Is Prayer/Veneration/Worship to Mary Biblical?

self | 12-14-14 | ealgeone

[ealgeone]

The reason for this article is to determine if the worship/veneration given to Mary by the catholic church is justified from a Biblical perspective. This will be evaluated using the Biblical standard and not man’s standard.

[ealgeone]

>You’re accusing metmom of being a feminist??<

Do you personally believe in Sola Scriptura ?

Weak attempt at deflection....you answer my question first.

[Springfield Reformer]

I'm still looking for your explanation as to how the Lord's body is a local assembly but the blood of the Lord is not, did you post it and I missed it, or do you hold the blood of Messiah is an assembly too ?

 "Your explanation about discerning the Lord's body in poorer brethren, though well intentioned, does not fit. One who sins in unworthy communion is also guilty of the blood of the Lord, as well as the body. Surely you don't mean to imply the local church is the blood of Christ, or do you ?"

I have set myself to answer that a number of times, and have been unable to post it for days now, for one reason or another.  I think part of that is the belief on my part that if the answers already offered have not been persuasive for you, I sincerely wonder whether it is worth any further discourse. But because you have asked specifically, I will give it a shot.

I think the main thing is this: We really have a major disconnect on what the Ecclesia is.  Paul uses "body" repeatedly in the section in question, 1 Corinthians 10-12, to describe the fellowship of Christians.  He never makes analogy, as far as I know, to the community of the Christian faithful as "the body and blood."  It's actually one of the key tip-offs that the "discerning of the body" has nothing to do with the physical elements of the paschal meal. Look again at the critical line:

1 Corinthians 11:29  For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

Throughout the broader passage the criterion of "unworthiness" is established as this unloving behavior toward one's fellow believers.  But the condemnation comes in singular focus of failing to judge correctly (διακρίνω) the body of the Lord.  Not "judge or discern the body AND the blood."  Just the body.  That asymmetry is jarringly out of place if the fault of the Corinthians is their failure to have a mystical experience wherein the realize they are eating literal flesh and drinking literal blood.  Because then we would expect Paul to say they were unworthy because they failed to discern both body and blood.

But nothing in this passage up to this point or after it is at all concerned with having a gnosis of hidden substances of body and blood in contrast to a supposed illusory bread and wine.  That is a radically artificial imposition on the sense of the text.  The whole thrust is brotherly love, the dynamic of how hypocrisy among believers is a true assault on the body of Christ as the spiritual community of believers, and how such hypocrisy demeans the sacrifice of unselfish love He made for us.

So the overarching doctrinal target in these three chapters is to separate the Corinthians from the unloving habits of their pagan background, and get them to see their fundamental unity as the body of Christ. To achieve this, he goes through a number of illustrative issues.  In Chapter 10 we are placed in analogy to the loaf.  Just the loaf, not the blood.  We are to Christ His body true and proper, as much as the one in which He was incarnated. This is spiritually discerned, but it is as real as a heart attack.

As a result of this real body we are, in Chapter 11 we told we need to be aware of (discern, judge rightly) that body (not the blood) of the Lord so we can be worthy of the memorial of Christ's sacrificial love for that body, and in Chapter 12, we are reminded that all around us in the body of Christ we will find precious people whom the Holy Spirit has gifted for our mutual edification, and we should give them the respect that is due a fellow member of the body of our Lord.

But the grand crescendo of this life we have as the body of Christ is love, and in Chapter 13, Paul strikes that climax with amazing power and grandeur, as he walks us through the beauty of Christ-like love.  It is the capstone to his discourse on our life together in Christ and with each other.  It's about the love.

So really, I have a genuinely hard time going from that inspiring vision of who we are supposed to be to each other in this wondrous spiritual community of divine love, to this senseless detour into Aristotelian substance versus accidence. It is totally, and I mean as 180 degrees, out of sync with the overarching sense of the passage.  It is an alien imposition.

But as I said at the beginning, this is not news to either you or annalex.  If you have not believed our report up to this point, will you believe it if we repeat it another 100 times?  I have a life outside FR.  I could, if unencumbered by the necessities of life, write about the love of Christ and us His body thousands of times over.  But I am so encumbered.  I have other things I must do. So don't take it personally if I can't respond to your every inquiry. I have to make best use of the time God gives me.  One never knows when the last grain of sand will drop.

