Happy Mother's Day
Posted on 05/11/2008 4:58:48 AM PDT by NYer
CNA).- Vitorrio Messori, the most popular Italian Catholic writer has slammed so-called “adult” Catholics who want to minimize the role of the Virgin Mary, just days before the presentation of his new book “Hypothesis About Mary” in Spain.
The best-selling author of books such as “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” addresses who Mary is for believers in his new work, the credibility of apparitions in Lourdes and Fatima and Mary’s role in Christian belief. The new book has yet to be translated into English.
Messori confesses that years ago he was asked to write a book about Mary, but the proposal “seemed extravagant.” However, little by little, he realized that “the Mother is discovered afterwards, when one has entered into a relationship with the Son…Then we realize that the discreet presence of Mary is essential.”
According to Messori, the fact that certain Catholics “are ashamed” of Mary is due “above all to a Protestant influence on Catholicism. Reformation theology has always been convinced that what is given to the Mother of God is taken away from the Son. In reality, the truth is the opposite: wherever Mary is eclipsed, Jesus disappears as well, either before or after. As almost five centuries of experience shows, the faith has been preserved much better between Catholics and Orthodox, who give Mary the role that is hers. The fact is that this Woman is the guarantor of the truth of the Incarnation: it is her flesh, it is her uterus that guarantees that God has truly been made man.”
“Many theologians,” he went on, “believe that Marian devotion isn’t ‘elegant,’ and they think that it is a sentimental deviation unworthy of adults. And it is true that, often times, devotion to Mary has been mere sentimentalism; but what I have tried to show in my book, where there is no rhetoric, is that there can exist a ‘manly’ devotion, in the truest sense of the word, like the Medieval knights for example.”
Starting with the Enlightenment, he said, “a culture understood only in an academic and scholastic sense has been exalted. In reality, while this culture can lead to pride, the humility of the ignorant according to the world makes him more willing to understand the Mystery of a God who wanted to become a child, who we know knew how to read but who we are not sure knew how to write.”
Therefore, in “Hypothesis About Mary,” Messori explains that he seeks to convey that “without Mary Christianity is incomplete. What’s more, without Mary the faith itself is in danger, is unbalanced and without strong roots… In fact, in the book I show how the Marian presence prevents the faith from falling into error. It is an essential element of equilibrium, it’s not an optional choice,” he said.
Mary rocks!
“According to Messori, the fact that certain Catholics “are ashamed” of Mary is due “above all to a Protestant influence on Catholicism.”
I don’t know a single Catholic who is ashamed of Mary...and I know thousands of Catholics! Jesus needed Mary and so do I.
For what? What can she provide that Christ lacks?
She does , as an obedient servant of God....but only the Blood of Christ redeems
I have a print of that Bouguereau painting “Song of the Angels” in my house - and I’m not Catholic. It’s one of the great, underappreciated works, like the artist himself.
“For what? What can she provide that Christ lacks?”
Christ doesn’t lack, I do. In my deepest meditation Mary hands me the baby Jesus and asks me to love His Church as she loves Jesus. Her sweet love of Christ reminds me that I am to love the Body of Christ - the Church - with all of the tenderness that she showed Baby Jesus. She is the Mother of God and my Mother.
Oh, really, “slams.” Grow some vocabulary, “journalists.” Surely there’s some other term that could convey “points out errors or misunderstandings in a measured and rather bland academic sort of way.”
Yes, indeed.
And Jesus would not want us to ignore, show disresepct or negligence to His mother. He saw to her care from His Cross.
And we are told in Scripture that when the Wise Men sought Him, “they found Him with His mother”.
To those who so smugly dismiss Our Lady as being merely an incidental prop to the mission of Jesus and the Church, and therefore to the Almighty's Plan of Salvation, I offer only this:
You say Jesus is love, do you not?
You honor your mother, do you not?
If you, such as you are (and undoubtedly you would admit at least a notch or two below Jesus on the scale of Perfection) if you would honor your mother, how much more does Jesus honor His Mother.
Don't you see, without her you wouldn't even have a Jesus to pretend you want to be like.
I urge you to thank the God you think you know that He is God, and someone like you or me isn't, because if you dissed my mother, I wouldn't sit for it.
And everything you do to this end puts another step between you and Christ. There is only ONE mediator between man and God, the MAN Christ Jesus.
It's simply the reflection of the early church's belief that Jesus was a harsh, stern judge and that one couldn't possibly pray to him or go directly to him. The pagans coming into the church were familiar with goddesses and goddess worship (Artemis in particular there in Ephesus) and there was a natural latching on to Mary as their own. It never started with the intention of worshiping Mary, but she became a substitute figure for "intercession" in light of the fear everyone had of going directly to the Son. (I'm not talking about the priesthood, I'm talking about the average believer).
