Posted on 03/25/2015 10:46:15 PM PDT by Steelfish
Because Mary Said “Yes…” — A Reflection For The Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord
March 25, 2011 by Fr. Thomas Rosica
Standing in the middle of the present day city of Nazareth is the mammoth Basilica of the Annunciation, built around what is believed to be the dwelling of Mary. In a grotto-like room at the heart of the basilica is a small inscription on an altar. It reads, “verbum caro hic factum est,” here the Word became flesh. There, it is believed, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, and her response changed the world forever.
Imagine yourself in Mary’s place, asked to say “yes” to a divine plan so vast, so profound and so seemingly impossible that you cannot comprehend it. “How can this be?” she asks, bewildered. She is rooted in the faith of her ancestors, and yet now an angel has appeared in the midst of everyday life, extending a startling invitation. “You have found favor with God,” the angel says, “and you will conceive and bear His Son.” Will she accept?
It is Mary above all others who can teach us what it means to live by faith, and how to respond when God’s providence disrupts the daily course of our lives, overturning its rhythms and expectations. Despite her fears and uncertainty over how this promise could be fulfilled, she still answered “Yes.” Are we able to respond to God this way?
When we reflect on the Annunciation to Mary, and her acceptance of the angel’s message, we also reflect on our own vocation — our own calling from God. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” — an echo of Mary’s “Be it done unto me according to your word.”
Each time we commit ourselves to embracing God’s call and accepting His will, we mark a new point on the path of our relationship with Him. For the rest of her life, Mary pondered her extraordinary encounter with God, turning the weight of the angel’s message over and over again in her heart. From the manger to the cross, Mary’s life was radically changed — her relationship with God profoundly deepened — the moment she said “Yes.”
Mary received and welcomed God’s Word in the fullest sense — becoming impregnated with it, and bearing it to the world. Angels might not appear in our doorsteps, but we do encounter God in each of our daily prayers, and he whispers to us a similar invitation: Will we accept His love and bring it joyously to those around us? Will we trust in His providence, even when we can’t see the path ahead? Amid the noise of everyday life, will we listen for and embrace his call?
When making his pilgrimage to the Basilica of the Annunciation, Pope Benedict XVI offered this prayer to the humble Virgin of Nazareth. It speaks for all of us who likewise seek to accept God’s will with joy:
Mary, Mother of the “Yes,” you listened to Jesus, and know the tone of his voice and the beating of his heart. Morning Star, speak to us of him, and tell us about your journey of following him on the path of faith."
Geez...your answers just seem to grow more and more goofy. When God COMMANDED the Israelites to NOT make and/or bow down before graven images to serve them, worship them, do things for them, sacrifice to them, etc., He was talking about both their actions as well as what was in their hearts. We communicate what we believe by what we do where others can see us.
If I had a statue of the Easter Bunny in my garden and I planted flowers around it and went there every day, kneeling before it and praying to it, you just MIGHT have reason to believe I worship the Easter Bunny. I can tell you that I'm not, but my actions belie my words. If I pray to the EB to save me, protect me, help me, to comfort me, to rescue me, to bring me to heaven, to intercede with Jesus for me or to give me grace, how is that not worshiping the EB? If I sing songs to EB, recite repetitive prayers every day, built an Easter Bunny cathedral, had EB statuary that I kissed, crawled on my knees in penitential pain as some kind of preparation to come before statues of the Easter Bunny...would you conclude I worshiped the Easter Bunny?
OH, but you might say, the Easter Bunny isn't real! But neither is the Mary of Catholicism. You can declare all you want that "worship" of Mary is not official Roman catholic teaching, but you cannot claim to know the motives of all the Catholics who really DO worship Mary. At best you can say the people you know don't - and even that is questionable - but you cannot truthfully declare no Catholic does. You aren't God. He, however, does know the hearts of men and is why He commanded us to have no other gods before Him, to make NO graven images to bow down before them and to serve HIM alone. I don't claim to know who is a Christian or who isn't a Christian because I can't see someone's heart. But what we all can do is know whether someone is professing the truth because we have God's rule of faith for measuring what is the truth - His sacred word - and He gives us the Holy Spirit to illuminate His truth to our hearts. We witness what we believe by what we do. If people can look at what we do and it looks like we are worshiping someone/thing other than Almighty God, then we are doing it wrong.
