Posted on 12/08/2012 2:24:39 PM PST by NYer
Do Catholics worship Mary? This question is as old as the Protestant Reformation itself, and it rests, like other disputed doctrinal points, on a false premise that has been turned into a wedge: the veneration of Mary detracts from the worship of Christ.
This seeming opposition between Mary and Christ is symptomatic of the Protestant tendency, begun by Luther, to view the entirety of Christian life through a dialectical lens – a lens of conflict and division. With the Reformation the integrity of Christianity is broken and its formerly coherent elements are now set in opposition. The Gospel versus the Law. Faith versus Works. Scripture versus Tradition. Authority versus Individuality. Faith versus Reason. Christ versus Mary.
The Catholic tradition rightly sees the mutual complementarity of these elements of the faith, as they all contribute to our ultimate end – living with God now and in eternity. To choose any one of these is to choose them all.
By contrast, to assert that Catholics worship Mary along with or in place of Christ, or that praying to Mary somehow impedes Christ’s role as “the one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim 2:5) is to create a false dichotomy between the Word made flesh and the woman who gave the Word his flesh. No such opposition exists. The one Mediator entrusted his mediation to the will and womb of Mary. She does not impede his mediation – she helps to make it possible.
Within this context we see the ancillary role that the ancilla Domini plays in her divine Son’s mission. Mary’s is not a surrogate womb rented and then forgotten in God’s plan. She is physically connected to Christ and his life, and because of this she is even more deeply connected to him in the order of grace. She is, in fact, “full of grace,” as only one who is redeemed by Christ could be.
The feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception celebrates the very first act of salvation by Christ in the world. Redemption is made possible for all by his precious blood shed on the cross. Yet Mary’s role in the Savior’s life and mission is so critical and so unique that God saw it necessary to wash her in the blood of the Lamb in advance, at the first moment of her conception.
This reality could not be more Biblical: the angel greets Mary as “full of grace” (Luke 1:28), which is literally rendered as “already graced” (kecharitōmenē). Following Mary, the Church has “pondered what sort of greeting this might be” for centuries. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, ultimately defined in 1854, is nothing other than a rational expression of the angel’s greeting contained in Scripture: Mary is “already graced” with Christ’s redemption at the very moment of her creation.
Because God called Mary to the unique vocation of serving as the Mother of God, it is not just her soul that is graced, as is the case for us when we receive the sacraments. Mary’s entire being, body and soul, is full of grace so that she may be a worthy ark for the New Covenant. And just as the ark of the old covenant was adorned with gold to be a worthy house for God’s word, Mary is conceived without original sin to be the living and holy house for God’s Word.
Thus Mary is not only conceived immaculately, that is, without stain of sin. She also is the Immaculate Conception. Her entire being was specifically created by God with unique privilege so that she could fulfill her role in God’s plan of salvation. “Free from sin,” both original and personal, is the necessary consequence of being “full of grace.”
Protestants claim that veneration of Mary as it is practiced by Catholics is not biblical. St. Paul encouraged the Corinthians to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). Paul is not holding himself up as the end goal, but as a means to Christ, the true end. And if a person is imitated, he is simultaneously venerated.
If we should imitate Paul, how much more should we imitate Mary, who fulfilled God’s will to the greatest degree a human being could. Throughout her life she humbled herself so that God could be exalted, and because of this, Christ has fulfilled his promise by exalting his lowly mother to the seat closest to him in God’s kingdom.
Mary is the model of humility, charity, and openness to the will of God. She allows a sword to pierce her heart for the sake of the world’s salvation. She shows us the greatness to which we are called: a life free from sin and filled with God’s grace that leads to union with God in Heaven. She is the model disciple, and therefore worthy of imitation and veneration, not as an end in herself, but as the means to the very purpose of her – and our – existence: Christ himself.
God’s lowly handmaiden would not want it any other way.
CynicalBear, do you also believe you die and go to sleep until the trumpet alarm sounds? Honest question.
Not unless you bring it back there. My post was showing that your freind, according to the RCC, will not be saved unless he becomes a member of the Catholic Church.
Ooops. It appears I hit enter before I finished what I wanted to post as a response.
How many outstanding questions do I have to you that haven't been answered?
