Posted on 11/11/2005 7:48:36 AM PST by NYer
London, Nov. 10, 2005 (CNA) - Devotion to Mary is growing among Anglicans, Fr. Noel Wynn told the New York Times. Fr. Wynn is the director of the Roman Catholic Marian shrine in Walsingham, known as “England’s Nazareth.”
Walsingham is home to two Marian shrines—one Catholic and the other Anglican—located at opposite sides of the town.
Tradition says the first shrine was founded in 1061, when Richeldis de Faverches, a Saxon noblewoman, had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who showed her the house in Nazareth where the Angel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus. Mary then instructed the lady to build a replica.
Since then, Walsingham has been an important pilgrimage site in England, whose emphasis is not healing but on one’s lifelong Christian journey.
In 1538, what is now the Protestant shrine was destroyed as part of the Reformation under King Henry VIII. It was rebuilt in 1931, with accommodations for 218 people.
The Catholic shrine is built around the Slipper Chapel, so named because historically it was there that people removed their shoes and walked the Holy Mile, the last mile of the pilgrimage. Some still walk it, reported the New York Times. This shrine has accommodations for 120.
According to the New York Times, the number of Protestant pilgrims visiting the Marian shrine and staying overnight has risen since 1999, from 10,000 to 12,000.
Protestant worshipers in Walsingham often belong to the Anglo-Catholic tradition, which accords greater reverence to the Virgin Mary than other Protestant sects, and uses the bells and incense like in the Roman Catholic liturgy.
The shrines also appeal to other Christians, and the Orthodox and Methodist churches in the town are indicative of this.
Hopefully, they'll know how to defend themselves against claims of 'idol worshipers' ;-)
I'm quoting you D. All Catholics need more Apologetics and Bible Study to answer these claims!
"In scripture, Mary is addressed in Luke 1:28 with "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee" (or in the NIV, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you" - all of my research leads me to believe that this is a highly flawed translation based upon the old manuscripts). The original languages indicate a complete filling of grace, that was completed and perfected in the past and for all eternity (there are so many verb tenses in Greek that we really have trouble translating them properly). She was THE ONLY PERSON ever addressed in the pages of scripture with such strong positive language. If you're completely filled with grace from time immemorial and it has been completed in perfection, then certainly the Mother of Our Lord deserves a great deal more honor than she receives in virtually every non-Catholic church I've ever attended.
Here's another one: Mary, visiting Elizabeth, who is carrying John the Baptist in her womb - Luke 1:42-43 (NIV) reads "In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blseed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the MOTHER OF MY LORD should come to me?" (emphasis mine, not NIV's). Not the mother of his human nature, as if one can parent a 'nature,' or as if nature and substance (divinity and humanity) can be separated. But, mother of my Lord! How have so many Protestant theologians so totally missed the boat on this one?
It is also interesting to note that at least Martin Luther and John Calvin among the early reformers maintained a strong devotion to Mary. Amazing stuff!
St. Thomas Episcopal Church on 53rd and 5th has a Marian chapel, and a sign out front inviting people to come in and pray the rosary there.
Interesting how MOST Protestants STILL measure themselves by the yardstick known as the Roman Catholic Church.
Amazing.
Protestants saying the rosary.
WAY too Roman, papist and ... Italian. :o)
Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII and the rest of the angry, papist-haters all must be rolling in their graves!
You're kidding, right?
That is really a very misguided statement.
The "yardstick" to measure one's Christian faith by is Jesus Christ, and the word of God.
Luther, Calvin, and Other Early Protestants on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary
All of the early Protestant Founders accepted the truth of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. How could this be, if it is merely "tradition" with no scriptural basis? Why was its supposed violation of Scripture not so obvious to them, as it is to the Protestants of the last 150 years or so (since the onset of theological liberalism) who have ditched this previously-held opinion? Yet it has become fashionable to believe that Jesus had blood brothers (I suspect, because this contradicts Catholic teaching), contrary to the original consensus of the early Protestants.