Not sorry, but you don’t get to decide what I can or cannot say about ANY religion. And, yeah, it WOULD be a cop-out to say anyone who worships Mary isn’t a “true” Catholic.
Bush had one, too, not just Obama
But Bush and Obama aren’t religious leaders of an individual sect!
Yeah, that's why you have the pope kissing the Quran and praying with Muslims.
>>But the rot had its inception from the very beginnings of Protestantism<<
The roots of Protestantism is in Catholicism from which it maintained many of it's errors. I'm not sure why you keep railing on protestants. There is as much error in Protestant denominations as there are in Catholicism so what's your point?
>>Protestants should at least concede a point which Martin Luther<<
I know Luther is a convenient whipping boy for Catholics but it's futile. If you know anything about those who post on these threads it's not Luther they look to. It's scripture. It's what Jesus and the apostles taught not some Johnny come lately. Paul said if someone teaches something they didn't they should be considered accursed. So stop trotting out anyone after the apostles unless they teach what the apostles taught.
Shame on you--it's not a strawman if it's true!
The strawman here is that "The Roman Catholic Church wrote the Bible"
And again, the cultisness is demonstrated with the claim that the "Chuch did this or that..." We have The Bible because God preserved it. Whatever methods he chose are his. The " curse" of Protestsntism is what put God's Word into the hands of everyday people, in their language, so they could read and understand The True Gospel --not the lies taught by Rome.
You seem to think I value Osteen and his ilk... I don't. But God's word is not written for the theologian; it's written for us. It's a shame you place so little faith in God to guide the reading of his word, by his children, so that we understand it.
Anyone can twist scripture. The biggest offender is the Roman Catholic Church.
When Jesus himself says, "... No one comes to the Father except through me" in John 14:6, why does the Roman Catholic Churcn lie and say Mary provides grace and salvation? So do the Church Fathers and "Petrine Authrity" trump Gad Almighty himself?
By the way--it doesn't take a theologian to understand that verse. Christ wasn't talking to a theologian when he said that, was he?
Or, why does The Roman Catholic Church lie and say Mary is a "Mediatrix" when God clearly says in 1 Timothy 2:5:
"For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, "
Square the lie of Rome with God's own breathed out word.
Once the cat was out of the bag, Rome's authority was shown for what it was: a sham. That's the result of pre-Internet theologians, right?
As for the deep end of the pool, it saddens me that the attitude of wanting to restrict God's Word is still so clearly held by the Catholic Church. But , I suppose it's tough when its lies and false gospel are laid bare by simple reading of The a Bible. Wasn't it written for us?.
Nice try though.
Hoss
The Original Post (OP) was about Mary's Yes, her consent to become the Mother of our Savior. In no way did I deflect from this. What do you think I'm talking about?? Did you miss the topic sentence?
"'She' as you put it which means Mary isn’t answering you or anyone else."
So many people have been answered by Mary that it would break down this server to list them all. People who are utterly *uninterested* in historic evidence on the six inhabited continents, over many centuries and cultures, and given to many people in the form of healing of body and soul, return to Christ, new fervor for His work, the renewal of families, the blessing of a happy death --- obtained from God through the intercession of Mary and the Saints--- will remain closed off from much truth and many blessings. There's no need to keep your fingers in your ears or your hands over your eyes.
"Show me in the Holy Scripture where any Heavenly Host talks to humans other than God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, Angels, or Demons. 'She' isn’t any of the above, so she’s not talking to you."
