Posted on 08/15/2013 7:03:11 PM PDT by annalex
Once a woman in the crowd surrounding Christ and His disciples cries out to Him:
Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. (Luke 11:27)
What is it? We have, clearly, an act of venerating Mary. Note that the Blessed Virgin is venerated properly: not on her own but as the mother of Christ. Yet the reason for venerating is indeed concerning: it is her physiological and physiologically unique relationship with Jesus that is emphasized. That is not yet paganism with its crude theories of gods giving birth to other gods, but it is lacking proper focus and Jesus corrects it:
Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it. (Luke 11:28)
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| The Virgin with the Child on her knees and a prophet pointing at the star. Catacomb of Priscilla, late 2nd c. Source |
Having gotten past this linguistic hurdle, we can understand clearly what this passage, Luke 11:27-28, does: it establishes veneration of saints based not on their blood relation to Christ but on their obedience to God. It is in that sense that we venerate Our Lady: given that Christ is the Word of God personified, she heard and kept both Him in person as her Child and His teaching, figuratively. In Mary the essence of sainthood is seen in the flesh as well as in the mind. We could say that by the late second century at the latest, when we find evidence of the veneration of both the prophets and the Mother of God in the catacombs, the two reasons to venerate a saint: his martyrdom as in the case of Polycarp, or his obedience to the Word, as in Mary, -- unite into a single practice.
One that I hope conveyed exactly how I feel about such stuff as apparitions, Jesus and Mary ending up toast, etc.
From my book:
It is now clear that the ardent Catholic faith in Christ that calls us to imitate Him wholly; the saving faith that the Holy Scripture demands of us with all our heart and all our mind and all our soul, -- is a near impossibility without the example of saints, some of them people quite like you, dear reader, or like me – of which later. That is because the Holy Apostles had the friendship of Jesus in the flesh and miracle of the Resurrection before their very eyes; for them their salvation at the end of their natural lives was a certainty, for the Holy Spirit entering them was an observable reality. From the Pentecost on they knew that their joining Christ in heaven would be the crowning achievement of their lives. Strangers came to Jesus as well, but the faith in them was, it seems, a voice of desperation hoping for a miracle and seeing miracles. Not so for us: we live in a different age. Modern technology gave us lives of comfort: diseases are conquered one after the other; we rarely suffer from cold or heat, choicest foods are as near as our refrigerator; finest wines are in the store; pain is anaesthetized; death is remote; sex is available. Science is what gave us this easy and abundant life; it can explain most everything, and death, science explains, is final. The Resurrection of Christ, and our own, is a scientific impossibility. May be there is in us an altruistic gene, maybe not (science is closing in on the answer as I write), but from a practical perspective altruism is either a ploy to keep a beggar away, or a superstition. In this environment, it is easy to fear death, but it is not easy to have faith. The very diversity of saints in the thickness of ages and right to our own age gives us examples of people to whom we can relate, whose cultural and economic background was comparable to ours; from their heroic acts we draw inspiration and reach for maturity of faith. Their lives justify ours.
I am a saint
LOL.
Yes we absolutely should pray to saints, for in order to be saved yourself you need to learn to be in the company of saints.
Faith without works of faith -- the typical faith of Catholics whom Rome treats and counts as members in life and in death -- is dead, joined by her like institutionalized mainline Prot cousins.
Thank you for your patience, support and (for reading through too long replies) forbearance.
Praise God.
The woman adorned with the sun, the moon, and the stars (images taken from Gn 37:9–10) symbolizes God’s people in the Old and the New Testament. The Israel of old gave birth to the Messiah (Rev 12:5) and then became the new Israel, the church, which suffers persecution by the dragon (Rev 12:6, 13–17); cf. Is 50:1; 66:7; Jer 50:12. This corresponds to a widespread myth throughout the ancient world that a goddess pregnant with a savior was pursued by a horrible monster; by miraculous intervention, she bore a son who then killed the monster. - http://usccb.org/bible/revelation/12
You’re as bad as Elsie.
Keep me posted....
Believe him, not believe IN Him.
Demons are not offered the opportunity for salvation, so it is pointless to try to make it sound like those who believe in salvation by grace through faith in Christ are no different than demons.
I obey Christ, not man.
placemarker
What leads you to ask that, johngrace?
huh? This was asked and never answered by the person it was addressed. This was in August. So you are asking a question on a question never answered?
What leads you to ask that jodyel? Especially when it was not posted to you. There was no answer. Your suppose to be serious?
Do you understand what a 'disciple' is? Perhaps you should go find out... In fact, don't use the Greek disciple - use the Hebrew 'talmidim' for the standard. How can one claim to follow, when following another?
Indeed, and generally the saints are human like the rest of us, except that of their salvation we can be sure. This is why we venerate them: so that we too may become saints and be with Jesus in heaven for all eternity.
And praying to any other dead human is way to similar to participating in a one person Séance. I don’t need the instruction from the dead to know what Jesus said regarding my part in my personal salvation. The bible is very clear on the matter.
Is this it?
If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. --Rom 10:9
But what constitutes true belief? More needs to be said, including the fact that true faith is accompanied by works, since "faith without works is dead."
Moreover, this verse must be synthesized with other seemingly contradictory verses.
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." --Mat 7:21
What is the will of the Father?
“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mat 12)
But what constitutes true belief? More needs to be said, including the fact that true faith is accompanied by works, since “faith without works is dead.”
Meanwhile, another man can try and try and try to do all the right things all the time, failing almost always, and be truly saved. God knows the heart of man. And this is why we are told to judge not, lest we be judged.
And what works are we to do? Love. And love is not a feeling. It is an action. It is a decision. And how much “love” is enough before you are saved vs not saved?
I’ve learned it is an amazing journey of discovery. The longer I am a Christian, the more “at peace” I am about the whole thing. As a young man I had all sorts of angst about “am I doing enough to be saved”. Talk about missing the whole point.
I now see it this way: Proverbs is called the book of wisdom, but it is wisdom 101. Ecclesiastes is the REAL book of wisdom in the old testament, yet it is only wisdom 301. Connect it to the new testament teachings and you get the full wisdom of God for the Christian.
And if you truly believe that your sins are washed away by the blood of Christ and still constantly worry about doing enough to be saved, you need to lighten up and just try to make your Dad in heaven happy, knowing all the while that He will always be your Dad and He loves you. He has not written you out of his will.
The message of salvation is the simplest message of any religion and definitely simpler than the message of the man-made religions. It’s root is Grace. And no other religion has it. Once one embraces that the rest takes care of itself.
On a side note, regarding the quote at the end of your post, the true test of your love for you fellow man can be the simple act of selling your used car. How loving of your fellow man are you? ;-)
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