Let's see what the Founders of Protestantism taught about this doctrine. If Catholics are so entrenched in what has been described as "silly," "desperate," "obviously false," "unbiblical tradition" here, then so are many Protestant luminaries such as Luther, Calvin, and Wesley. Strangely enough, however, current-day Protestant critics of Catholicism rarely aim criticism at them. I guess the same "errors" are egregious to a different degree, depending on who accepts and promulgates them -- sort of like the Orwellian proverb from Animal Farm: "all people are equal, but some are more equal than others."
General
Whatever may be the position theologically that one may take today on the subject of Mariology, one is not able to call to one's aid 'reformed tradition' unless one does it with the greatest care . . . the Marian doctrine of the Reformers is consonant with the great tradition of the Church in all the essentials and with that of the Fathers of the first centuries in particular . . . . .
In regard to the Marian doctrine of the Reformers, we have already seen how unanimous they are in all that concerns Mary's holiness and perpetual virginity . . .
{Max Thurian (Protestant), Mary: Mother of all Christians, tr. Neville B. Cryer, NY: Herder & Herder, 1963 (orig. 1962), pp. 77, 197}
The title 'Ever Virgin' (aeiparthenos, semper virgo) arose early in Christianity . . . It was a stock phrase in the Middle Ages and continued to be used in Protestant confessional writings (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Andrewes; Book of Concord [1580], Schmalkaldic Articles [1537]).
{Raymond E. Brown et al, ed., Mary in the New Testament, Phil.: Fortress Press / NY: Paulist Press, 1978, p.65 (a joint Catholic-Protestant effort) }
Mary was formally separated from Protestant worship and prayer in the 16th century; in the 20th century the divorce is complete. Even the singing of the 'Magnificat' caused the Puritans to have scruples, and if they gave up the Apostles' Creed, it was not only because of the offensive adjective 'Catholic', but also because of the mention of the Virgin . . .
[But] Calvin, like Luther and Zwingli, taught the perpetual virginity of Mary. The early Reformers even applied, though with some reticence, the title Theotokos to Mary . . . Calvin called on his followers to venerate and praise her as the teacher who instructs them in her Son's commands.
{J.A. Ross MacKenzie (Protestant), in Stacpoole, Alberic, ed., Mary's Place in Christian Dialogue, Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1982, pp.35-6}
Martin Luther
Christ, our Savior, was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that.
{Luther's Works, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan (vols. 1-30) & Helmut T. Lehmann (vols. 31-55), St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House (vols. 1-30); Philadelphia: Fortress Press (vols. 31-55), 1955, v.22:23 / Sermons on John, chaps. 1-4 (1539) }
Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that 'brothers' really mean 'cousins' here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers.
{Pelikan, ibid., v.22:214-15 / Sermons on John, chaps. 1-4 (1539) }
A new lie about me is being circulated. I am supposed to have preached and written that Mary, the mother of God, was not a virgin either before or after the birth of Christ . . .
{Pelikan, ibid.,v.45:199 / That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew (1523) }
Scripture does not say or indicate that she later lost her virginity . . .
When Matthew [1:25] says that Joseph did not know Mary carnally until she had brought forth her son, it does not follow that he knew her subsequently; on the contrary, it means that he never did know her . . . This babble . . . is without justification . . . he has neither noticed nor paid any attention to either Scripture or the common idiom.
{Pelikan, ibid.,v.45:206,212-3 / That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew (1523) }
Editor Jaroslav Pelikan (Lutheran) adds:
Luther . . . does not even consider the possibility that Mary might have had other children than Jesus. This is consistent with his lifelong acceptance of the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
{Pelikan, ibid.,v.22:214-5}
John Calvin
Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ's 'brothers' are sometimes mentioned.
{Harmony of Matthew, Mark & Luke, sec. 39 (Geneva, 1562), vol. 2 / From Calvin's Commentaries, tr. William Pringle, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949, p.215; on Matthew 13:55}
[On Matt 1:25:] The inference he [Helvidius] drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called 'first-born'; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.
{Pringle, ibid., vol. I, p. 107}
Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.
