HE INCREASES AND SHE DECREASES [Mary, Mother of God]

The Rock ^ | May 1994 | Mark Shea

[Salvation]

HE INCREASES AND SHE DECREASES

By MARK P. SHEA

 

Some friends are always good for a cheery disagreement--like my pal Bill. Here he is, a guy who modestly describes himself as "The Last Bastion of the Reformation," a guy who sings "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" in the shower, a guy who keeps ribbing me about being Catholic when he knows that I can scarcely resist the challenge to respond. Consider the letter I got the other day, written with Bill's usual joie de vivre, in which he urged me to get a recent book devoted to "critiquing" Marian devotion from an Evangelical perspective.

As a former Evangelical, I know anti-Marian arguments. But, having been a Catholic for nearly six years, I've been surprised to discover how much larger Mary looms in many Protestant minds than in Catholic ones. Maybe I'm languishing in a papally-induced spiritual blindness, but Jesus seems as big to me as ever. Only Mary has changed sizes since I "poped." She got a lot smaller and less threatening.

Since I became a Catholic she often, after directing me to her Son, has seemed to slip out of the room for long stretches, leaving me to talk with him while she busies herself with quietly praying for me or doing some other motherly task. She has been a most unobtrusive presence--endlessly loving and interceding, but not nearly as noisy about it as my Protestant upbringing would have led me to believe.

Yet how can this be? Books have "proven" that Catholics are obsessively fixated on our Lady to the exclusion of faith in Christ. They have shown that all we think about is the way in which Mary can save us from sin. They have demonstrated that I spend day and night obsequiously seeking to have her declared a fourth member of the Trinity.

Of course, there are benighted souls in my communion (Mother Teresa, say) whose summary of Marian devotion is: Love Jesus as Mary loves Jesus, love Mary as Jesus loves Mary. Such people seem to think that Mary is not a goddess but that she has a significant place in the drama of redemption. They regard her as remarkable in that her choice to love and obey the as-yet-unseen and unincarnate Messiah was the very key to the Incarnation.

They find a subtle difference between such faith (unbuttressed and unrehearsed) and the wobbly performance of Peter and Thomas. They attach some quirky meaning to the fact she was the first disciple to say "yes" to the incarnate God and that it was this "yes" and the love it expressed which was the basis of the first and deepest love relationship the Son of God ever experienced as man.

Such cultists seem to have this notion that her role in the life of the Church might extend beyond the physical fact of providing a uterine environment and three square meals a day to the Second Person of the Trinity--that she is something more than a disposable first stage in the Incarnation.

For some reason they hold the belief that Jesus, who obeyed the law perfectly, obeyed the command to love his mother in a way unique in human history and that imitating him might involve us in that love relationship too. They are bewitched with the fact the dying Jesus commanded the disciple he loved (that is, you and me) to have Mary as mother and that she was commanded to have the beloved disciple (that is, you and me) as her son.

These people suspect that as the risen Christ remains human forever, so he remains his mother's son forever. If she loves him, she just might love those who are in him as her own and pray they will love her son with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Likewise, if Jesus loves her in a unique way and we are to be like him . . . well, you can work that one out.

 

 

[Uncle Chip]

Maybe this is an example of Mary being "Co-Redemptrix". Maybe one of the RC posters can elaborate on how much weight is given to a Papal Bull. It has been pointed out that the Sabbatine Privilege is not dogma.

Make no mistake about it. Despite the doubletalking denial dance, the Sabbatine Privilege is alive and well in RCC lore and theology. Those Marian scapulars are now and have always been big business for all those whose hope is in that Purgatorial early release program.

What all of these deceived multitudes fail to realize is that on the other side of this life, time is eternal. There are no Saturdays. Thus these multitudes will be waiting forever for that Saturday [Sabbatine] Privilege which will never come.

[MarkBsnr]

Image or imitation only.

Please don’t tell me that you think that you are going to become God. If you think that you are going to become God, then maybe you ought to think about abandoning Calvinism for a more exotic theology.

[MarkBsnr]

We start off right there with error.

Jesus came to pay for all sins. All of them.

John 12:
30
Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.
31
Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world 18 will be driven out.
32
And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”

Everyone. All men.

John 6:
37
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
38
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.
39
And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it (on) the last day.
40
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him (on) the last day.”

Everyone.

Hebrews 2:
9
but we do see Jesus “crowned with glory and honor” because he suffered death, he who “for a little while” was made “lower than the angels,” that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Everyone. All mankind. Not just the selected elected elite.

[MarkBsnr]

We must be very careful to differentiate the verses which talk about the gift of grace and the resulting faith, and the gifts of talents or opportunities that God gives us.

I find that many confuse the two.

[MarkBsnr]

We have little difficulty in explaining the Gospel. We wrote it down, preserved it, and present it to you and to all men.

The difficulty is in perceiving the retail shopping mall mentality of competing theologies which turn out to be whatever sells to the rubes with wallets. We have one Church, one theology and one doctrine. As opposed to thousands of official denominations and, logically since ever Protestant can assume the position of his own Pope, millions of differing personal theologies.

What you believe is different from the next Protestant, which is different from the next Protestant. This, in our opinion, nullifies the argument that the Holy Spirit is indwelling in all believers and brings them to believe their millions of different personal theologies. They all cannot be right, and so therefore, logically, they are all wrong, since each of them evolved in the same fashion with the same methodologies.

[MarkBsnr]

***MB: Did God prefer Abraham or Moses or David or Solomon or Job or Mary and Joseph or Peter or Paul or John the Apostle or Thomas the Apostle over others? You betcha.

