Posted on 05/19/2008 6:44:32 PM PDT by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
I didn't say anything about self-incrimination. I wouldn’t expect folks to voluntarily go to their bishop and say, "hey, I’m pretty sure my devotion to Mary has crossed the line hyperdulia to latria and I have found great spiritual satisfaction in that," any more than they would go to their bishop and admit they like to fondle young boys and they do as often as the opportunity presents itself.
Oh for Pete’s sake! I’m not going play your game of “Goldilocks.” Excommunicate for this, but not that...
have a nice day.
How ‘bout addressing my previous post to you? I see no reason to entertain any more of your “motes” while you ignore your “log.”
If you want to operate on a quid-pro-quo basis, that’s your call.
I didn’t respond to your post #331 because I perceived a mind that is hostile to anything that fits not within the predetermined religious teachings of Rome.
Pearls before swine, crumbs to dogs - you know. Wouldn’t be prudent.
Since when is being demonstrably wrong a "pearl" to be prized?
I'm not the one that had to eat my "conflated" claim: you are.
You said:”One reason being there is no sanction against Mary-worship in the RCC.”
Then I said:”Except that admitting to Mary worship gets you kicked out of the Catholic Church.”
Getting kicked out of the Catholic Church is a sanction, I reckon.
“I wouldn’t expect folks to voluntarily go to their bishop and say, “hey, I’m pretty sure my devotion to Mary has crossed the line hyperdulia to latria and I have found great spiritual satisfaction in that,”
Why wouldn’t you expect that? What do you think the bishop would say?
Freegards
I’ve not had to eat anything. Please tell me how you propose to separate the Trinity from God.
...Since the Bible doesn’t contain the word, “Trinity”, I cannot show you a verse that claims the Trinity and God are the same.
Bon Appétit!
Do you maintain that the Trinity is different than God? I do not eat my own words - the concept/doctrine of the Holy Trinity is in Scripture, but the word is not. I had no expectation that you would or will understand the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, so I saw no reason to attempt to explain it to you.
Well, since the subject was Mariology and not female ordination or reincarnation, the details were germane. It appears from the account that it was not garden-variety Mary worship that got these folks in hot water.
I guess you may not see it from your vantage point.
There seem to be a couple things you find objectionable in those quotes. First, the language like "I consecrate to you my entire self". Well, if you find that objectionable, then I should think you would also find objectionable every similar thing a man says to the woman he marries:
"you are everything to me"
"I dedicate my life to you"
"I give myself to you"
"I'm yours forever"
Heck, just read any love song practically. If we were being purists about it, we could certainly say that such language--well, it just was almost idolatrous, because it purports to put a sinful human before God.
Yet no one ever takes it that way. Most every Christian spouse I know, upon hearing sayings like that, would happily contextualize them without any problem and without any notion that God was being written out of the equation. The language of love is effusive, it is abundant, it delights in expressions of dedication and consecration. Such is the Catholic with the Virgin Mary.
And as far as God not wanting to save us without Mary...that is absolutely true. Christ could have become man in any number of ways. He chose to be born of a woman in a stable. Mary was part of a divinely ordained plan, and Scripture is crystal clear that she gave her assent to what was about to happen. In that sense, she cooperated in our redemption, and her "yes" to Gabriel allowed the redemption to come about.
As for the personal relationship thing....you know the Church is the Mystical Bride of Christ. Well, you tell me what bride has the temerity, the gall, to marry someone she says she loves and then treat her mother-in-law coldly and indifferently as if she were just some casual acquaintance. In marriage, the spouse's mother literally becomes your mother too.
I think, Colofornian, that you are thinking about this in terms of theology, which is important, but what is also very much worth considering is the very important aspect of family.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy!
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope!
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve,
To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley, of tears.Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb Jesus;O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary.
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Sorry, I've been away for a while. I'm a little confused. My point to MtWD was that the source article he posted was historically inaccurate, intellectually dishonest, etc., etc. and so forth. I'm trying to understand how your question addresses that point... Okay, I see. I told him he should get material about the Church from the Church's own source to learn about it. That is what you did.
The answer to your question is supplied by the very source you linked! That is the particular page of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
From that same page, in 963 is this to start off the paragraph:
"Since the Virgin Mary's role in the mystery of Christ and the Spirit has been treated,[in an earlier paragraph that can be obtained in the same source material] it is fitting now to consider her place in the mystery of the Church. "The Virgin Mary . . . is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer. . . . She is 'clearly the mother of the members of Christ' . . . since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head."502 "Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church."503"
In 964 is this:
"Mary's role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. "This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to his death";504 it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:"
"Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother's heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: "Woman, behold your son."505"
Actually, read your own link and you will have the answers there!
Essentially it comes down to this. In God's plan of salvation "Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him", Who "...has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth", Mary plays a singularly unique role among all his creatures and on behalf of them, including angels. [Note: Christ is not a creature. He is God, i.e. the 2nd Person of the Blessed Trinity].
It is at the intersection of her freely given "fiat" to God's promptings (thereby being the primary creature to accepting Christ by Faith and doing so completely) that the 2nd Person of the Trinity takes to himself a unique human nature united to his unchanged divinity in her virginal womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise known as the Incarnation of Christ. She truly is the mother of Christ, and therefore the mother of God. For all of us called to be adopted sons and daughters of God in the Son (by Grace through Faith) she truly becomes our spiritual mother as well. This is her unique role - as a creature - in God's eternal plan of uniting all things together in Christ.
She is His mother, and she remains Christ's mother even in heaven. She is also our mother. Devotion (which is not worship) to her is clearly intrinsically linked to the worship of adoration due to God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus Who continues to act through his mystical body, the Church, by his grace.
It really comes down to all that. Either you believe Mary is the mother of God (Jesus), or you don't. If you don't, then how is Christ truly human? If as Christians we are to be followers and imitators of Christ, who perfectly follows the Law which states "Honor your Father and Mother", then how can we not honor her? Nobody loves or honors her more than her own Son - the One we are to imitate and love as well. We show no love to Christ by rejecting or neglecting his mother.
If you can't understand this within the context of Christian belief, I don't know how else to state it. It is part of the supernatural gift of Faith given in Grace by God.
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