Where do you get the principle you apparently invoke, that if something didn't happen in Scripture, it could not happen at all? It's like saying nobody was healed of cocaine addiction in Scripture, so it can't happen; or like saying light never comes from an electrical device in Scripture, so electric lights are not possible.
Old Russian Orthodox joke:How many monks does it take the change a light bulb?
Monk #1: Bulb?
Monk #2: Change?
God can do whatever He wants, and through whomever He wants, even now. God did not stop being God at the end of the NT.
"...the Holy Scripture still remains and it is condemning you."
Holy Scripture does not condemn me, and I remain peacefully in the Body of Christ, together with Mary and all the saints gone on before me, and all the faithful Christians on earth. You too, if you only knew.
Hoss, does it escape you wrote an English transliteration for a Hebrew name which you do not know how to pronounce ?
Are you familiar with the first verse if Genesis in Hebrew ? The word translated as "God" in that verse is commonly transliterated in English as Elohim which is a good approximation for the Arabic for for "God" commonly transliterated into English as Allah, with neither word, Elohim nor Allah. themselves alone, a name for God Almighty (El Shaddai). It is common to use "El" or its Arabic cousin "Allah" combined with another word to form one of the names of God. I'm unaware of any Arabic equivalent to ineffable, and temporarily unpronounceable, name of God given to Moses.
I must confess to a personal bias against Islam formed by personal events beyond my control but not involving recognized sin on my part. Although my words have been harsh in general at times, I have tried to treat Moslems as equitably as the LORD God of Abraham allows and directs.
**So many people have been answered by Mary that it would break down this server to list them all. People who are utterly *uninterested* in historic evidence on the six inhabited continents, over many centuries and cultures, and given to many people in the form of healing of body and soul, return to Christ, new fervor for His work, the renewal of families, the blessing of a happy death -— obtained from God through the intercession of Mary and the Saints-— will remain closed off from much truth and many blessings. There’s no need to keep your fingers in your ears or your hands over your eyes.**
You would do well to understand that no one,....absolutely...no...one,...knows the depths and riches of God. They are unsearchable. Among those riches is his is abundant mercy. He performs miracles even for the atheists.
He is omnipresent. And you think that while he is present, he needs an omnipresent Mary to show more mercy, and to convince him to act???
Another RC wrote this. (I’ve replied to him, but he has not replied back.) Perhaps you can answer it.
**The wedding of Cana has always been thought of as an example and foreshadowing of Mary’s intercession. http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/marian11.html**
Intercession?....do you really think that Christ (who had seen Nathanael under the fig tree, before physically seeing him) strolled into Cana not knowing what was waiting for him, and how he would handle it??
Further, not only was there not wine for the wedding party, there was no wine for Mary, Jesus’ brethern, or he and his disciples. Mary wasn’t going to have any wine, along with everybody else. That’s not exactly intercessing; it’s more like making “your requests be made known to God”. (Phil. 4:6)
Jesus taught often on prayer, such as the examples of asking a friend at midnight for loaves of bread (Lk. 11:5-8), and the widow petitioning the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8).
Yet, you RCs say that the Cana miracle is proof of Mary intercessing then and into the afterlife, when Jesus teaches us to ask God. And yes, James taught prayer, ‘one for another’ (5:14-18) to those believers still alive and living for God. He wasn’t writing to those that had already died in Christ.
You folks attribute a power to Mary that is only found in God: omnipresence.
How can someone be omnipresent, and not be omniscient as well? If you could be omnipresent, you would know everyone’s life story, from the time you became omnipresent and forward. You would know all the facts of any circumstance, because you would have been there while it all unfolded. You would even know from those facts if that someone was asking sincerely or not, because you would know what’s in their heart. Only God knows the heart.
Do you believe what Paul wrote, that the Athenians were, in fact, worshipping the one true God who made them, albeit in ignorance ?
Your whole response shows the implicit assumption that there's a tension, or even a contradiction, between having huge interactive networks of intercession, encompassing those in heaven and on earth, and God's absolute sovereignty.
