Posted on 08/18/2019 7:05:12 PM PDT by Al Hitan
Today the Church remembers with thanksgiving the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Historically, this day was understood to mark her dormition, or "falling asleep," which was most anciently regarded as her natural death and burial. From early on, however, the Church considered that she who conceived and gave birth to the very God of very God, by His Word and Holy Spirit, was also resurrected and ascended into heaven, in both body and soul, soon after her death. There is no word of Holy Scripture to teach these traditions as doctrine, but we should not be too quick to dismiss them as merely pious devotion. Such piety, at its heart, is a confession of that which is the Church's faith in Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary's Son, our Savior and our God.
St. Mary is uniquely honored among all the saints of God in Christ, not only by the Church, but first of all by the Lord God Himself. He has had mercy upon her, blessed her with His grace and favor, and chosen her above all other women to bear the almighty and eternal Son of God. She is rightly called, and truly is, the Mother of God; for her own dear Son, the Fruit of her womb, is indeed the one true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity. It is from her flesh and blood that the Lord has taken for Himself a true and natural body, bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, so that henceforth He is true Man, the perfect second Adam, our elder Brother, our kinsman Redeemer, the promised Seed of the Woman, by whom we are reconciled to God. As the ancient fathers of the Church confessed, God thus became like us, in order that we become like Him, by grace. It is that great salvation that we celebrate in commemorating any of the saints, and in particular the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, St. Mary.
She is an icon of the Church, a living Sacrament of Christ, and a beautiful example of faith, of all the true children of father Abraham. Her body was comprehended by the Word and Spirit of God to become the tangible means by which the Son of God became flesh and was given to us, and not only for us, but for the life of the world. It is His body, conceived and born of St. Mary, that our sins and sorrows did carry. It is a human body, like our own in every way, save without sin, because He was born of this woman (born under the Law to redeem us). Thus do we recognize in her an archetype of the Blessed Sacrament of our Lord's body and blood.
What is more, in conceiving and giving birth to the Son of God, she is a type of the Church, the holy mother who surely gives birth to the sons of God in Christ. We too have been conceived and given new birth by the same Word and Spirit of the same Holy Triune God that overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary and knit within her womb the incarnation of the only-begotten Son. Thus are we, like Him, "born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (St. John 1:13).
Along with her vocation as the woman by whom the Son of God was given to and for the world, St. Mary also stands with us as a living member of the Church, the Body of Christ. When the Word of the Gospel was announced to her, she received that Word in faith, obtained in her by the mercies of God, and meekly bowed her head in humble trust: "Let it be to me according to Thy Word." Blessed is she who has heard the Word of God and kept it, who treasured it in her heart, who believed that there would surely be a fulfillment of all that God had spoken to her. In all of this, St. Mary is one of us, a faithful disciple of her own dear Son, and among that great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, of that blest communion, fellowship divine.
When the Church in pious tradition has considered St. Mary to be resurrected and ascended to heaven, already in both body and soul, it is a confession of faith in that which Christ Jesus our Lord has accomplished for us and for all by His victorious Cross, Resurrection and Ascension. We may indeed contemplate that she by whom the Lord became like us, should exemplify the way in which we all become like Him, recreated in the glorious Image of the Man from heaven. Of course, we do not rest faith upon the tradition of St. Mary's dormition and assumption into heaven; faith clings to Jesus Christ alone and finds true peace and Sabbath rest forever in Him. But what we envision concering St. Mary, we understand to be the Church's hope precisely in Christ our Lord, our Savior and our God. For we know that He is the Resurrection and the Life, and that she who believes in Him will live even if she dies; yes, and everyone who lives and believes in Him will never die.
We believe, teach and confess with the absolute certainty of faith that St. Mary is the Mother of God; that the almighty and eternal Son of the living God was born of this woman, born under the Law, to redeem us who were under the Law. In celebrating that marvelous incarnation of God the Son, in which He died and rose again for us men and our salvation, we may also celebrate proleptically the resurrection of the body that all His saints share with Him by grace through faith in the Gospel. And in that glorious light, we sing: "O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises: 'Alleluia!' Thou bearer of the eternal Word, most gracious magnify the Lord: 'Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!"