{Pringle, ibid., vol. I, p. 283 / Commentary on John, (7:3) }
Huldreich Zwingli
He turns, in September 1522, to a lyrical defense of the perpetual virginity of the mother of Christ . . . To deny that Mary remained 'inviolata' before, during and after the birth of her Son, was to doubt the omnipotence of God . . . and it was right and profitable to repeat the angelic greeting - not prayer - 'Hail Mary' . . . God esteemed Mary above all creatures, including the saints and angels - it was her purity, innocence and invincible faith that mankind must follow. Prayer, however, must be . . . to God alone . . .
'Fidei expositio,' the last pamphlet from his pen . . . There is a special insistence upon the perpetual virginity of Mary.
{G. R. Potter, Zwingli, London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976, pp.88-9,395 / The Perpetual Virginity of Mary . . ., Sep. 17, 1522}
Zwingli had printed in 1524 a sermon on 'Mary, ever virgin, mother of God.'
{Thurian, ibid., p.76}
I have never thought, still less taught, or declared publicly, anything concerning the subject of the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our salvation, which could be considered dishonourable, impious, unworthy or evil . . . I believe with all my heart according to the word of holy gospel that this pure virgin bore for us the Son of God and that she remained, in the birth and after it, a pure and unsullied virgin, for eternity.
{Thurian, ibid., p.76 / same sermon}
Heinrich Bullinger
Bullinger (d. 1575) . . . defends Mary's perpetual virginity . . . and inveighs against the false Christians who defraud her of her rightful praise: 'In Mary everything is extraordinary and all the more glorious as it has sprung from pure faith and burning love of God.' She is 'the most unique and the noblest member' of the Christian community . . .
'The Virgin Mary . . . completely sanctified by the grace and blood of her only Son and abundantly endowed by the gift of the Holy Spirit and preferred to all . . . now lives happily with Christ in heaven and is called and remains ever-Virgin and Mother of God.'
{In Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion, combined ed. of vols. 1 & 2, London: Sheed & Ward, 1965, vol.2, pp.14-5}
John Wesley (Founder of Methodism)
I believe... he [Jesus Christ] was born of the blessed Virgin, who, as well after as she
brought him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.
{"Letter to a Roman Catholic," quoted in A. C. Coulter, John Wesley, New York: Oxford University Press, 1964, 495}
Lol.
This thread is about the ROSARY.
If you know ANYTHING about Christian history in Europe you would know that the ROSARY is a quintessential Catholic ritual. So is devotion to Mary.
That Marian devotion, especially the rosary, is the newest thing IS returning to very Catholic practice.
THAT is measuring by the Roman Catholic Church.
If what I wrote weren't true, there would be no thread.
The Catholic bashing, measuring, validating, etc., that goes on in this country is a testament as to how Protestants look at their faith -- how close or how far away is THEIR brand of Christianity from Rome.
One
Holy
Catholic
Apostolic
These people are coming to believe in the Catholic Church because it is the only with the four marks of truth.
Lol. No it isn't.
See post number 9. It's all about the "protesters" and "reformers" --against the Catholic Church. How can one be a "protester" or a "reformer" unless one is protesting against SOMEONE or reforming SOMETHING.
One doesn't rebel, reform or protest against nothing.
You seem to be far more concerned with how the traditions of your church are viewed in the Protestant community than any Protestants are concerned with their image in the Roman Catholic Church.
Take a look at the conversion stories on the Coming Home Network webpage (http://www.chnetwork.org). You might be surprised at how many folks - even clergy - are converting from backgrounds other than those you've stated.
But Christ DOES care about the Catholic Church.
Give the Catholic Church credit for standing up against abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research long before these issues were popularized by current day happenings.
Anger. Shades of the entire Reformation. Deja-vu all over again.
You're right. People wouldn't be so angry or wouldn't care if they were sure that I was wrong.
Henry VIII had absolutely no problem with the rosary, and I doubt that Luther did, either, since he had a Marian prayer inscribed on his tomb.
Hah, there is no anger in that. I'm just pointing out that you just delude yourself if you think that this is a popular trend.
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