledge to God a vow of obedience, chastity and poverty. They do so voluntarily. They can become bad monks and fall out, or young girls may progress to marriage, and in these cases they are let out of their vows. Those who persevere reach sanctity and join Christ in heaven. There is no happier life than theirs because they walk with God. This is how it has worked for centuries. It may look like old-fashioned to a Protestant but then Protestantism was never big on honor or honesty. Do not judge the world by your crooked yardstick; God made it straighter than you may imagine.
This is not what his bio on wiki says, citing "Wilson, 232":
Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, when he arranged for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels.[86] "Suddenly, and while I was occupied with far different thoughts," he wrote to Wenceslaus Link, "the Lord has plunged me into marriage."[87] At the time of their marriage, Katharina was 26 years old and Luther was 41 years old.
In any event, two years after her fish barrel escape, or twenty two years, she was still not free to marry, and he therefore was not free to marry her. The legality of his own marriage rest on the sad premise that after excommunication he was a wholesale outlaw no matter what he did.
Yes, perhaps. We think of history in terms of distinct big events, such as the Reformation, and the truth is that it is more of a continuum than our conceptualization of it suggests. However, Protestantism is at the core of modernity -- Protestants themselves admit to it with a perverse pride -- and the idea that man can disregard his obligation to God is at the core of Protestantism.
Come on, bb. Don't you know that Luther is responsible for all the evil in the world that happened even BEFORE he was born?
Everything that the RCC did before he was born was his fault too, dontcha know?
Sorry you can’t take the the heat of the battle , snookums, but I’m not going to stop posting.
I know it would be better for lies to be spread about Luther if I stopped posting truth, but it ain’t happening.
Deal with it.
I've seen first hand the societies where Catholicism is the predominant religion and God spare us Catholic rule.
The countries which are freest and most prosperous in this world through out history are those with the strongest Protestant influence, and history bears that out.
Real history, not revisionist YOPIOH by Catholics.
WRONG. They pledge to Rome/RCC - the hypocritical liars. Rome isn't in obedience, they aren't chaste and not in poverty - they are into CONTROL over their subjects like cults do. Keep it honest.
God's Word is The FINAL Authority.
ONLY according to the hypocritical liars with a seared conscientious.
"Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron."
" They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth."
ACCORDING TO GOD, their Creator, they were free to marry before they entered Rome's den of inequity. Then God's Truth came to them and they escaped Rome's/RCC lies, deception and bondage.
They were Free at Last and Rome/RCC/the gates of hell has been in angst ever since and only those the hypocritical liars can control remain.
God's Word is THE FINAL AUTHORITY.
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