Posted on 09/03/2014 6:36:07 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
A little six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his Catholic companions reciting the prayer “Hail Mary.” He liked it so much that he copied it, memorized it and would recite it every day. “Look, Mommy, what a beautiful prayer,” he said to his mother one day.
“Never again say it,” answered the mother. “It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who adore idols and think Mary a goddess. After all, she is a woman like any other. Come on, take this Bible and read it. It contains everything that we are bound to do and have to do.” From that day on the little boy discontinued his daily “Hail Mary” and gave himself more time to reading the Bible instead. One day, while reading the Gospel, he came across the passage about the Annunciation of the Angel to Our Lady. Full of joy, the little boy ran to his mother and said: “Mommy, I have found the ‘Hail Mary’ in the Bible which says: ‘Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women.’ Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?”
On another occasion he found that beautiful Salutation of St. Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary and the wonderful canticle MAGNIFICAT in which Mary foretold that “the generations would call her blessed.” He said no more about it to his mother but started to recite the “Hail Mary” every day as before. He felt pleasure in addressing those charming words to the Mother of Jesus, our Savior.
When he was fourteen, he one day heard a discussion on Our Lady among the members of his family. Every one said that Mary was a common woman like any other woman. The boy, after listening to their erroneous reasoning could not bear it any longer, and full of indignation, he interrupted them, saying:
“Mary is not like any other children of Adam, stained with sin. No! The Angel called her FULL OF GRACE AND BLESSED AMONGST WOMEN. Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ and consequently Mother of God. There is no higher dignity to which a creature can be raised. The Gospel says that the generations will proclaim her blessed and you are trying to despise her and look down on her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel or of the Bible which you proclaim to be the foundation of the Christian religion.”
So deep was the impression which the boy’s talk had made that his mother many times cried out sorrowfully: “Oh my God! I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of Popes!” And indeed, not very long afterwards, having made a serious study of both Protestantism and Catholicism, the boy found the latter to be the only true religion and embraced it and became one of its most ardent apostles.
Some time after his conversion, he met his married sister who rebuked him and said indignantly: “You little know how much I love my children. Should any one of them desire to become a Catholic, I would sooner pierce his heart with a dagger than allow him to embrace the religion of the Popes!”
Her anger and temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she would change her ways, just as St. Paul did on his way to Damascus. It so happened that one of her sons fell dangerously ill and the doctors gave up hope of recovery. Her brother then approached her and spoke to her affectionately, saying: “My dear sister, you naturally wish to have your child cured. Very well, then, do what I ask you to do. Follow me, let us pray one ‘Hail Mary’ and promise God that, if your son recovers his health, you would seriously study the Catholic doctrine, and should you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you would embrace it no matter what the sacrifices may be.”
His sister was somewhat reluctant at the beginning, but as she wished for her son’s recovery, she accepted her brother’s proposal and recited the “Hail Mary” together with him. The next day her son was completely cured. The mother fulfilled her promise and she studied the Catholic doctrine. After long preparation she received Baptism together with her whole family, thanking her brother for being an apostle to her.
The story was related during a sermon given by the Rev. Fr. Tuckwell. “Brethren,” he went on and said, “the boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism dedicated his whole life to the service of God. He is the priest who is speaking to you now! What I am I owe to Our Lady. You, too, my dear brethren, be entirely dedicated also to Our Lady and never let a day pass without saying the beautiful prayer, ‘Hail Mary’, and your Rosary. Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ founded on the Rock (Peter) and ‘against whom the gates of hell shall never prevail.’”
Augustine
We must except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin (Nature and Grace 36:42 [A.D. 415]).
I recommend either the RSV-CE (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition) or the Douay-Rheims.
Honor your father and your mother is one of the 10 Commandments.
“It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin.”
Martin Luther, (Sermon: “On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God,” 1527).
Children listening to God in the Bible, Samuel, and Jesus was 12 when teaching the Rabbis in the Temple.
Scripture doesn’t say Mary was. It says she was “favored”. It does say Stephen was “ full of grace” but not sinless.
Those are not the best translations.
NASB is the most literal translation available, then you're lookingt at the Greek.
LOL, I was a Protestant for the first 46 years of my life and then I had a loooong talk with Jesus and He made it as clear as day that I must become a Catholic.
Believe me, I resisted. I studied and I learned and even when I knew without a doubt that I needed to become Catholic, I dragged my feet for TEN years. In the end I had to have that last little push and when I became a Catholic, Jesus rewarded me by converting my husband and my son and his family and many of my DIL’s family.