Marian doctrine developed out of pagan beliefs, not intentionally, just incidentally. But there is nothing Biblical about praying to Mary or the belief that she can somehow intercede for anyone (maybe she can, maybe she can't, but there's nothing in scripture or early tradition to indicate she can).
Protestants are right, and it's why they jettisoned all the Marian doctrines. It's not consistent with Scripture (or early tradition - the tradition didn't develop until well into the third century and later).
That's not disrespectful of Jesus' mother. We simply believe that Catholics have created a pseudo-goddess, in Mary, that isn't there, and that the person Catholics pray to has nothing to do with the real, historical woman who was the mother of our Lord. We love Mary, we respect and honor her memory, we just don't believe that the real Mary who is now dead and gone to be with the Lord is the same person that Catholics pray to.
Is isn’t so much that the devotions to Mary is inelegant but its unnecessary. The only - repeat, only - mediation needed between God and man is Jesus.
Well said.
Your post is a logical falicy. One called “circular logic”, where we get such tripe as:
-God is Love
-Love is Blind
-Stevie Wonder is Blind
-Stevie Wonder is God
Utter nonsense.
God is indeed love, but to insist that Jesus holds Mary above all others is not substantiated in the scriptures. He did what was demanded of him while on the cross and provided support for his mother while she still lived. John was his cousin and the duty fell upon him.
Jesus summed up the Law and the Prophets by this:
Mat 22:35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
Mat 22:36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Mat 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
Mat 22:38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
Mat 22:39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Mat 22:40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Catholics need to stop putting artificial barriers between man and God. Jesus is the sole path to salvation. We pray to Him and He alone answers prayers. The Holy Spirit is the only one to intercede for us:
Rom 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
Christ ALONE!
Thank you for explaining what you believe.
My belief is not the same.
Furthermore,
I do not believe she is a “psuedo-goddess”.
I do not believe she is “now dead”, but that she is alive with Christ Jesus in glory.
I never said she was “co-redemptrix”.
I have never believed that she was a “Fourth” member of the Trinity.
I do not consider her to have the omniscience and omnipotence of the Triune God.
I do believe she enjoys all the promises of heavenly grace and glory promised to all who believe and love Jesus—and that she is the first among us to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.
If you believe that what you have posted is an accurate description of my beliefs, you are mistaken and have assigned to me what is not Truth.
Welcome, Spin-meister.
end of conversation!
The last person that engaged me in a debate about religion was just as adamant in arguing that "Truth" made "logic" unnecessary.
You two should compare notes.
“If you believe that what you have posted is an accurate description of my beliefs, you are mistaken and have assigned to me what is not Truth.”
You have discovered The Game as Petronski has named it.
What we actually, factually believe is of no consequence to them as they repeat the lies of what they state we believe.
Mary is the mother of Jesus who is God.
She has been honored since the beginning, as in the letters of St. Ignatius," as the Virgin Mother. But it was only after the Council of Nicaea, which defined Jesus as truly divine. . There were, and are. Christians who say that Jesus was not really man, or was an indwelling Spirit, and/or was only a Prophet (like Mohammed). Mary is the guarantor of his humanity.
In her the Spirit worked uniquely. We have no knowledge that she displayed gifts any greater than our own. In this respect, she was an ordinary woman, but, as the above suggests, until he began his ministry, there is little doubt that Jesus was thought an ordinary man of no great talent. Mary's great mission was to bear and nurture to manhood the son of God. To be his mother in the complete sense of the word. To nurse him, to teach him, to bind up his wounds when he fell, to encourage him to begin his great mission, and to follow him. Therefore, she was a very holy woman. To deny her intimacy with her son is to concede far too much to those who think that the birth narratives are myths.
A Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers of FR. Also since today is Pentecost, we must not forget that Mary was with the Apostles and 120 people in prayer in the upper room, so she is honored as being the first disciple of her son to also recieved the Holy Spirit.
I agree with the author that many --not all-- Novus Ordo Catholics have become protestantized and do minimize The Blessed Virgin Mary's importance, either out of indifference or ignorance, not sure which. The term "ashamed" doesn't seem applicable. Their absence of attention to the Rosary confirms this. At the Novus Ordo church near me a small vestigial Rosary group still exists, but I hear it is lucky to have two very elderly parishioners in attendance. To be fair the church does have a newer Commemoration of Mary off to the side but no one seems to pay it any attention. Whereas I can virtually guarantee that all those who assist at our traditional Latin Mass across town say the Rosary. Additionally, the mostly Hispanic parish nearby no doubt also beholds Mary with proper esteem and reverence, even while enduring the errors of the New Mass.
