Posted on 06/29/2022 6:06:12 PM PDT by marshmallow
An elderly Catholic sculptor in Nagasaki, Japan, is all set to complete and install the world’s tallest wooden statue of the Virgin Mary after four decades of time, energy and money.
Eiji Oyamatsu, 88, a Catholic from Fujisawa, Kanagawa prefecture, will unveil the 10-meter wooden statue of Mary with the child Jesus at the end of June, reported Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
The statue pays tribute to thousands of Christian martyrs of Nagasaki in the 17th century.
The single-handed effort by Oyamatsu encouraged a group of volunteers to form the Citizens’ Association for Minami-Shimabara World Heritage in 2018. The group from Nagasaki prefecture has bought land to install the statue to honor the martyrs of the Shimabara-Amakusa Rebellion, aiming to turn the site into a popular shrine.
The revolt, mostly by local Catholic peasants, stemmed from grievances over excessive taxation and abuses by officials of the Shimabara peninsula and the Amakusa-retto islands. It was brutally crushed by the 120,000-strong army of the military government of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The suppression between 1637 and 1638 left about 37,000 Christians dead and effectively ended Christianity in Japan until its revival in the 19th century.
The purge forced all remaining Christians to renounce their faith publicly. However, many Christians continued to practice their faith secretly and came to be known in modern times as kakure kirishitan (hidden Christians.
(Excerpt) Read more at ucanews.com ...
Worship and honor were the same word but used differently in the past.
Look at what English judges were called in the past-”Your Worship”.
No Catholic worships a statue nor ever had, just like no Protestant worships a Bible when kneeling in prayer with a Bible clutched in both hands.
Respect and honor this man’s work and dedication towards an expression of faith. Stop being an iconoclast.
While many Catholic apologists have accused us of worshiping the Bible, I never said that Catholics worship a statue, but that of kneeling before a statue and praising the entity it represented in the unseen world, beseeching such for Heavenly help, and making offerings to them, and giving glory and titles and ascribing supernatural attributes to such which are never given in Scripture to created beings (except to false gods), including having the uniquely Divine power glory to hear and respond to virtually infinite numbers of prayers individually addressed to them. It was collectively this "manner of adulation that i said could constitute worship in Scripture."
In any case, as said, the hyper-exaltation of Mary is far far far "above that which is written," (1 Co. 4:6) many examples of which I have provided for you inposts in the past.
So you don’t believe Mary when she says that “all generations will call me blessed” in scripture?
Or that in Revelations when the saints offer the prayers of the faithful to God?
You do realize that scripture wasn’t compiled into a Bible until hundreds of years after the ascension and that people came to faith through hearing, which was the teaching of the apostles and their successors down through the generations? And that church was the Catholic Church, and the Bible is a Catholic book?
And how can you criticize a man who spent over 4 decades on a work of faith that will bring more people to Christ in Japan than you?
Absurd argument, for indeed we do as it is in Scripture. But which simply does not and cannot translate into such hyperexaltation (officially or with implicit sanction) as
• an almost almighty demigoddess to whom "Jesus owes His Precious Blood" to, • whose [Mary] merits we are saved by, • who "had to suffer, as He did, all the consequences of sin," • and was bodily assumed into Heaven, which is a fact (unsubstantiated in Scripture or even early Tradition) because the Roman church says it is, and "was elevated to a certain affinity with the Heavenly Father," • and whose power now "is all but unlimited," • for indeed she "seems to have the same power as God," • "surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven," • so that "the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse." • and that “sometimes salvation is quicker if we remember Mary's name then if we invoked the name of the Lord Jesus," • for indeed saints have "but one advocate," and that is Mary, who "alone art truly loving and solicitous for our salvation," • Moreover, "there is no grace which Mary cannot dispose of as her own, which is not given to her for this purpose," • and who has "authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven," • including "assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels," • whom the good angels "unceasingly call out to," greeting her "countless times each day with 'Hail, Mary,' while prostrating themselves before her, begging her as a favour to honour them with one of her requests," • and who (obviously) cannot "be honored to excess," • and who is (obviously) the glory of Catholic people, whose "honor and dignity surpass the whole of creation." Sources and more. "Or that in Revelations when the saints offer the prayers of the