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.
O...
K...
I think I explained that. I know Protestants have no popes, but in Luther's shenanigans -- both with his "marriage" and his unbridled masturbation habit, -- I see a pattern of individualistic self-indulgence in Protestantism that has lead over time to bizarre interpretations of the Holy Scripture and the moral decay of the modern Western society, gay "rights" and all. Maybe you needed a pope, of some kind.
Of course he weaseled out of his pro-polygamy scriptural stance. I would like to know which were his scriptural arguments for monogamy though.
she claims to define both what Scripture consists up and its meaning
But we do so in accordance with consensus patrem. There is that continuity of hermeneutics, you know. You should have it, too.
Yes, plenty of lay Catholics do not know their doctrines. For that, too, I blame YOU KNOW WHOM.
I got to run. Thank you for taking the trouble with this lengthy post; I will return to it if need be.
Well, there's quite a leap.
CB states that praying to the dead is prohibited in Scripture and someone goes and concludes that he doesn't believe the body of Christ exists.
Nothing like Catholic reasoning.
wow........
And yet...
Galatians 2:9-11
9 James, Cephas[c] and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly wrong.
Only this I want
To know the Lord
Why should ANYTHING 'change'?
SUREly the church did not NEED to differ from what Christ set up; so why DID it?
It'll be back! ;^)
It's merely a Domestic Disturbance that cops just HATE to get involved in.
When an external force rears it's ugly head; we CHRISTIANs will come together, once more, to meet it head on.
Oh?
I'm sure that SOMEONE will disagree.
So?
By the we've gotten to #978; we've pretty well hashed and re-hash poor ol' Mary and her status to death.
My answer...... Both.
It's all about Jesus. Catholics misunderstand the whole purpose of Scripture and our perspective on it.
John 5:39-40 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
Galatians 3:19 19 What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.
Galatians 3:22-24 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen - "A Plea For Intolerance" (1931)
Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil ... a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment.
Tolerance applies only to persons ... never to truth.
America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not.
It is suffering from tolerance.
Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos.
Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.
We're all blessed in Christ.
Ephesians 1:3-4 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
HMMmm...
1 Corinthians 11:29
For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment to himself
1 Corinthians 12:27
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it
Yes, that qualifies as stalking and playing games.
If I thought that the question was being asked in good faith, I would answer it, but precedent indicates that if I do answer that one, and they don't like the answer, I'll be branded some kind of -ist heretic. If I do answer it, there will be yet another question waiting in the wings with which they will try to bait me into revealing my denomination by the process of elimination and trying to figure out what -ism I am so they can brand me a heretic, as if I even care whether I am a heretic according to Catholicism because that does not equate to being a heretic to Christ.
I am not setting myself up to be judged by Catholics as to whether I'm good enough for them or not. Been there, done that, and not going back. I'm free in Christ now and not going back under that kind of bondage. I answer to Christ and Him alone. The Catholics church is not my judge.
My identity is found in Christ, not a denomination or religion.
Galatians 2:19-20 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Thank you.
She's dead, Jim...
1000
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