Peace,

SR

[Syncro]

Again, the lack if holiness or piety in your post makes my point

How ironic, that statement is an example of your idea of holiness and piety?

Accusing the brethren?

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.--Rev 12:10

I have never claimed either one, I am just a sinner not deserving (non of us are) of the love, grace and Salvation that Jesus offers to us and which I have received.

The only thing holy about me is Jesus, as He is in me and I in Him.

I'm quite familiar with the history of Garcia, in fact of the G Dead also.

Did a favor for them at the Altamont concert where they preformed.

Will you be sad if publicans and sinners go into the kingdom of God before you ?

Only if I was as holy as the "holiness" you seem to project.

There is this though, from the Bible, 1 Peter 1:

13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:
15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Perhaps you would like to incorporate this attitude into your posts:

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem the other better than himself.--Philippians 2:3

[metmom]

Weak attempt at deflection....you answer my question first.

Wishful thinking.

Catholics are masters at deflecting with *I'll answer yours if you answer mine first*, which if you do, they NEVER reciprocate.

[annalex]

Veneration of saints is a doctrine that developed after the books of the Holy Scripture were closed. This is a silly question. The Church for example, opposes in-vitro fertilization. There is nothing on this subject in the Holy Scripture either.

[boatbums]

Next time you get the kind of inspiration to post to or about me, remember and own your words. Do not post to me (bold emphasis below mine) or about me (backbiting).

Hey...I'm getting that "feeling" again. ☺ It seems fitting, though, that I repeat my earlier comment since you don't seem to comprehend it yet:

So this personal revulsion you express towards not-Catholic Christians because they may not agree with your own personal interpretation of Scripture is all just a bunch of hot air. It's a sidetrack to avoid going deeper into a conversation, a diversionary tactic intended to cease responses. As you can see, they don't work. All it does is make you look foolish, petty and anything BUT Christ-like.

And...last time I checked, you aren't my husband (shudder). A man using Paul's restrictions on women pastors to stomping his foot and refusing to HEAR what a woman on an internet site has to say, is pretty misogynistic. How's that attitude working out for you in real life?

[annalex]

I am aware of these verses. They do not contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church when they were written, -- since the Eucharistic blood is to be eaten per commandment of Christ ("Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you", John 6:54), nor do they contradict what we do today. "Other gospel" refers to the Protestant heresies.

[boatbums]

It IS pretty pitiful, isn't it? Funny how some take what Scripture says when they imagine it supports their latest thought but then totally discard it when they are proven wrong.

[annalex]

We will put our faith in Christ alone and rely on His promises

Still waiting for you (plural-generic) to do that.

[annalex]

No one showed that to me. I saw some errors of translation and some personal preferences. That was all.

[annalex]

Your explanation about discerning the Lord's body in poorer brethren, though well intentioned, does not fit

That is especially cogent remark, because indeed the admonition is for people who come hungry, therefore the very poor that according to the Protestant theory are supposed to be somehow "discerned"

[annalex]

NASB, which is the most literal of the translations records the verse as:
Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

NASB also says "shall"

For example, if the church says it's ok for women to be priests, I don't think Heaven would agree as it contradicts the Word

Yes, that is a good example that helps us understand the teaching of the Church better. It is true that the bind-and-loose passages formally allow for that possibility: that the Church makes up an erroneous doctrine and the Heaven will be in a quandary: either violate this promise about binding and loosing the error in heaven, or overlook the error and bless it as truth.

The answer is that the Church simply is not going to make such decision, because the Holy Spirit leads her. Modern popes, especially, like to make this point (I paraphrase): "you want me to allow contraception? -- I cannot do that... You want me to allow women priests? -- I cannot do that".

The fact that the Catholic Church is inerrant is one corollary of these passages.

[annalex]

The focus of the few verses is decidedly not the “literal body” of Christ at their celebration

Yes it is because they make reference to the Last Supper when Christ said that.

