Posted on 02/19/2010 11:32:44 PM PST by bogusname
THE LADY OF FATIMA- Introduction Some Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Christ, has actually appeared to people in places like Fatima and Medjugorje. Well, did she?
THE LADY OF FATIMA- Biblical? In evaluating the alleged appearances of Mary, our primary concern would be to determine whether these apparitions are indeed biblical. Interestingly enough, these “Marian apparitions” (as they are commonly referred to) are inextricably woven together with the official Catholic teachings about Mary which, by the way, is known as Mariology. In fact, it would be fair to say that Catholic Mariology is the very foundation of Marian apparitions. It’s been well said that a structure is only as solid as its foundation; and in looking at Marian apparitions, we need to examine the integrity of this whole concept referred to as Catholic Mariology.
(Excerpt) Read more at equip.org ...
My post previous... no need to answer. You infantile attitude is pretty evident.
What statements previously?
I wasn't laughing at you, but the question struck me funny. If I offended you somehow, I apologize.
Thank you. Apology accepted. I have great respect toward others who worship differently from me and expect the same in return. God bless.
Veneration of the Holy Virgin goes back to the very earliest days of the church. You should take some time to read some history. Your mistaken if you think what you wrote was not insulting.
As in Scripture, so too in the infant Church we see the attention of the faithful rightfully focused first and foremost on Jesus Christ. The divine primacy of Jesus Christ (with its appropriate worship of adoration) had to be clearly established before any subordinate corresponding devotion to his Mother could be properly exercised. Nonetheless, the beginnings of acknowledgement and devotion to the Mother of Jesus is present from apostolic times in the living Tradition of the early Church.
The first historic indications of the existing veneration of Mary carried on from the Apostolic Church is manifested in the Roman catacombs. As early as the end of the first century to the first half of the second century, Mary is depicted in frescos in the Roman catacombs both with and without her divine Son. Mary is depicted as a model of virginity with her Son; at the Annunciation; at the adoration of the Magi; and as the orans, the “praying one,” the woman of prayer. (1)
A very significant fresco found in the catacombs of St. Agnes depicts Mary situated between St. Peter and St. Paul with her arms outstretched to both. This fresco reflects, in the language of Christian frescoes, the earliest symbol of Mary as “Mother of the Church.” Whenever St. Peter and St. Paul are shown together, it is symbolic of the one Church of Christ, a Church of authority and evangelization, a Church for both Jew and Gentile. Mary’s prominent position between Sts. Peter and Paul illustrates the recognition by the Apostolic Church of the maternal centrality of the Savior’s Mother in his young Church.
It is also clear from the number of representations of the Blessed Virgin and their locations in the catacombs that the Mother of Jesus was also recognized for her maternal intercession of protection and defense. Her image was present on tombs, as well as on the large central vaults of the catacombs. Clearly, the early Christians dwelling in the catacombs prayed to Mary as intercessor to her Son for special protection and for motherly assistance. As early as the first century to the first half of the second century, Mary’s role as Spiritual Mother was recognized and her protective intercession was invoked. (2)
The early Church Fathers, (also by the middle of the second century), articulated the primary theological role of the Blessed Virgin as the “New Eve.” What was the basic understanding of Mary as the “New Eve” in the early Church? Eve, the original “mother of the living,” had played an instrumental, though secondary role, in the sin of Adam which resulted in the tragic fall of humanity from God’s grace. However, Mary, as the new Mother of the living, played an instrumental, though secondary, role to Jesus, the New Adam, in redeeming and restoring the life of grace to the human family.
Let us examine a few citations from the early Church Fathers that manifest this growing understanding of Mary’s spiritual and maternal role as the “New Eve,” who as the “new Mother of the living,” participates with Christ in restoring grace to the human family.
St. Justin Martyr (d.165), the early Church’s first great apologist, describes Mary as the “obedient virgin” through whom humanity receives its Savior, in contrast to Eve, the “disobedient virgin,” who brings death and disobedience to the human race:
(The Son of God) became man through the Virgin that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way in which it had originated. For Eve, while a virgin incorrupt, conceived the word which proceeded from the serpent, and brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary was filled with faith and joy when the Angel Gabriel told her the glad tidings.... And through her was he born…. (3)
St. Irenaeus of Lyon (d.202), great defender of Christian orthodoxy and arguably the first true Mariologist, establishes Mary as the New Eve who participates with Jesus Christ in the work of salvation, becoming through her obedience the “cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race”:
Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yet still a virgin, became by her disobedience the cause of death for herself and the whole human race, so Mary, too, espoused yet a Virgin, became by her obedience the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race.... And so it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by Mary’s obedience. For what the virgin Eve bound fast by her refusal to believe, this the Virgin Mary unbound by her belief. (4)
The teaching of St. Irenaeus makes evident the Early Church’s faith and understanding that Mary freely and uniquely cooperates with and under Jesus, the New Adam, in the salvation of the human race. This early patristic understanding of Mary’s unique cooperation appropriately develops into the later and more specified theology of Marian Coredemption.
St. Ambrose (d.397) continues to develop the New Eve understanding, referring to Mary as the “Mother of Salvation”:
It was through a man and woman that flesh was cast from Paradise; it was through a virgin that flesh was linked to God....Eve is called mother of the human race, but Mary Mother of salvation. (5)
St. Jerome (d.420) neatly summarizes the entire patristic understanding of the New Eve in the pithy expression: “death through Eve, life through Mary.” (6)
The Second Vatican Council confirms this early understanding of Mary as the “New Eve” by the Church Fathers, as well as the Fathers’ certain testimony to her active and unique participation in man’s salvation:
Rightly, therefore, the Fathers see Mary not merely as passively engaged by God, but as freely cooperating in the work of man’s salvation through faith and obedience.... Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert with him (Irenaeus) in their preaching: “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience: what the virgin Eve bound by her disbelief, Mary loosened by her faith.” Comparing Mary with Eve, they call her “Mother of the living” and frequently claim: “death through Eve, life through Mary” (Lumen Gentium, No. 56).
