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.
I did not. Get some reading comprehension lessons.
We have access to the THRONE OF GRACE. That is God’s only, not any angel or *saint*.
Praying to angels or saints is idolatry.
“Incidentally, if you ever wonder why a Catholic like me puts zero stock in Protestant sophistries,”
Just curious, but when your gay priests get back from the bathhouse in time to offer communion, do they offer you a glass of “water” which will give you an eternal reserve of water overflowing in your belly, granting you both eternal life and causing you to “never thirst” again? (John 4:10). If not, you Papists are inconsistent, and therefore I will be forced to stick with the Sophist Augustine.
By the way, you sure puttered out quickly. I expected a better reply than this, but you went straight for the trolling statements right away. I’m guessing Catholics have so little knowledge on the scripture and their own teachings, that their bluffs break down right away and so it is necessary for them to resort to the chest beating comments.
It’s not a problem of reading comprehension. I suspect that a lot of Catholics are simply blinded by their own corruption of the mind and the devil, as the scripture testifies.
Rom_8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Catholics claim that the sacraments confer grace to them, but Scripture says this is how we receive grace.....
Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
>> “Hence, Mary is the mother of the Godhead.” <<
.
It is difficult to accept the depth of delusion that some catholics obviously suffer. To construct such an imaginary universe, completely devoid of scriptural, or logical support requires much demonic intervention; this is beyond even the most evil human mind.
Repeating your anti-Christian nonsense does not make it any more true, or Christian.
I apologize; I thought you repeated yourself.
No, wrong again. Pleas pay attention or perhaps I should resume ignoring your inconsequential posts.
Mary, like any woman, gave birth to a person. In Mary's case, however, that person was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, but not the entire Godhead which is the unity of three persons. This does not mean that she pre-existed Jesus or was not made by God like any other human, it means precisely that she is the Mother of God for Jesus is God.
Like I said, if you have a question, I will try to answer; going into a theological discussion with you or anyone Protestant is not something I am interested in.
“going into a theological discussion with you or anyone Protestant is not something I am capable of doing.”
Fixed your post for you. Please stop pinging me to your obnoxious posts. You just admitted that your only interest is to make brainless assertions and then not defend them. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I did not ping you; someone else did. I am happy to answer any questions if you have any about the Holy Catholic faith, or defend it, in this case, on the topic of veneration of saints. I have done both.
“I’m guessing Catholics have so little knowledge on the scripture...”
Even if they did have knowledge of the Scriptures, it wouldn’t matter. My VERY Catholic friend said that they don’t believe everything in the Bible/Scriptures. Her husband trained for the priesthood. They said that if there’s a conflict between the Bible and a pope/priest, they go with the guy in a goofy hat every time. They must. That’s what they’ve been told to do.
You can’t have a logical theological discussion about Biblical doctrines with anyone in a cult. They always put man before God (that’s what makes it a cult), and don’t believe the Bible is the Final Authority. The only way they will see/know the truth is through the Holy Spirit working in their lives.
That is true; if there is an interpretation of the Holy Scripture that is at odds with the teaching of the Holy Church, then that interpretation is wrong and the Church can provide the correct one. That is plain logical since it is the Holy Catholic Church that, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, produced the New Testament and canonized and explained the Old. This is why I, too, explain the Holy Scripture in the light of the Church teachings but do not engage in debates with Protestants about their theological fantasies, beyond pointing them out and occasionally making fun of them.
Oh? So the second person of the the Trinity is not really God when it suits Catholics?
The argument we are fed by Catholics trying to justify calling Mary the *mother of God* is such....
Mary is the mother of Jesus. Jesus is God. Therefore Mary is the mother of God.
Now, Jesus isn't God? He's only PART of God?
She is mother of Jesus precisely because that's what the HOLY SPIRIT called her.
And if I have to pick who I'm going toeve, I'll throw my lot in with the Holy Spirit, not some deluded Catholic who tries to tell us that the Holy Spirit did not know what HE was doing.
Jesus is God and the Second Person the the Holy Trinity. “Godhead” is the term that is sometime used to describe the entire Holy Trinity, which is a union of three persons. Mary is mother of God because she is the mother of one divine Person, Jesus Christ. She is not the mother of Godhead, because she is not also the mother of God the Father, nor is she the mother of the Holy Spirit. You used the word Godhead, perhaps rashly, and I commented on that part. Your understanding of the Catholic doctrine, “Mary is the mother of Jesus. Jesus is God. Therefore Mary is the mother of God”, is correct. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.
“Jesus is God and the Second Person the the Holy Trinity. “Godhead” is the term that is sometime used to describe the entire Holy Trinity, which is a union of three persons. Mary is mother of God because she is the mother of one divine Person, Jesus Christ. She is not the mother of Godhead, because she is not also the mother of God the Father, nor is she the mother of the Holy Spirit.”
Such a conception would make Mary the mother of Christ’s divinity, rather than His flesh and blood body. The Son of God was always with the Father from eternity, and was not created or given a personality by Mary.
Correct.
was not created or given a personality by Mary
He was not created by Mary. In fact no child is created by his mother, but rather by God. Jesus was given certain personal aspects by Mary, as any child receives his personality partly from his mother. Jesus certainly did not receive His divinity from Mary, for Mary could not give what she did not possess.
Faulty logic at best.
Yes, I understand what Catholics are rationalizing, but calling Mary *mother of God* is wrong and misrepresents who Mary is and her relationship to Jesus.
The Holy Spirit clarified it in Scripture when HE called her *mother of Jesus*.
*mother of God* is not Scriptural.
If the Church started to worry what you heretics might think, we’ll never get anything done. Here someone already thinks that Mary gave birth to a lifeless body. Also, it is not true that Mary is only called “mother of Jesus”; in Luke 1:43 she is called “the mother of my Lord”, which is the biblical word for God throughout the Bible.
So let me get this straight. In your world the fact that Jesus is God makes Mary the “mother of God” right? Catholics also believe that to believe that Jesus was both man and God and that those two were separate in some way is wrong. So let’s look at a verse that causes Catholics problems.
John 3:34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
God didn’t give the “Spirit” to the second person of the Trinity He would have already been “one” with it. So how is it that God had to give Jesus, who is already God “not the Spirit by measure”?
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