HD: No more and no less that any other person who has ever been saved by His grace. God saves us exactly like anyone else. God shows no partiality.***

God IS partial. He gives His gifts as He sees fit. You have been given different gifts than I. You may be a better poet, I may be a better engineer. We are different and we all have been given different talents and opportunities. God is partial inasmuch as each of us have our gifts tailored to us personally.

[Titanites]

The OPC is a new denomination formed in 1936 by dissenting members of the PCUSA. Originally named the Presbyterian Church of America, the resulting lawsuit from the PCUSA forced the change in name to Orthodox Presbyterian Church. They should not be confused with the Presbyterian Church in America (formed 40 years later).

In 1937, a group of dissenters in the new denomination decided that the now named OPC was not conservative enough, so they formed the Bible Presbyterian Church under Carl McIntire.

The dissention continues. In 2005, three congregations withdrew from the OPC to join the PCA, leaving less than 7600 baptized members.

I noticed a couple of things in the 2006 general report and came to a general observation.

Interesting recap of recent developments. It looks like the chart below is already out of date.

[MarkBsnr]

***Jesus is a physical being so how can He be “out of time”. Please explain. I would content time is a fabrication of man’s inability to grasp eternity.***

One of the basic beliefs required of all Christians is that Jesus is fully human and fully God. At once and forever.

Since God is out of time and all humans are within time, thus we have the dual nature of one being, which is part of the Triune God. You may wish to revisit the ancient heresies for further clarification.

[Quix]

Perhaps the RCC has trouble telling the difference between life and death; between the earth and heaven. Maybe this confusion stems from the RCC’s fictitious concoction of “purgatory” and the fantastical half-death which that error implies.

= = =

Welllllllllllll, after the rather clearly politically motivated magicsterical mangles the matrix through a multitude of mendacious monstrosities . . .

It’s a wonder any RC’s know the least bit about up from down, left from right . . .

No wonder they can’t tell life from death or earth from Heaven . . . Mary from THE REDEMPTER . . . righteousness from idolatry . . .

[Quix]

Maybe, Dear Heart,

we need to work on an RC vs REALITY especially BIBLICAL REALITY

LEXICON for the UNBibled and unsuspecting . . .

In the RC edifice matrix . . .

IDOLATRY = ‘honoring,’ ‘veneration,’ obeisence, kowtowing to images, ritualized behaviors before images, ADORATION . . .

BLESSED = PERPETUALLY VIRGIN (Some trick after multiple children after Jesus), ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, CO-REDEMPTRIX, SINLESS, ALWAYS ATTENTIVELY AWAKE, NO SOILED HANKIES, PERPETUALLY POLISHED SANDALS,

BLOOD BROTHERS = UNCLES OR COUSINS

FAITH = WORKS

SOLID FOUNDATION = A WET SPLINTER OFF A BALSA WOOD TOOTHPICK

LISTENING TO JESUS = ENDLESS SONGS, BUILDINGS, POETRY, ADORATION, FAWNING TO MARY . . .

. . .

Perhaps you perceptive people could add some more UNprecious truths to the LEXICON

[Quix]

And it goes out of its way to point out that it is Mary's devotees that are given early release from purgatory -- not the devotees of Jesus.

What more vivid example of BLASPHEMY does anyone need to run fleeying from any hint of Maryolatry?

[Quix]

We wrote it down, preserved it, and present it to you and to all men.

= = = =

More rubber history books . . . LOL, GTTM, BTTM, CTTM, ROTFLOL,

More ALICE IN WONDERLAND SCHOOL OF THE RUBBER BIBLED THEOLOGY.

As well as no small amount of arrogance . . . which the RC edifice seems to major in.

[Quix]

Working earnestly at learning to do that more with my flawed self . . . which is my biggest concern.

Thx.

[MarkBsnr]

It’s like watching a bunch of kittens unraveling a ball of wool. By men, of men and for men, it seems to me.

OPC.org is their website.

They hold any Bible to be the inerrant word of God, except of course, the ones that they don’t happen to like.

As secondary standards, they have the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. These were comissioned in 1643 by the English Parliament. They were commissioned by the English Parliament, bought, and paid for.

Both the English and Scottish Parliaments voted on both of them (slight alterations between them, of course).

Therefore, if one entertains any of these, then one is following a government edict, approved not only by the English and Scottish Parliaments, but by the King (and now Queen) of England.

It seems odd that one would travel to the United States for religious freedom and then voluntarily adopt a foreign government’s religious laws, but then, many of the items found within them are odd as well.

[Titanites]

It seems odd that one would travel to the United States for religious freedom and then voluntarily adopt a foreign government’s religious laws, but then, many of the items found within them are odd as well.

Claiming the Pope is the Antichrist is a bit more than "odd" and keeping that statement in a "profession of faith" is less than Christian, imho.

[Pyro7480]

My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee! I beg pardon for all those that do not believe, do not adore, do not trust and do not love Thee.

O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary I beg the conversion of poor sinners.

-Angels' Prayers at Fatima, Portugal

[MarkBsnr]

***More rubber history books . . . LOL, GTTM, BTTM, CTTM, ROTFLOL,

More ALICE IN WONDERLAND SCHOOL OF THE RUBBER BIBLED THEOLOGY.***

Matt 5:
11
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.
12
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Insult away, my friend.

[Alamo-Girl]

I struggle with it too, dear brother in Christ! It is one of my "cross-eyed bears."

[Quix]

God considers bearing assaults for

RIGHTEOUSNESS admirable, praiseworthy and rewardable.

for

IDOLATROUS BLASPHEMIES,

He has a different set of responses.

[Mad Dawg]

What all of these deceived multitudes fail to realize is that on the other side of this life, time is eternal.

HarleyD: How say you?