Protestants and the rosary

Paternosters Blogspot ^ | February 26, 2007 | Chris Laning

[Frank Sheed]

I grew up Protestant in the Northeastern U.S., in an area with many Irish and Italian families, so most of my playmates when I was in elementary school were Catholic. This was somewhat (ahem!) before Vatican II, and both Protestant and Catholic kids were taught by their parents (and sometimes even in Sunday School) to regard the other with suspicion, if not downright hostility. My Catholic playmates, for instance, said they were told they would spend eternity in Hell if they (literally!) so much as set foot inside a Protestant church building.

Boy, have things changed. While there are still plenty of Protestants who believe the Roman church is the Scarlet Woman of Babylon, for the most part Catholics and Protestants now acknowledge each other as fellow Christians, are often fairly relaxed about attending each other's worship services, and I suspect that informal, unofficial sharing of Communion is more common than the authorities on both sides would like to think. There are still plenty of incompatibilities (women priests, to name one) but I don't see that degree of almost superstitious mistrust of the "other" any more.

The status of the Virgin Mary is a point of difference between Catholics and Protestants, of course, and that's one of the reasons Protestants tend to be rather wary of the rosary. Unfortunately, I think people brought up Catholic often demonstrate how little they understand about their "separated brethren" when they blithely suggest that Protestants can pray the rosary too.



There are four main points I can think of about the rosary that give many Protestants problems. Briefly they are (from the Protestant point of view):
(1) What about Jesus's prohibition of "vain repetitions" in prayer?
(2) Does the Rosary give Mary too much honor?
(3) Do saints actually hear the prayers of living people?
(4) Is it legitimate to ask saints for favor?

I should make it clear here that when I say "Protestants" in this discussion, I am not including modern Anglicans or Episcopalians. There are certainly Anglicans who do say the rosary, either in the same form common to Roman Catholics or some other form, such as the modern Anglican rosary (which I still want to write about sometime). But what Americans usually call "mainstream" Protestants (Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.), and essentially all of the more evangelical and conservative Protestants, are generally opposed to the rosary as a Roman practice, and that's who I'm referring to here.

As I've said, Catholics do sometimes cheerfully assert that Protestants, too, can "honor" the Virgin Mary and pray the rosary. But I've noticed that somehow, all the Catholic stories that circulate about Protestants praying the rosary tend to end with the story's Protestant becoming a Catholic. If those are the only stories you ever hear, the (inadvertent) message is "If you start praying the rosay, you'll become Catholic" -- as though the rosary were the first step down a slippery slope!

I noticed this on Rosary Workshop's "Why pray the rosary?" page and mentioned it to the website's owner, Margot Carter-Blair -- who shared my amusement, once I'd pointed it out. Margot is now looking for some good stories about Protestants praying the rosary who stay Protestant.

Hmmm. Looks like this is the start of another series of articles....



The first challenge Protestants frequently offer is Matthew chapter 6, verse 7, where Jesus says (in the original King James 1611 spelling): "But when yee pray, use not vaine repetitions, as the heathen doe. For they thinke that they shall be heard for their much speaking."

This verse has had various English translations. Wycliffe's version from around 1400 says: "But in preiyng nyle yee speke myche, as hethene men doon, for thei gessen that thei ben herd in her myche speche." ("But in praying, nil [do not] ye speak much, as heathen men do, for they think that they are heard in their much speech.")

The Bishop's Bible (1568) says, amusingly, "But when ye pray, babble not much, as the heathen do. For they thynke that they shalbe heard, for theyr much bablinges sake."

One modern version puts it: "And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words." In all the versions the next verse says "Therefore be not lyke them, for your father knoweth, what thynges ye haue nede of, before ye aske of hym."

The King James version, however, is so entrenched in the English language that "vain repetitions" is the actual phrase the debate tends to focus on. Protestants generally assert that any repetition of the same prayer over and over must be "vain" by definition, since God really only needs to be asked once, and repeating the same words doesn't add anything.

The usual (rather feeble) Catholic defense is to argue that Christ didn't mean to prohibit all repetition but only vain repetition -- which is a very incomplete answer, since it leaves open the question of how you tell whether it's vain or not.

I think there's a point here, though: saying the same thing over and over doesn't necessarily mean it's less sincere. Parents and children, husbands and wives tell each other "I love you" over and over, and it doesn't seem to mean any less to them for being repeated.

Protestants generally don't see that their own argument isn't completely consistent. There may be no particular virtue in repeating the same prayer over again, but Protestants will cheerfully pray the "Our Father..." weekly and daily throughout their lives anyway. Many Protestants are taught that "true" prayer is spontaneous and from the heart, expressed in one's own words or wordless desires -- but if that were literally followed at all times, we'd all be praying like Quakers, who only pray as they feel "inspired" to do so. But in fact, most Protestant worship services do include standard, pre-written prayers in which everyone is expected to join. I was brought up, for instance, saying one that begins "Almighty and merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep...." every Sunday without fail.

I think both sides would admit that the idea of saying a prayer 10 or 100 or some other "round number" of times is something humans have dreamed up for our own satisfaction, not something God particularly cares about. (100 is only a round number if you're using a base-10 number system, anyway!) So perhaps the question that needs to be addressed is whether or not it's a good thing to allow our human preferences for certain numbers to affect our prayers this way. I can certainly see that reasonable adults could have different opinions on this.

to be continued

posted by Chris at 11:04 AM  

[AnAmericanMother]

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary. Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

[Salvation]

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.