God is good and anyone who loves God becomes good because of God and anyone who has run the race and never lost sight of God is good enough to pray for me.
Of course I pray to Jesus! I don’t think you understand how much a fervent Catholic prays. I pray several hours a day and I pray for anyone and any situation that I think needs God’s hand.
There are also a lot of things out there that I can do by volunteering and helping people and the Church and I’m also active doing those things several hours a day and I consider that another prayer or in some cases the answer to someone’s prayer.
My voice is not minor, God knows every hair on my head, I don’t have to speak a prayer to be heard by Jesus. I rarely pray for myself unless things are happening. I say prayers of adoration, contrition and thankfulness. I pray memorized prayers and spontaneous prayers. I pretty much have a running dialogue going most days.
If I hear anyone has died, I stop and pray for their souls, if I hear someone is sick I stop and pray, many times when I get on FR I spend the first 15 minutes praying just as I scan the headlines.
So yes, I pray to Jesus, I walk with Him 24/7, I go to sleep praying and I awake praying and I pray that all the saints and angels are praying with me too.
Awesome testimony. Thanks and I am glad to know you.
Whether they be Catholic, Protestant or any other so-called christian religion, they all fail. Just a very few of thousands of scriptures they all fail to understand and believe, Oh and know this Christ is not a Religion he is:
Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
1 Corinthians 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
Romans 12:16 Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
Philippians 2:2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
If someone wants to know what you believe, they should ask you, right? Not someone else. It's just common sense, and respect. You don't want someone else telling me what you believe. You want to say it yourself, in your own words, and to be able to clarify what you're saying if there's any misunderstanding.
So if you want to know what the Catholic Church believes, ask the Catholic Church. Not someone else. It's easy enough. The Vatican's website is available to all. If you do, and you take the time to understand, rather than hear what we say in terms of what someone else told you we believe, you'll come to understand that we do NOT worship Mary.
The angel Gabriel said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). The phrase “full of grace” is a translation of the Greek word kecharitomene. It therefore expresses a characteristic quality of Mary.
The traditional translation, “full of grace,” is better than the one found in many RECENT versions of the New Testament, which give something along the lines of “highly favored daughter.” Mary was indeed a highly favored daughter of God, but the Greek implies more than that (and it never mentions the word for “daughter”). The grace given to Mary is at once permanent and of a unique kind.Kecharitomene is a perfect passive participle of charitoo, meaning “to fill or endow with grace.” Since this term is in the perfect tense, it indicates that Mary was graced in the past but with continuing effects in the present. So, the grace Mary enjoyed was not a result of the angel’s visit. In fact, Catholics hold, it extended over the whole of her life, from conception onward. She was in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence.
She, herself exclaims that Christ is her Savior. In the Scripture we read that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23). Besides, they say, Mary said her “spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47), and only a sinner needs a Savior.
Let’s take the second citation first. Mary, too, required a Savior. Like all other descendants of Adam, she was subject to the necessity of contracting original sin. But by a special intervention of God, undertaken at the instant she was conceived, she was preserved from the stain of original sin and its consequences. She was therefore redeemed by the grace of Christ, but in a special way—by anticipation.
Remember that “nothing is impossible for God.”
Consider an analogy: Suppose a man falls into a deep pit, and someone reaches down to pull him out. The man has been “saved” from the pit. Now imagine a woman walking along, and she too is about to topple into the pit, but at the very moment that she is to fall in, someone holds her back and prevents her. She too has been saved from the pit, but in an even better way: She was not simply taken out of the pit, she was prevented from getting stained by the mud in the first place. This is the illustration Christians have used for a thousand years to explain how Mary was saved by Christ. By receiving Christ’s grace at her conception, she had his grace applied to her before she was able to become mired in original sin and its stain.
Have you forgotten Genesis?
English Standard Version (ESV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness,
OK, who is the “us”??
To me it’s always meant the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — all there at the very beginning.
Thank you for posting such good pictures demonstrating how Catholics honor Mary and frequently ask for her intercession. The Woman, who at Cana, told those present to “Do what He tells you,” is a wonderful intercessor. ;=)
**Take the Blessed Mother or leave her, but leave us none the less, as we will keep her. **
Amen!
It’s to demonstrate that some catholics do indeed commit idolaty by bowing down to an idol...as well as praying to and worshipping Mary.
**sratled**
new word?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.