The Christian witness of the first centuries of the Church also provides us with examples of direct prayer to Mary as a means of intercession to the graces and the protection of her Son.
For St. Irenaeus, Mary is an “Advocate,” or interceding helper, for Eve and for her salvation. (7) St. Gregory Thaumaturgis (d.350) depicts Mary interceding for those on earth from her position in Heaven. (8)
St. Ephraem (d.373), the great Eastern doctor and deacon, directly addresses the Blessed Virgin in several Marian sermons. Direct prayer to Mary is also found in a sermon of the great Eastern Father, St. Gregory Nazianzen (330-389). (9) By the last part of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth, we have numerous explicit examples of direct prayer to the Mother of God, for example in the writings of St. Ambrose, as well as by St. Epiphanius. (10)
As already referred to, the most complete ancient prayer to the Blessed Mother historically preserved is the Sub Tuum Praesidium (250 A.D.):
We fly to your patronage,
O holy Mother of God,
despise not our petitions
in our necessities,
but deliver us from all dangers.
There is also the spirit of this world, one that divides us and separate us from God. But since I was loosely quoting Acts, the Holy Spirit is, I believe, the soul of the Church, which is the body of Christ. If we separate ourselves from the Church, we are not of the Spirit, not of Christ. As Paul said in writing the Corinthians, we should take care lest we becomes members of parties, attached to this or that preacher rather than Christ. The Catholic Church is not, I think, the party of Peter or the party of Paul, but of both, for each is an apostle of Christ. We need apostles, men of flesh and blood, because we ourselves are flesh and blood and need teachers. to help guard us from error.
Calvin also believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary.
Well I guess I’ll stay a Lutheran then. PV never made it to the Confessiosn. Whew.
Does it not show that such churches begin by following a particular preacher? Schism is a great evil. It prevented East and West from joining forces against the Turks, it led Catholics and Protestants to slaughter each other in the Religious wars.
The Bible says the mustard seed is the smallest seed on earth and calls bats birds, neither is true.
Tradition is not an addendum to the Scriptures but more a development of what is often implied in the Scriptures. The New Testament is a commentary of the Jewish Scriptures, and an explanation of how Jesus was their fulfillment. But humanly speaking they are fragmentary/incomplete accounts of what the Lord did and what the Apostles and the Church did. It was the decision of the Church, or churches if you like, which of the early Christian writing ought to be included. A letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, who seem still to be caught up in the divisions that had irked Paul, is almost as old as the New Testament, and is commentary on the Gospel. Documents like this are part of the Tradition, and it reminds us, as John does, that much else was written about Our Lord,which is now dust.
And unity without doctrinal agreement is a deception. Without the standard of the Word of God there is no final judge. When you are no longer is schism with your Orthodox brethren, perhaps some protestants will hearken to Rome.
it led Catholics and Protestants to slaughter each other in the Religious wars.
Sin accomplished this.
But the name Lutheran implies that you are his students and you subscribe to certain views that are different from those of the Church and are included in your confession. However, I understand that fewer and fewer people subscribe to this Confession. They make up their own.
From the words of the late Blessed Fulton Sheen...
“It used to be that the Catholics were the only ones to believe in the Immaculate Conception. Now everyone believes he is the immaculately conceived.” - Fulton Sheen
Sin accomplished schism.
You may infer that if you wish. I would say that because of the Scriptural study that produced the Lutheran Confessions and following apologetics, that they are in complete consonance with what the Church teaches. That is the Church of the believers in Christ.
While the Catholics call themselves the Church that isn't the contention of those Christians who have nothing to do with Rome.
However, I understand that fewer and fewer people subscribe to this Confession.
Perhaps, the path was always narrow. God judges the heart and Jesus knows His own. As a sinner I rest in the completed work of my Savior, trusting His promises, fully reliant on His Grace freely given to me without any merit or worthiness in me. This is most certainly true.
No doubt, in the case of Luther, it was the excesses of the Catholic Church at the time and its unwillingness to return to its own rules that compelled his stance.
Well actually believers are the body of Christ..and they are in many various church buildings throught the world..after all it is just a building.. until we enter and fellowship/worship with Him and other believers we’re among.
Of course there is satan in the world...who influences hearts and minds...but we do choose which spirit we heed.
Seperation is not a bad thing as some would like to imagine. Even Jesus seperated from the Apostles and went on His own to pray. Also when a church has moved far away from the heart of the gospel Of Christ it’s time to locate another where He is. If Christ is there you will generally find teachers, but then even what they might teach must be supported by the scripture.
We all know Priests, teachers, and Pastors who have mislead their flock or been deceptive themselves to cover their own errors....so goes the Pastor/Priest so goes the flock. If the Priest/Pastor is not preaching Christ and or the things of God...time to seperate from that fellowship.
One must take responsibility for what he hears. If something isn’t geling with the scripture then I will speak with God to clarify...He has never failed me to do just that and faithful to lead and reveal just as He said that He would do...and He does so for any who seek Him out.
Believers in what? Yes, no doubt there are Christians in every church, but if they hear contradictory messages, then that is bound to confuse. And if one reads Scripture by yourself, he is reading a book full of difficult passages he must somehow interpret. Since the begining schism from the Church has lead to schism from the churches, to following one teacher as opposed to others. Like listening to a hymn where each singer puts different words to the same music.
Do you have a serious answer?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.