Mary is not the mother of God with all due respect, she is the means by which he came to us. Mary is not to be worshiped in any way nor does she bring the salvation message in any way she was virtuous and led a grand example but thats it she was a sinner like all of us who need Christ as any of us. Mary has just been made a church dogma primarily from catholocism.
Sadly many people think they can just attend church and work their traditions and go out in the world and do what they want, but this is not how it works. Christ is the ONLY way to salvation and mary has nothing to do with it. ~ Peace!
Very Beautiful.
Clinging to bigotry is far more important than truth.
Give one peice of evidence in scripture that we should look to mary for anything? Other than she was virtuous and led a good example and she was chosen.
Other than that Mary was a SINNER like us all! ALL have fallen short of the glory of God. You MUST look to scripture alone and not follow dogmas made up by those who propose that all you need to do is follow church contrived traditions and you will be counted worthy in Gods sight. THIS is PURE NONSENSE.
What you do in your everyday life is what matters, whether you are striving to live as Christ or not. You cannot follow traditions of men and then think your all good. All those who say Lord Lord will not enter in. This goes for all.~ Peace!
I’ve experienced the same thing you described but Mary wasn’t there.
People have different experiences.
Yeah, I should have kept my mouth shut, which I’ll do.
"Never apologize for the Blessed Virgin Mary!"
~~Mother Angelica
Your observation is correct about your personal spiritual experience. Much of what any of us experiences is conditioned by our upbringing and our expectations. The unusual case is for a person to have a spiritual experience that’s totally unexpected - for a lifelong Protestant to experience Marian devotion, or for a “mainline” Christian to have a Charismatic experience.
God is really big and likes to blow our expectations out of the water, in my experience :-).
Sorry FRiend, but we MUST do no such thing. We look to the word of God alone - both written and oral. Responding to your other post, Mary WAS the Mother of God - to deny this is either to day Jesus was not human (Monophysitism) or not God.
"my soul magnifies the Lord"
Like Jesus, perhaps? You are saying that sin had dominion over the flesh that was the only source of the Savior's flesh? You are saying that when Mary said "let it be done to me" she was inhibited by sin and therefore unable to give herself completely to the project proposed by God? So when Jesus at Gethsemane said "thy will be done" he too was holding back? What, if you please, does that say about the nature of the salvation you hope for in Jesus?
You MUST look to scripture alone
That's not what scripture says.
Christ can't model being his own disciple.
***************
I've never known of any Catholic who was ashamed of Mary.
“I’ve never known of any Catholic who was ashamed of Mary.”
I think it happens in areas were there is a majority of Christians of the more Reformed/Evangelical persuasion as compaired to Catholics and there has been no or bad teaching on the Catholic side for years and years.
Freegards
That does make sense.
That is heresy. Only Jesus can communicate and mediate with God for you. The saints have no power to communicate to you in this world. If that was the case then John 14:6 is in error and it is not.
Godspeed; you’re far more patient than I.
Christ would have us deny His mother? I don’t think so! Would you deny your own?
“That is heresy. Only Jesus can communicate and mediate with God for you. The saints have no power to communicate to you in this world. If that was the case then John 14:6 is in error and it is not.”
I will let Mary know the next time she enters my meditation! Imagine the gall...I am deep in meditation - loving the Lord and seeking His guidance - and Mary (God’s own Mother) interrupts my communication with the Lord and hands Him to me. She asks me to love the the Body of Christ - His Church - just as she loves Him. She reminds me that I must be patient with those I minister to and who come to me looking for a deeper walk with Jesus. She allows me to hold our Lord and look into His eyes and tell Him how much I love Him. Her message is John 14:6. She lived John 14:6 and she always communicates John 14:6. She was the way for John 14:6!
On second thought, I think I will keep Blessed Mother in my meditation. But you might want to check out Romans 14:13.
“Mary (God’s own Mother) interrupts my communication with the Lord and hands Him to me”
Hmmm... that statement contradicts everything I have ever read. That is a slippery slope when you say that someone can interrupt you and the Lord. The only person that interrupts your commune with the Lord is you when Satan influences you to focus on yourself rather than Him. Nobody outside you and the Lord can connect in prayer. If you are hearing “voices” other than yours and God’s/Jesus’ when you are talking to Them then I you need to refocus on the Lord and why you are praying. Beware those that come and talk to you and say they are in His name for they might be demons.
“so-called “adult” Catholics”
Is the article trying to imply that there is some doubt as to whether they are adults?
I do not know how he figures that where Mary is eclipsed, Jesus disappears too. I love and follow the teachings of Christ, and do not even pay lip service to Mary. She is no more essential to my belief in Christ and His teachings than Judas is.
You can tell your friend:
"Never apologize for the Blessed Virgin Mary!"
~~Mother Angelica
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