[AnAmericanMother]

Oh my Lord Jesus, forgive us all our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to Glory, especially those in greatest need of Thy mercy. Amen.

[Salvation]

The First Glorious Mystery:
The Resurrection

[Salvation]

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen

[AnAmericanMother]

< First Glorious Mystery: The Resurrection >

[Salvation]

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary. Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

[AnAmericanMother]

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who rose glorious from the dead. Holy Mary. Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

[ears_to_hear]

LOL, you are saying that to me? You who wants me to start a thread for every question you want to avoid? I think that in your frenzy to reply and “debunk” Catholic belief that you forget that I replied to you in 423. Is it because you can not honestly answer?

Yep to you.

You said the Saints are with God and God is with us and so the saints are with us to

I asked for your source on that belief and if they, like God are omnipresent.

If you do not have a credible answer I understand.

Now I will go look at post 423

[pjr12345]

He may not be here when you get back.

Salvation has invoked his magic incantations. These create a zomby-like state in RCC members. They begin muttering the same words over and over, and continue for quite some time before the spell wears off. If they have them, they fumble with magic beads; if they don’t have magic beads, their fingers suffice.

[tiki]

I have no problem admitting that I came off a little hard but I have gotten angry today. Anger is not a sin but what you do with it is and I’m sorry if what I said hurt you or any other non-Catholic. I purposely didn’t name names while voicing my dismay that others feel that they must heap derision on Catholics. Tell me, do you somehow justify your own faith by trying to convince Catholics that they are evil and/or stupid? I really can’t see any urge on your part to save their souls. What I see is you saying that everything that you believe is right and that Catholicism is only right when it conforms to your beliefs.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

LOL. God graciously deleted that book from my Bible. 8~)

[GoLightly]

I heard second hand that I was running the neighborhood drug house. A friend of one of my sons heard about it in the beauty parlor in another town. With three sons, two in bands & both bands practicing in my basement, I had a whole lotta traffic & tons of young people coming & going for awhile. While I wasn’t running a drug house, people will talk.

My two oldest now live in a neighborhood similar to the one you describe. Their dad cried when he first saw the neighborhood they had moved into. One of the boys is a substitute teacher (mostly in inner city schools) & the other is in college. Some might think they are trashy, though probably not any of the people who live in their neighborhood.

[pjr12345]

You’re almost right. Everything the Bible contains is right and catholics (or anybody else, including me) are only right when they conform to It.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

If God chooses one sinner over another, He is in fact a respecter of persons, and a liar to boot.

The verse is telling us that God did not make His election based on any righteousness of our own, any obedience we might muster. All men are equally fallen and equally lost.

God elects based on His good pleasure alone and acquits whom He wills of their sins because of the imputed (not infused) righteouseness and obedience of Jesus Christ.

ELECTION

""By grace have ye been saved," says Paul to the Ephesians (Eph. ii. 5, 8); and so important does it seem to him that his readers shall understand this and bear it on their hearts that he says it twice in the course of four verses. He says it in such a way, moveover, as to throw a tremendous emphasis on the word "grace," and therefore on the manner in which they had been saved, as distinguished from the salvation itself. He is not assuring the Ephesians that they had been saved. They knew that for themselves, and were rejoicing in this wonderful thing which had come to them. What he is eagerly repeating to them, intent on fixing it so firmly in their hearts that they cannot escape from it for a moment, is that it is just "by grace" that they have been saved..."

[Frank Sheed]

Tridentine Ping just posted!

[pjr12345]

because of the imputed (not infused) righteouseness and obedience of Jesus Christ.

yep.

[AnAmericanMother]

Oh, this is definitely a crack house. I've talked to our precinct major. They keep shutting it down, and since the property is abandoned and nobody's sure of the owner, they keep coming back.

They wheeled a local high school kid out of there the other night, almost dead from an OD.

It's one of those old neighborhoods of ramshackle houses that the suburbs have grown out and around. The old trolley line to Atlanta from Marietta used to run just west of here, and this was a shantytown that grew up around one of the stops. It's been here 75 years or more.

The county has had trouble dealing with the area because the titles to the land are all mixed up and nobody knows who owns it (the people in the old shantytown never did bother with title deeds, wills, etc. Nobody's had a good title over there for a long time). It's hard to condemn property for code violations when you're not sure who owns it! And developers keep trying to buy it . . . but they can't figure out who owns it either!

[LordBridey]

So you have a spiritual practice you can not prove by the word of God? Doesn't that give you any pause?

Not at all. My beliefs and practices are not limited to scripture. Surely you are familiar enough with Catholicism to understand that. Later this evening, I will gather my children, we will light candles and kneel before this big white ceramic statue of Mary and say the Hail Mary fifty three times, sometimes in latin, since we all know how Satan hates that language. I will be doing something that many a great Catholic saint has done, and following the advice of several popes, as well as the Blessed Virgin herself at Lourdes and Fatima. My church has deemed the rosary as high quality devotion, even setting aside a Sunday to celebrate it. That's good enough for me.

[GoLightly]

I think marshmallows might get a bit messy & they’re pretty much useless without graham crackers & Hersey bars.