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To: Cicero
"no Catholic ever saw Mary as divine"

This may be, but what is the Immaculate Conception Doctrine all about (this centers around Mary as being sinless.)

Also, I sure would love a Catholic explaining where they get the Anunciation thing (where Mary is swept up into Heaven miraculously).

I may be wrong but I believe these 2 doctrines were just introduced by the Catholic Church in the last century. Can a Catholic corroborate this?

82 posted on 02/21/2004 5:36:48 PM PST by what's up
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To: what's up
Well, very briefly, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception states that Mary was conceived without sin, as you say. It was quite an early belief in the Church.

It is not beyond God's ability to do something like that. He gave Abraham and Sarah a son when they were much to old for childbearing or even sexual relations. Eve, too, was originally created sinless, and then fell.

For the other, I don't think you mean the Annunciation (the Archangel Gabriel's appearance to Mary when she consented to bear Jesus) but the Assumption. The Assumption was declared a dogma quite recently (Vatican I), but it was also a very early belief in the Church. I remember reading in the annals of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany in the early middle ages that one of the monks visited the Holy Land and was told about it there. As further evidence, there are no accounts of places where Mary's tomb might be, but there are accounts of Jesus's tomb and the tombs of many early Christians. That absence isn't proof but it's an interesting indication.

At any rate, the Assumption declares that Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven. The same things seems to be said in Genesis about Enoch, and there is a long tradition to that effect. Again, it doesn't say that Mary is divine. Only that God made a special exception in her case and raised her before the General Resurrection at the end of days.
195 posted on 02/21/2004 7:51:02 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: what's up
The Immaculate Conception dogma - Mary was selected by God from before her birth to be the Mother of His Divine Son. Because God did not want His son to be ever under the influence of Satan, He created Mary without sin, that is her soul was never exposed to original sin like the rest of humanity ever since the fall of Adam and Eve. It makes sense. God would hardly want a sinful woman to carry the infant Jesus in her womb and then to be His first teacher, would He?

The term Immaculate Conception has no relation to the physical nature of Mary's conception by her parents, who were (by tradition) holy people named Joachim and Anna. It refers to the state of her soul.

Paul wite in his epistle (Romans?) that Jesus is the new Adam. Catholics believe that Mary was the new Eve.
216 posted on 02/21/2004 8:21:05 PM PST by Gumdrop
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To: what's up
Also, I sure would love a Catholic explaining where they get the Anunciation thing (where Mary is swept up into Heaven miraculously).

The Annuciation is the event whereby the Angel Gabriel Announced to Mary that she was highly favored of God and had been chosen to bear His divine Son. (Hail Mary full of grace...blessed are thou among woman).

363 posted on 02/22/2004 8:23:19 AM PST by pgkdan
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