Posted on 06/18/2009 4:02:05 PM PDT by bronxville
“Well, no thanks, my early reformers grew up and learned we don’t need to pray through her.”
So you’re following “early reformers”? Which one(s) are you following?
Hail Mary full of grace,
the Lord art with thee,
Bless art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.
{Luke, I, 28}
Thanks narses.
Actually, scripture says:
” 46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.”
Magnify means “to extol; praise”. Remember Jewish poetry tends to repeat the same thing in different words in a second phrase - so “My soul magnifies the Lord” is followed by “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”.
Hence the NIV translation:
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
Jesus is not made bigger or better by the soul of Mary (the other definition of magnify). She is simply giving glory to God.
And why? “...for the Mighty One has done great things for me”. Not HER ministry to HIM, but God’s to her.
Nothing in this passages even suggests an eternal ministry for Mary. Because “...all generations will call me blessed;”?
We do all her blessed, as she was, but that is completely true without any eternal ministry of Mary. Had she died the day after birth, she still would have been called blessed for all generations.
If venerate means to honor, as you claim, would the Catholic church be willing to substitute honor for venerate in its descriptions of Mary and cease praying to Mary (and the saints)? I suspect not, which makes your claim of equivalence implausible.
31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
33”Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
34Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Mary was subordinate to him because she is not God.
“Mary was subordinate to him because she is not God.”
So when the Holy Writ says:
He was obedient to them. {Lk 2:51}
The Holy Writ simply gets it wrong? Odd that point of view. Certainly not Biblical.
“Had she died the day after birth, she still would have been called blessed for all generations.”
Why? And how is that not an ‘eternal ministry’?
Oh, c’mon...the first part of the “Hail Mary” prayer was taken direcly from scripture as the angel announced to Mary her chosen status to bear the Messiah. She was indeed “blessed AMONG women”, not ABOVE women. The rest of the canned prayer which is repeated over and over again in praying the rosary was added by the Romanist church.
No scripture ever tells believers to ask Mary to “pray for us sinners”. What can she ask our Heavenly Father for that we cannot come directly to Him?
No scripture ever tells believers that Mary is “the Mother of God”. She is the human birth giver of Jesus’ human body. He is the incarnation of Almighty God, as we read in John chapter 1, “In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was made flesh and dwelled among us. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.”
As a former Roman Catholic, I have seen the truth and it sets me free. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through Him. This is NOT Catholic-bashing. It is trying to speak the truth in love.
How does the word Honor change anything? I ask many people I honor to pray for me, why not the Mother of God?
And where does anyone say that Mary is “subordinate” to Jesus?
It is a sign of respect.
Why wouldn’t I respect my mother’s wishes even though I’m in my 40’s and have children of my own?
It’s a sign of respect. A sign of Honor, as in “Honor your father and mother”
Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord art with thee, Bless art thou among women, And blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. {Luke, I, 28}
Would that be from Luke 1:
"28 And coming in, he said to her, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."
John 2
he obeyed his mother’s direction at Cana
>>It is trying to speak the truth in love.<<
Make that “speaking YOUR truth”.
My truth is different.
“She was indeed “blessed AMONG women”, not ABOVE women.”
Really? But you say:
“...the angel announced to Mary her chosen status to bear the Messiah. “
She was the ONLY women so Blessed, NO?
How is that particular, singular and Most Holy Blessing NOT “ABOVE {other} women”?
Why? Because of all the young women who have ever been born, she was chosen by God for the birth of Jesus. That sounds pretty special to me! She was blessed!
But where do you derive an eternal ministry out of that?
In the 1984 New International Version translation, yes - http://bible.cc/luke/1-28.htm - but that is a very new, controversial and certainly not TRADITIONAL translation.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today’s_New_International_Versionfor comments like “It is explicitly Protestant like its predecessor;...” and the very simple and obvious issue of gender confusion. Modernists love this translation - I know that many denominations do not.
It says, "And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them."
When he was 12, he "was submissive to them". "Was" is past tense, not future.
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