More reading, less theories, please. I am not hear to discuss what fantasies you or others have, however fascinating they are.

[annalex]

Very clever, Jesus was.

That is the comicality of the Protestant belief system: 80% of the material in the Gospels does not mean what it says.

[Springfield Reformer]

AF: Your explanation about discerning the Lord's body in poorer brethren, though well intentioned, does not fit

AA: That is especially cogent remark, because indeed the admonition is for people who come hungry, therefore the very poor that according to the Protestant theory are supposed to be somehow "discerned"

Yet this is the sense, and if one backs away from insisting on a gnostic-like meaning for diakrino ("discern," "recognize," "judge rightly") , and allows the word to carry the more pedestrian sense of "judge rightly," the meaning becomes quite clear.  Paul is not faulting folks for failing to become "substance detectors."  Their problem is treating their fellow believers like garbage.  That is not a "right judgment" of one's fellow believer.  It has nothing to do with detecting their socioeconomic status and being nice to them if they are poor.  It has everything to do with seeing them as fellow heirs in all that Christ bestows on His body.  There is but one King of Heaven, yet we are all kings and priests, and command the respect due our office.  We are to look past the externalities and see each other as sons and daughters of the Highest Royalty, and treat each other with all the respect and love that such royalty accords.

Peace,

SR

[annalex]

Jesus said that Peter was *petros*(masculine) and that on this *petra*(feminine)

LOL. In Aramaic He said that?

[annalex]

they call "Protestants" - which, according to a few here is ANYONE who isn't a Roman Catholic but who is a Christian

Never met such an illiterate Catholic. The Catholic church is, first, consisting of Churches other than Roman Catholic and secondly, Catholic a generally very toward the Eastern Orthodox and find little to nothing to disagree with them theologically.

[daniel1212]

And that is why you are wounding Christ again, "guilty of the body and of the blood," when you come with such disregard and lack of love. You ARE wounding His body, the very one you are supposedly honoring by this meal, by playing the hypocrite toward your brother.

Indeed, for as Paul elsewhere stated,

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

Paul, who was charged with persecuting Christ because he was persecuting the church, "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones," (Ephesians 5:30) is very conscious of the identification of Christ with the church, "which is His body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." (Ephesians 1:23)

And as the Corinthians were sppsd to be coming together to declare the Lord's death for them all, and their union with this sacrificial Lamb, by this unselfish communal sharing described in 1Cor. 11:17-34 , thus Paul says they were actually were not doing do due to then going ahead and eating independently and selfishly, shaming them that have not.

Some were thus bloated, and others for whom Christ shed His sinless blood, were hungry, being treated as if they were not part of the body of Christ who were "bought with a price," as Paul also elsewhere says.

Thus there were acting contrary to the very unselfish sacrificial act of Christ and their union with Him which they were sppsd to be showing, and thus were effectually not.

And thus they were guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, as He died for those whom they effectively despised and did not recognize as being part of that body.

Likewise David called the water which was obtained at the risk of the blood of his mighty men as being blood. (2 Samuel 23:15-17)

And we are given the warning of impenitently sinning willfully after having received the knowledge of the truth,

Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:29)

As said, even the NAB notes get this "discerning the Lord;s body right, apart from it being a sacrifice for sins:

Examine himself: the Greek word is similar to that for “approved” in 1 Cor 11:19, which means “having been tested and found true.” The self-testing required for proper eating involves discerning the body (1 Cor 11:29), which, from the context, must mean understanding the sense of Jesus’ death (1 Cor 11:26), perceiving the imperative to unity that follows from the fact that Jesus gives himself to all and requires us to repeat his sacrifice in the same spirit. - http://www.usccb.org/bible/1cor/11:28#54011028-1

But all Caths typical evidence they see is "this is My body" as teaching a basically literal (fully would mean actual vs. trans...) nature of the body and blood, and thus so focus on the wafer that they could just as well "take communion" (not take part in it) independently of others. And being thus conditioned some even rush out after they have done so. Yet many Prot. churches are not much better, missing the communal union with Christ and each other.

[WVKayaker]

Is it 5000 yet?

[mitch5501]

now it is