If it were not God's will to involve us in His great work, most of the OT and NT would be irrelevant. The reality of the Mystical Body of Christ --- that we are the cells, tissues, organs and systems, the senses and limbs incorporated into Christ, and by which Christ works even now --- would be redundant or meaningless.
God does not intend His story to be the story of "I only." If it were, He would have never bothered with the vast generosity of Creation and the inconceivable humility of making Covenant with us. God with us. Emmanuel. What a great God this is.
**You minimize God’s power.**
No, I believe that only God is omnipresent.
**Your whole response shows the implicit assumption that there’s a tension, or even a contradiction, between having huge interactive networks of intercession, encompassing those in heaven and on earth, and God’s absolute sovereignty.**
So, even though God is omnipresent, he watches Mary’s army of angels come and go to her, and then let’s her make the request made known to Him. And I AM THE ONE minimizing God’s power?
**that we are the cells, tissues, organs and systems, the senses and limbs incorporated into Christ**
Yes, while we are alive on this earth, we are to work the works of God. When we are asleep in Christ, we are not working.
**God does not intend His story to be the story of “I only.” If it were, He would have never bothered with the vast generosity of Creation and the inconceivable humility of making Covenant with us. God with us. Emmanuel. What a great God this is.**
I whole heartly agree!
I never said one word minimizing God's power. Every time humans plug into intercessory prayer --- like, Zuriel, please pray for my friend Roz's bad back --- God knows all about it and has always known all about it.
So why do we "do" intercessory prayer at all? Or, for that matter, why do we pray at all, since God knows everything before a word comes out of our mouth, even before a thought forms in our minds?
Answer that, and you've answered it all.
Oh, I believe the asking is certainly part of the design of God’s cummuning with us. I just believe the asking is done by those still living this mortal life.
I’m reminded of a time, as a teenager, asking my dad if I could go to town (we lived on a farm). My brother (having no say in the situation), sitting on the couch, turns to Dad and says: “Hey, Dad. He wants to go to town.” Dad said, “I heard him”.
Did you read what Paul wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit?
Well, let's actually READ THE BIBLE and see what God says:
Acts 17:16-34
Paul in Athens
"16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Paul Addresses the Areopagus
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them."
It appears to me that Paul was proclaiming to them the Gospel as the Athenians were worshipping an "unknown god."
How do you worship God when God is "unknown" to you?
He rocked their world by telling them that the "unknown god" was THE ONE TRUE LIVING GOD, and their other "gods" were... not.
And, because he proclaimed the Gospel, some believed. Others mocked. Worshipping God in ignorance is not worshipping God. God opens your heart -- remember that Romans 10:17 says:
"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."
In this case, God used Paul to proclaim the Gospel. It doesn't mean the Athenians were worshiping God ingorantly -- they had an altar to the "unknown god." How can you worship God when you're ignorant of Him?
BIG difference. Don't you think?
But, hey. I'm just an "Internet Theologian." But all I used the Internet for was to search God's word.
Hoss
Back at you, except for the spelling error.
Sure they believe in Him. That is why they are creating a false narrative, just like Joseph Smith did.
Jews and Christians follow and worship the God of Abraham.
Muslims do not.
I continue to agree that Islam "professes" to believe in the God of Abraham but they follow Muhammad and worship Allah. A false "God."
Don't fall for their use of Al-Taqiyya.
Clear, concise, direct and to the point, an all around awesome post.
Thank You!
You write anyone can “twist” scripture. Exactly. So we have a starting point:
Christ through both his written and unwritten Word taught ONE single truth. Thus logically there is ONE teaching authority here on earth. Otherwise the Great Commission given to Peter and his successors would mean nothing.
You cannot for example have several different history professors provide conflicting views to a class on a given period of history. But here we are dealing with something infinitely more important, God’s sacred Word, as ONE truth.
That Catholic Church is the Church that through extensive theological scholarship and study over hundred- two hundred years and more authenticated for us the written Word of God. That Church existed before the canonical texts were assembled together in the Synod of Rome AD 382.
