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'm not smart enough to figure this out on my own...But your post left me with a couple of questions...
Realizing from God's Word that Jesus' body and blood must have been holy, sinless, and incorruptible, the material cannot any of it have come from a descendant of Adam, who was made of the first sinless batch (Genesis 1:26-27,31; 2:7), and the only one who had all the components from which Elohim made the first soul by breathing life into the DNA to make a him-with-a-Y-chromosome.
As we know the bible says that life is in the blood...I don't know if Adam was created with any blood (I assume not) in his system but it appears to me that after Adam 'ate of the fruit' his body became dependent on blood...Bad blood...
But if through the artifice dogma of her immaculate conception in her mother's womb (name of mother?) was so, would that not then commensurately imply that, having a sinless bodily constitution, thus incorruptible, and its function not interrupted by crass human stoppage of the flow of life-giving blood throughout it, could she therefore logically die? Answer: No.
Since life is in the blood it would seem as well that sickness, disease and death are also in the blood...
You mention that if Mary had a sinless bodily constitution (Catholic fantasy) that she couldn't die...I would assume that she couldn't age either...Yet, Jesus having a sinless bodily constitution did die...
Which brings me to the question, if Jesus aged and died, how is it that his body was holy and incorruptible and as God why would he even need blood??? And, if Jesus' body was holy how could he have had the human emotions such as temptation???
If Jesus wasn't fully human why did he even need a mother???
So far, I'm convinced from scripture that God put Jesus' body in Mary's womb and was pretty convinced Jesus had a body just like mine...
So we might ask 'When did the Holy Spirit impart the God seed to the soul of Jesus via His spirit? We cannot answer that. But we can ponder it! Since the behavior mechanism of the human is the soul, and since the soul is connected to the body via the brain (and that is not finished development until about age three), and since the spirit is connected to one via the soul connection, at what stage in development of the soul does the spirit be connected?
We may presume the spirit is with the soul at some time int he womb, but this does not require that Mary be sinless! Since the life is in the blood, and the Mary blood adds n chromosomes or DNA to the blood of the growing person in her womb, she is not imparting her life, her blood to Jesus. The Maridolatry is based upon nothing more than assertion by men who had no clue to the embryology of gestation!
I know NOTHING about it.
Not unless you count St.Peter 32-67, St.Linus 67-76, St Cletus 76-88, St.Clement I 88-97, 56 more followed by John III 561-574, Benedict I 575-579, Pegalius II 579-590 and St. Gregory the great 590-604....total that far was 64.
Someone REAL important said "Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them and whose sins that you retain, they are retained"
grudges...yes
the ONLY way to God is thru Jesus.
some very important man said that
man is born unsaved.. man needs a Savior. the Savior is Jesus Christ. He came to give man the way to be changed.. old things become new..
Jesus is the only way .. the sacrifice.. ONLY .. our redemption comes from Jesus.. no man.
Haven't you heard yet? Jesus is God.
Jesus very well could have sinned. Otherwise why the temptation in the desert at the start of His ministry? Scripture tells us Jesus was tempted in every way as we are but remained without sin, I assume because He is fully God as well as fully man. In fact He was tempted beyond any of us have experienced because once you give into sin the temptation stops. He never gave in and thus faced every temptation to the fullest on our behalf. What an amazing Savior we have.
pretty good writing.. you did a good job with something many just dont get..
when we try to figure it all with our earthly brain and thinking it seems to not be possible.
Faith...
The above statement is heresy.
He is both God and the Bridge between man and God. He is prophet priest and King. He has many names and serves many roles. Most importantly He is the Way the Truth and the Life. He is the only way to God and the only Name by which we can be saved! He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is my Savior and my Brother. He is my All in All. Praise His Name Forever!
Jesus is the son of God.. Jesus has the attributes of his Father..
the Trinity.. means 3..
and the Holy Spirit makes 3
As a man He could be tempted, BUT because of HIS NATURE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS He could not violate His nature and sin.
Is Jesus Christ God?
Yes or No will suffice.
if Jesus had sinned, he would not have been the perfect sacrifice and humanity would still be lost.
the reason he came and shed blood was to save man.. the lambs were not perfect. but the Lamb of God was.is. He had to be..and he fulfilled it.. “it is finished.”
I would never argue against that....but Christ did grant certain extraordinary powers to a very select group of His followers.
it may suffice you..
not me.
i answered you.
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