faithful to God?" Another vain attempt for support, which you proffered before among others that were refuted, only to result in typical RC insolent recourse to the same poor excuse for a valid argument, thus providing more testimony as to why one should not be a RC. For as taught you before and ignored, elders and angels offering prayers (Rv. 5:8; 8:4,5) are in memorial - like as in Lv. 2:2,15,16; 24:7; Num. 5:15; 16:9, "an offering of memorial" cf. Num. 16:9, - and is not that of them being addressed in prayer, nor does it indicate that they had heard them previously, nor is it described as being a regular postal service, but it is one of the things which is a preclude to the final judgments upon the earth, testifying to the persecutions of the saints by the devil and world that it fit to be punished. For when "He maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them: he forgetteth not the cry of the humble. (Psalms 9:12; cf. Genesis 4:10) and before judgment God brings forth testimony of the warrant for it, which includes the cry of those martyred souls under the altar in Rv. 6:9, and with odors representing prayer, akin to Leviticus 6:15, "burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour, even the memorial of it, unto the Lord." (Leviticus 6:15) "You do realize that scripture wasn’t compiled into a Bible until hundreds of years after the ascension and that people came to faith through hearing, which was the teaching of the apostles and their successors down through the generations? And that church was the Catholic Church, and the Bible is a Catholic book?" You do realize that per usual, you are again parroting refuted prevaricating polemics and premises? "You do realize that scripture wasn’t compiled into a Bible until hundreds of years after the ascension" You do realize that, as told you, that , the fact is that an authoritative body of wholly inspired Scripture had been established by the time of Christ, as manifest by the frequent appeals to Scripture, including "He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24:27) And writings of which provided the prophetic and doctrinal epistemological foundation for the church. Moreover it is even implicitly affirmed in Catholicism that btwn her canon and ours, we hold to the most ancient OT canon: “the protocanonical books of the Old Testament correspond with those of the Bible of the Hebrews, and the Old Testament as received by Protestants.” “...the Hebrew Bible, which became the Old Testament of Protestantism.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia>Canon of the Old Testament; htttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) The Protestant canon of the Old Testament is the same as the Palestinian canon. (The Catholic Almanac, 1960, p. 217) Moreover, the New Testament was penned and its contents circulated among the churches well before 100, meaning that contrary you your next sentence in your sophistry: "people came to faith through hearing, which was the teaching of the apostles" the people came to faith and grew therein through hearing the Scriptures, or Truth from them, that of the OT and letters as they were written, And we know what was preached and believed because we have the Scriptures!The fact is that even if there was no extant copies of the Scriptures even until the year 2000 AD, we know now what the NT church believed since we have have the Scripture which wholly God-inspired word tells us. "and their successors down through the generations?" The claimed successors were not Biblical apostles, men who alone with men as Luke could speak write and as wholly God-inspired (which popes and councils do not do), and thus the veracity of what they promulgate must stand the test of examination by Scripture, by which even the preaching of apostles was subjected to be noble men. (acts 17"11). "And that church was the Catholic Church, and the Bible is a Catholic book?" Absurd argument and assertion. The Jews, under their valid historical magisterium, were the official judges of what Scripture consisted of and meant (held to be the Palestinian canon), yet that (obviously) did not mean that the flock should submit to all their judgments, and thus reject some itinerant preachers and their Leader who reproved those who sat in the seat of Moses. As for the Bible is a Catholic book, that simply and plainly ludicrous, as none of the writers were Catholic, which is why this debate is here, for distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly God-inspired, substantive, authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospel s) "And how can you criticize a man who spent over 4 decades on a work of faith that will bring more people to Christ in Japan than you?" "How?" The "how" is by the same means and warrant by which I criticize a Muhammad or Joe Smith, who also were diverting souls to another exalted figure and false gospel. I was one of those (altar boy, lector, CCD teacher. etc.) who was subject to such. For such are false apostles, deceit ful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:13-14) Give it up. I have your past vain exchanges with me and you have nothing new here.
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