This teaching authority therefore must be for all time and it must be infallible. Apparently this logic escapes Bible Christians as they attempt to go up against a mountain of theological scholarship dating from the early Church Fathers.
Only the Catholic Church lays claim to this unbroken like succession.
We are of course peaking here about interpretation of God’s word. Not about the individuals lives of Popes and their sayings. Newsflash for the likes of CynicalBear and others. Popes too are sinners. As the renowned Bishop Fulton J. Sheen once wrote about non-Catholics, it is not so much as what they know about Catholicism as it is about what they know that is so wrong.
Bible Christians are fond of dipping into the shallow end of kindergarten learning and quoting a verse of scripture from here and there like John 14:6 to speak about anyone having the liberty to read scripture as they please since “No one comes to the Father except through me”.....etc. But the “me” here is His Church. This is the Great Commission to “Go forth and teach...”.
On this score, Bible Christians appear immune to the fact of the writings of the early Church fathers.
In the year 110 A.D., not even fifteen years after the book of Revelation was written, while on his way to execution St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote: “Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church”. The Church believes that when the bishops speak as teachers, Christ speaks; for he said to them: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me” (Lk 10, 16).
In the end to avoid the twists and turns of the heresies spawned by the Reformation, it’s not yours or my interpretation of the written AND unwritten word of God or our grandmothers or Rev. Jeremiah Wrights or Billy Graham that counts. We must look to the interpretations of the scripture and the sacred oral tradition as embrace by the Catholic Church.
St. Paul in his letters also warns the faithful to hold fast to the tradition they received: “We command you, brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to avoid any brother who wanders from the straight path and does not follow the tradition you received from us” (2 Th 3, 6).
This is why the Catholic Church is the great mustard tree. Why droves of eminent Protestant theologians are decamping from the heretical nonsense of Protestantism. They are to use your word all “twists.”
Bereft of the sacraments, the belief in the Eucharist, and the Sacrifice of the Mass and Marian dogma, all these other Protestant variations are nothing more than wild mushrooms that wither and die just like those mainline Protestant denominations that now allow for the ordination of married gay and lesbians pastors and bishops.
Protestantism today is a caricature with a variation of vapid beliefs because it lacks the Petrine authority of the Church.
All discussion must begin and end with Petrine authority, not what your local corner street Foursquare Church pastor dishes out to the type of low-IQ congregants that fill up the pews in a Joel Osteen or Billy Graham or Rev. Jeremiah Wright sermon. These are all ”twists!”
I have been watching a “marathon” of Columbo episodes, my favorite detective/mystery show.
Very good shows to watch, it illustrates what we are up against in our quest to bring the simple Good News of the Gospel to light, countering all those that "fight against the light."
You keep saying that, but never tell us what precisely that "one single" truth is, other than by your own repetitive demonstrations it could possibly be assumed that that "truth" is to bash and insult any and all whom would dare question the specious claims for this alleged "Petrine authority" which you incessantly yammer on concerning...
That such alleged authority as it later developed over long centuries, and exists (in form of claim or allegation) was nowhere to be seen in the history of the earliest centuries of the wider, thus more truly universal Church, continues to well enough indicate that you are far from correct in both; your suppositions engaged in to support your overall thesis, and the ending results of that same thesis.
The early Church knew no such thing as singular authority over all the Church be afforded to Simon Peter, alone, and more importantly did not attribute or recognize authority over all the Church to afforded to whomever it would be that would later occupy the office of Bishopic, of Rome. Thus your overall thesis is a miserable failure, and due to the manner in which you continue to present the claim, for reason of what other content and context is often included, by now has turned into a form of serial abuse of forum participants.
Paul rebuked him to his (Peter's) face.
May the Lord Himself rebuke you, in similar but more forceful manner than did Paul when he corrected Peter, more or less in front of God, and everybody...
Merry Christmas
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