LOL, I’m not Louis Farrakan and the Lord Christ can remove all believers changed in any manner He chooses, but leaving the planet going up into the first Heaven is not going to be a spaceship trip, more like a Star Trek transporter, except the new bodies will not need technology to get around the Universe God has Created. Our new spacetime coordinate system existence will be far more efficient than man-made technologies.
You too...knock it off
Don’t insult mules, bro. Assurance of salvation is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? 😁👍👊😂😀🤗
Got it ... and thanks, I was letting little nettles get under my saddle.
Indeed Bro! To God be the Glory
Of course I participated! That's not the point. If I opened a RF thread about why Mary should not be called the Mother of God, would you ignore it? I have no doubt it would reach a hundred posts within an hour, mostly from outraged Roman Catholics! Now multiply that by a few more saying the same thing within a day of the last one or a few on the same day only with the title changed. Now do you see? My concern - which I previously voiced - is that we have argued over this subject multiple times year after year on the RF and nothing ever seems to be mutually resolved OR learned. So, it's not hard to recognize the true intent of Roman Catholics who post OPEN Religion Forum threads here. The question is why they then whine, complain, mock and scold those who post their comments of disagreement? Are they ignorant of how OPEN threads work? I know they aren't. Ergo, they must either get indulgences for "sticking up for Mary" or they enjoy fanning discord. Maybe it's both? I know it's NOT simply posting about their beliefs.
Please don't pretend to be an innocent bystander. You've tossed plenty of ridicule, sanctimony and negativity bombs at non-Catholics for explaining why certain RC dogmas are rejected.
Awesome Bro!
May The Lord bless him!
Good point, because the only way to not have a sin nature is to not have a human father.
If someone doesn't have a human father, there's not a lot of choices left, are there?
But the only option for being conceived without sin is to have God as your father, as Jesus did thus, if Mary were sinless, then she would have been part of the God head incarnated.
God is *theos*, not *kurios*.
Well, my tagline kind of says it all, doesn’t it. 👍☝️👊
Yes, you DID claim that ebb! Maybe you need writing for comprehension classes?
In(side) one person...
Joh 14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
Sure it's the point. You were complaining about all the animosity and attention generated on another thread when you part of the attention it got.
If I opened a RF thread about why Mary should not be called the Mother of God, would you ignore it?I have no doubt it would reach a hundred posts within an hour, mostly from outraged Roman Catholics!
It's a discussion forum. Why post if you are not looking for discussion?
Now multiply that by a few more saying the same thing within a day of the last one or a few on the same day only with the title changed. Now do you see?
No, I don't see. It is a discussion forum. Go read a book if all the interaction is too much for you.
So, it's not hard to recognize the true intent of Roman Catholics who post OPEN Religion Forum threads here.
So, if a Catholic posts an OPEN thread in the RF you know the true intent? LOL. What's the true intent of non-Catholics who post in the OPEN threads? And by the way, I couldn't post this one as a caucus thread, but still found it worthy to be seen. And I have had people thank me for posting it, regardless of that "true intent" you think you can mind read.
The question is why they then whine, complain, mock and scold those who post their comments of disagreement?
And their is no whining, complaining, mocking and scolding form the non-Catholics on these threads? You're blind.
Please don't pretend to be an innocent bystander. You've tossed plenty of ridicule, sanctimony and negativity bombs at non-Catholics
And you haven't at Catholics? Again, you are a sanctimonious bunch.
Kurios is God.
“I guess, then, you do not consider the Father and the Holy Spirit to be God.”
You guess wrong.
“Since the Catholic argument is that Jesus is God and Mary is the mother of Jesus, therefore Mary is the mother of God, then the rest of the Trinity is either God or it’s not.”
False. Mary is only the mother of Jesus - who is God. She never gave birth to the Father nor the Holy Spirit.
“If it’s God, then Mary, being the mother of God, is by default, their mother too.”
Nope. Mary ONLY gave birth to Jesus - who is God. She never gave birth to anyone else, never the Father nor the Holy Spirit.
Since the Father and the Holy Spirit are non-corporeal beings there is no possible way for any human person to give birth to them. Jesus, of course, was not a non-corporeal being. He took on humanity - from His mother, Mary.
Right. As Iscool posted:
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