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 too got a kick out of that one.
Yes, I posted those. I sadly allowed a little nettle to get under my saddle.
Ok bro, according to my precise calculations, I believe that means I can have assurance of salvation. 😁 I certainly do, and if I have said it once, I have said it a hundred times. I DON’T care beans about what anyone thinks about that. 👍👊😂
The Holy Spirit is clear in Scripture in calling Mary *the mother of Jesus*.
John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
John 2:3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
Acts 1:14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
I'll stick with agreeing with the Holy Spirit in what He inspired in Scripture: *Mary, the mother of Jesus*.
That way, I KNOW I can't be wrong.
I can't fathom why. That thing has a lie printed on it.
I'd think anyone interested in the Truth would not want to identify with a lie.
But that's just me, I guess.
It is puzzling isn’t it?
Anyway, I seem to remember wearing my scapular all through catholic grade school, but when we got to catholic high school, all of us stopped wearing it. I can’t remember why, but it’s possibly because it was so uncomfortable against the skin. I just remember ALL of us stopped wearing it. Maybe we were all embarrassed by it. I just can’t remember all the way back to the Stone Age. 😁🤣😀
All of the extra-biblical words in the universe are NEVER going to coverup the FACT that the phrase “Mother of GOD” is NOT found in the Book that Rome gave the world.
I think we've found Rome's problem.
"...when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law..."
...your mother and brothers are here...
Then why DID/do you wear it?
Show that it did.
Without an APPARITION; there is NO scapular.
The ‘evidence’ so far produced by Rome has not claimed some HUMAN thought it up.
I must be channeling YOU this morning!
Assurance of salvation KNOWS the Rapture hasn’t occured yet because he/she is still HERE.
I know that the Book Rome has provided the world SHOWS what they 'dealt with' in ACTS 15.
The letter doesn't resemble todays RCC at all; does it?
HMMMmmm…
These councils and documents and apparitional words (oh my!) manage to put forth things that are NOT found in the Bible.
Why the HELL did Rome compile it to begin with; if it is going to supplant it?
A phrase or two are taken from the original music; and then riffed all over the place by various artists at varying times.
"Lord” was widely recognised to be a valid substitute for the divine name prior to NT times.
I think this might just be pretty hard to do...
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