Anyway. The point you seem to be trying to make by "having them alive and cognizent there is that they can communicate for you right? Well, that either isn't so or is really dumb. If they are alive and congnizent there so are we. See my post here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2966953/posts?page=3317#3317 . Either we all have direct access to the throne or none of us do including those who have passed from this life. We do know one thing for sure. The souls of those who will be killed during the tribulation for Christ's sake will be in heaven asking God when their deaths will be avenged. So it's either we are all alive and cognizent in heaven or none of us are right? Now, if you would like to have that conversation we can.
Either way, 1 Corinthians 15, needs to be read as a whole.
Not saying your wrong, just we believe differently.
17 And if Christ be not risen again, your faith is vain, for you are yet in your sins.
18 Then they also, who have fallen asleep in Christ, have perished.
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep.
21 *For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead.
Sorry for my ignorance, I have a hard time keeping up withmthese various schools of thought. It is fascinating.
You are very knowledgable, I love that. Very few Catholics are willing to “quarrel” with others and deal with these... Interesting accusations. Don’t get too irritated with this though, Protestants are converting to the Catholic church in large numbers. Converts make the best Catholics because they understand these other perspectives very well. In all fairness I say they don’t understand Catholicism, but I don’t understand the many variations of Protestants either. Your right though, I’m out too. God Bless.
Don’t ever be “sorry” for not understanding something. It took me much study of scripture without the influence of preconcieved ideology to get to the peaceful place I am now. I also didn’t understand much when I started this study. I had been brought up in one of the mainline “religions” but had questions they just couldn’t answer to my satisfaction. It wasn’t untill I turly begged God to show me what truth was and relied only on what I knew was His word through the written scriptures. I stayed with scripture because I understood that even during the time of the apostles error was creeping in which they corrected often. I knew that with them gone there really wasn’t anyone truly trustworthy who had personally been taught by Jesus. That’s where my name CynicalBear comes from. I am Cynical of any writings or teachings after the apostles. If I can’t verify with what they taught I don’t ascribe to it.
I never say him do so before, and it i easy to forget, but that is encouraged:
“What I would suggest, if you wish to cut down on your response time, is to steal stuff from other folks. Steal things from my newsletters. Go to Catholic.com (Catholic Answers website) and use their search engine to look for articles on whatever topic you’re discussing. Don’t hesitate to lift verbiage from an article here and an article there.
If you want to cite your source fine, but if you want to leave that out- I don’t see any problem, as long as you’re doing it in private correspondence.” (Apologetics for The Masses by John Martignoni, http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=2550)
I see a lot of dysfunction in our society. Broken families leave children way too vulnerable. I love the Catholic church that saved me from a broken family, and believe that there but for the grace of God go I. We are all called to evangelize, and it begins in our homes, with our example. I pray that you keep your homes with love, and with God, in whatever faith helps you follows His truths, beginning with our families. Sirach 3, is for all of us. Sirach, Chapter 3
RESPONSIBILITIES TO PARENTS*
1 Children, listen to me, your father; act accordingly, that you may be safe.
2 For the Lord sets a father in honor over his children and confirms a mother’s authority over her sons.
3 Those who honor their father atone for sins; 4 they store up riches who respect their mother. 5 Those who honor their father will have joy in their own children, and when they pray they are heard. 6 Those who respect their father will live a long life; those who obey the Lord honor their mother.
7 Those who fear the Lord honor their father, and serve their parents as masters.
8 In word and deed honor your father, that all blessings may come to you.a 9 A father’s blessing gives a person firm roots, but a mother’s curse uproots the growing plant.b 10 Do not glory in your father’s disgrace, for that is no glory to you!
11 A father’s glory is glory also for oneself; they multiply sin who demean their mother.c
12 My son, be steadfast in honoring your father; do not grieve him as long as he lives.d
13 Even if his mind fails, be considerate of him; do not revile him because you are in your prime.
14 Kindness to a father will not be forgotten; it will serve as a sin offering—it will take lasting root.
15 In time of trouble it will be recalled to your advantage, like warmth upon frost it will melt away your sins.
16 Those who neglect their father are like blasphemers; those who provoke their mother are accursed by their Creator.e HUMILITY*
17 My son, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.
18 Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find mercy in the sight of God.† f
20 For great is the power of the Lord; by the humble he is glorified.
21 What is too sublime for you, do not seek; do not reach into things that are hidden from you.g
22 What is committed to you, pay heed to; what is hidden is not your concern.
23 In matters that are beyond you do not meddle, when you have been shown more than you can understand.
24 Indeed, many are the conceits of human beings; evil imaginations lead them astray. DOCILITY*
25 Without the pupil of the eye, light is missing; without knowledge, wisdom is missing.
26 A stubborn heart will fare badly in the end; those who love danger will perish in it.
27 A stubborn heart will have many a hurt; adding sin to sin is madness.
28 When the proud are afflicted, there is no cure; for they are offshoots of an evil plant.h
29 The mind of the wise appreciates proverbs, and the ear that listens to wisdom rejoices.
It is this post: http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=2816599&postcount=4
But maybe they are one and the same person.
