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!"
And when that group was gone, so were those powers...
And when that group was gone, so were those powers...
Then it wasn't temptation, was it???
So you have 3 Gods with one nature...It's not biblical but it's Catholic, so that's all that matters...
Placemarker
So scripture and nothingness mean about the same thing to you, eh???
Joh_14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
where did I say that? I grow weary of you taking part of a post twisting it and trying to play gotcha. Put up or shut up.
I merely asked you a question.
You responded that neither God, the Father, nor God, the Holy Ghost could sin after earlier stating that Jesus Christ, God, could be capable of sin.
The human side of Jesus would be capable of sin not His Godly nature. Neither the Father. or the Spirit became man. Christ’s Godhood was in. i way do i is her by the incarnation, He is eternally God and one with the Father and Spirit
The above statement is heresy.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15 NASB
That scapular around your neck must be choking off the oxygen supply to your brain.
X
do you really believe, for a moment, that Peter didn't believe that he was "head" of the Apostles......sheesh.
Anytime the evil entity can... it tempts. it doesn’t necessarily lightly test one and heavily test another. It goes after everyone and many times when we least expect it. You’ve heard the saying, “when will the other shoe drop”... and it comes in forms we have not counted on and learned to turn away from..
I’ve lived long enough and raised 5 kids to adulthood.. and I know temptation is always there. The normal kind just does not affect me.. I am not easily taken... but that doesn’t mean I can’t be. Just not attracted to what is obviously wrong. But it comes in the form as an angel of light... it can be deceiving and we can be taken in before we know it.
I never went down a road filled with all those “fun” things..it didn’t look like fun to me. So that entity tries another way...anything to get the person off somewhere and then let the regret and remorse and depression set in... anything to take a person away from Christ.
It can come as a red herring... and it can take us away from Christ because it is the complete fulfillment of our dreams and Jesus had been slow in answering...so this must be IT..
It pays to be doubting of anything that smells good and looks good.. but the inner voice (if we listen) is telling us NO... it pays to not be a follower.. it pays to rebel at being told what to do by those who are trying to get you to react or go off... it pays to question your head and heart. it pays to read the Word of God, for He talks to us in those words...
Let not man rule you.. let not man try to change you..
Am I ever tempted? not by the obvious... I just don’t go there.. I don’t party and I don’t fill my life with fakery. I was raised by a grandmother who held me accountable for anything and everything that ever came down the road. I knew if I did something, she would ask and it’s never been in my vocabulary to lie.. my 5 kids knew it was a capital offense to lie to me..
this is enough information.... surely I’ve answered the “no I am not tempted.... but there are always ways the evil side can get to you..just don’t sleep on it.
and keep it simple enough so everyone can understand.
ONe more thing.. I lost a son.. a very special young man..from leukemia.. a healthy man who lived a healthy life.. and being by his side as he was being taken to glory.. all the prayers that had been sent up to the heavens in his behalf.,, I loved that son with all I had..and I would have traded places in a minute.
Jesus visited him and showed him what it was like,.where he was going.. If I could have, I would have begged God to not take my son. But He did take him and I had to deal with it... I had to lean not on my understanding, but that the Lord knew more than I did..
it changed my insides like nothing ever before... you can’t be the same and lose a child.. no matter what age.
today I have to stay close to my Friend... my Helper.. My stay all the time.. I didn’t aim to write all this but I did.. Without Him, I’d be no account for anyone.
you all take care...I know you’ll say so sorry and I appreciate it... but there is a time when some of us just turn it over and expect the Lord to carry us when we can’t.
And for only $11.95 plus shipping and tax.
oh good grief!!!!!!!
So do you think Jesus was lying when he said, " 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
You instead are trusting in this.....
Yeah, He does...she's His mother and she is asking Him favors......sigh
Oh good grief, of course, in the infancy of the church, they weren't referred to as popes...but they certainly did act as such in that they were in charge of the Christian community which, of course, was CATHOLIC.
you may believe that, but BILLIONS of people didn't
“God by definition cannot sin because he is perfect goodness itself. It would be a logical contradiction for God to violate his perfectly good and perfectly rational nature.” St Thomas Aquinas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.