Posted on 01/03/2013 11:09:36 PM PST by WilliamIII
Before Monday night's national championship game, a University of Notre Dame football captain will lead the team through a prayer called Litany of the Blessed Virgin. "Mother of our Savior," a captain will say. "Pray for us," the team will respond.
It's a ritual familiar to Catholics. But most players on the Notre Dame squad aren't Catholic. So participation in that ritual is voluntary. And should any concern arise about praying to the Virgin Mary—a concept some non-Catholic Christians find objectionable—team chaplain Father Paul Doyle stands ready to respond. "We're not praying to our blessed mother," he says. "We're asking her to pray for us."
At the heart of Notre Dame's legendary football program is a careworn balancing act. The team is unapologetically Catholic. Before every game, the Fighting Irish participate in a Mass overseen by one of the team's two appointed Catholic priests, a tradition dating back to the 1920s. At the end of that ceremony, each player receives a priest-blessed medal devoted to a Catholic saint—a different saint every game for four years. Also during the pregame Mass, players can kiss a reliquary containing two splinters that Notre Dame believes came from the cross of Jesus. "Most of the non-Catholic players are Christian, so when you tell them these splinters came from the actual cross of Jesus they are humbled to reverence," Doyle says.
Yet Notre Dame is so nonpromotional that players of other faiths feel welcome on the team, never receiving so much as an invitation to convert, let alone pressure to do so. As a result, many feel comfortable participating in distinctly Catholic rituals.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Please cut the obscurantism, Father Doyle.... We know prayer to a non-deity when we see it.
Here's the Litany
Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary
- Lord, have mercy on us.
- Christ, have mercy on us.
- Lord, have mercy on us.
- Christ, hear us.
- Christ, graciously hear us.
- God the Father of Heaven,
- Have mercy on us.
- God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
- Have mercy on us.
- God the Holy Ghost,
- Have mercy on us.
- Holy Trinity, one God,
- Have mercy on us.
- Holy Mary,
- pray for us. ..
- Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
- Spare us, O Lord.
- Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
- Graciously hear us, O Lord.
- Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
- Have mercy on us.
Now if you'll notice this starts with asking God directly to have mercy on us, then asks Mary to pray FOR us and ends with asking God to have mercy for us
Do you think our God is a non-deity for Mary to pray to HIM?
More obscurantism.
Obviously, you don’t.
Who really cares?
Face it, guys - this sorta stuff gives Proddys the creeps...
Credo in unum Deum
you have not responded why you think that praying to Jesus Christ is "prayer to a non-Christian deity" -- not only does the Litany have us praying directly to our Lord and God Jesus Christ, but also asking Mary to pray for us TO God.
Why do you think that praying to Jesus Christ is "prayer to a non-Christian deity"?
To Hell With Notre Dame!
and Rudy was off sides.
“We know a prayer to a non-deity when we see it”
Do you know English when you read it? Tell me what the expression “pray for us” denotes.
Honey, if the saved dead in Heaven are not alive and well, you and I haven’t a prayer on any terms of reaching there, so what’s it to you. Ever get a load of Revelations, John’s blessed vision caught up into Heaven and seeing those below the Alter praying, “ how long, Lord, how long, before you avenge us”?
What do you come up with when you think of God the Father, or Jesus the Son......, and there is no.......mother...., yet it is God the Holy Spirit who overshadows Mary and she is made with child. The spouse, the Holy Spirit in power.
The whole family of God, and no mother? Father, Son, Holy Spirit spouse, no daughter to God the father, no spouse to God the Holy Spirit, no mother to God the Son?
The Church a bride? Wedding Feast? Coming to the bridegroom? Come on.
Isn’t Notre Dame the university where, when Obama was invited to speak, he said, first, take down the crosses and they did?
Don’t distract them with reality, they’re on a roll.
BTW, there is a new “graphic novel” about the NT book of Revelation and I have a copy of it. It is faithful to the Biblical book.
Notre Dame at one time was a Catholic institution but as far as I can tell is now just another secular university posing as a “religious” school. If you look closely the “Touchdown Jesus” has a tear in it’s eye.
Why isn't that communing with the dead (since it is a spiritual communication to a non-living, non-deity person)?
In this day and age, the kids praying to God, is a good thing.
That tear miraculously disappeared the day after Charlie Weis was fired.
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