My understanding is the attributions are for the FR RM’s benefit to check for copyright violations.
Simply posting stuff without attribution doesn’t automatically tell you that it’s OK, like the guy you cited says it is.
That’s good info for the RM to know, but still, without attribution, there’s no way of knowing it IS OK.
Not entirely correct. He may not have an opportunity to accomplish a formal conversion, but Christ will give him an opportunity to convert in his heart as he dies. That is the meaning of impossibility of salvation outside the Church.
Sure it is.
Then WHO is going to be raised from the graves???
That is bad. This is something we can learn from the Protestants: they do a lot with the truncated faith of theirs, while we have been given so much and share our faith just barely. Also, we must remember that for one hostile propagandist who will never learn anything there are dozens who read the thread and for them, the seed falls in the right place.
Don’t get too irritated
I simply don't always have time and some posts seem like waste of my time. I think I gave this thread an honest effort.
Two paintings from my favorite Protestant follow.
I limit my posting here on FR for the exact reason.
Daily Mass, Eucharistic Adoration,Praying Rosaries ,Divine Mercy Chaplet,The Chaplet of Saint Michael,Morning and Evening prayers, all these trump FR posting for me. Heck,even walking the dog trumps FR for me these days too.
I'm convinced that rehashing some of the same things over and over here on FR is the devil's distraction.
As a good ole friend of yours and mine recently said..."let the heathens rage" .
I've heard it said that the opposite of love is NOT hate but indifference. Hate is a strong feeling and it indicates that there is an emotional response. There is a thin line between hate and love. We can love someone strongly and get angry enough that we think we hate them. If there were no emotion involved at all, one would just be indifferent. I sincerely believe that there is not one person on this thread who "hates" Catholics. If we truly did not love nor care about the salvation of others, we would never bother to come on these threads and dispute with them. Their salvation would be of no concern of ours and we wouldn't care less what they believed because if we didn't love them, our indifference would have us not bother to try to talk about the truth. I, obviously, cannot talk about another's inward heart motivations, but I can assure you I do not hate anyone.
As to your contention that there are no anti-Protestant hate sites out there created by Catholics, you must have missed the many that get excerpted here on any given day and which cause the heated arguments we find ourselves making to dispute them. I guess hate is a relative term. If you are a Catholic and you are fighting against non-Catholics over doctrinal differences, you aren't "hating" on them, you are trying to correct them. But if a non-Catholic Christian comes on here and disputes over Catholic doctrine they think is wrong and spiritually damaging, they are haters. Is this your view? Don't you see how inequitable it is to think this way?
If people come onto a Religion Forum thread to discuss the topic of the thread, they should be able to do so without the accusation of hate being suggested is their motivation. If we didn't care about souls, we wouldn't bother. THAT'S really the opposite of love - indifference.
Actually, it is not only for the RM, but a warranted courtesy to source who created it, or supplied it, and is a safeguard against copyright claims, as the “fair use” clause, while somewhat ambiguous in details, allows at least portions of copyrighted material to be used in works of news, commentary, parody, education.., with non-profit use having the most favor.
This is a large issue today, as some ppl make their living with power tools, etc., others with a pen or keyboard, and while a car cannot be reproduced at little expense, software, books or articles which an author depends on for income can be, and every copy given away can reduce his income.
Of course, it can increase his reputation also and which in turn can increase his income. My own thoughts are that if you post it on the Internet, expect and allow people to make copies (plural, due to vulnerability of data) for their household, and share at lest some of it, but for free and unchanged and with attribution, and without selling it.
And for those in Christian ministry free sharing should esp. be allowed, and those who prohibit and criminalize free sharing as described should not be in Christian ministry, but those who make money off it without permission should suffer worse.
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