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!"
I'd be more careful in stating what God had to do in this case.
(I can't figure out just WHERE the HS would even GET any male DNA from.)
No one wanted to handle it then.
Once again we see how Catholics have fallen into error or heresy in their desperate bid to state that ONLY the Catholic church has the correct take on this.
Why doesn't the Holy Spirit 'overshadow' the priest as he prepares the 'blood' and the 'body' of Jesus for consumption?
Yet Jesus DID say to, "Call no man father."
Sorry, I missed that one. The lack of response is not suprising.
Call no man father.
And RAHAB is in the lineage; too.
So what does THAT indicate??
You; as well of the rest of us; have already started; but just through a glass darkly.
I've not seen the data on this.
Given He was a normal human male; what about His sperm?
Did He have nocturnal emissions?
Given all the hoopla over the 'shroud' lately, one wonders...
A human descended from Adam has a body, a soul, and a spirit. The body is not the soul and the soul is not the spirit, the spirit is not the soul and the soul is not the body. We know from Scripture that the Spirit in the man Jesus is God with us. we do not know when that Spirit connected to the physical body of Jesus but the Catholic dogma presumes it is at the conception in/connecting to Mary's body. That is a presumption yet an entire mythos of 'queen of Heaven' is built upon a presumption not supported by The Word of God.
The issue is so vital to Catholic dogma that the supporters when confronted with the specious nature of their assertions resort to insults, haughty mocking, and their usual spittlegeist.
Since God can go anywhere in time and space, there are two sources for the zygotic Jesus that come to mind: Adam and Eve, and David and Bathsheba. This side of the veil, we will not have a definitive answer.
1. If Mary was created without original sin that was passed onto the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE, then where did she get her DNA to pass on to Jesus??
2. If she did somehow pass this DNA on to Jesus, that would make Mary ALSO present in the Eucharist. That would make her a part of the GODHEAD. Helloooooooo.
Is this where the RCC is going with this blasphemy???!!
The RCC cannot have
place
The words "prevarication" "dishonesty" "slander" "deceit" "calumny" and "subterfuge" are synonymous with "lie" because they entail intent.
Words such as "false" "error" "wrong" "inaccurate" "misstatement" do not attribute motive and are not "making it personal."
Other words push the envelope of motive but are not synonymous with "lie" for purposes of modding the RF. However, they can be "making it personal" if applied to another Freeper, personally, in such a way the discussion becomes "about" the individual Freeper instead of the issues. Those words include "misrepresentation" "detraction" "disinformation" "distortion" "hyperbole" and "doublespeak."
Another example, calling a group of Freepers "anti-Mormon" attributes motive to them as a group which is not technically "making it personal" - but saying that another Freeper, personally, is anti-Mormon [or anti-Catholic] instead of anti-MormonISM is an ad hominem. It is "making it personal."
Can't you argue for your beliefs without calling others anti-Catholic and accusing them of lying?
Doesn’t the loving and caring exposition of Catholic doctrine just make you want SO badly to become a Catholic, too??? /sarc
POaul spoke of Catholicism ... he called it an ‘other religion’.
They are already there ... have you seen Elsie’s list of titles the Catholics attribute to blessed MAry the Mother of Jesus?
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