Derail thread on Mary

[37818]

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[One Bad Pig]

It is not denying that Jesus was born of her. It is denying that she has anything to do with our salvation other than allowing herself to be used within God's will. It does not call for veneration of her in any other way.

And by allowing herself to be used, she assisted in our salvation.

It only diminishes her role in the sense that that is ALL she did. She didn't and doesn't do anything else for us.

Untrue. Mary intercedes, and has interceded, for people. There are many miraculous icons of Mary which have worked cures through her intercession - not only physical, but spiritual healing as well. Muslim men who were moments earlier denouncing icons as blasphemous do not break down weeping in front of one and subsequently announce that Jesus is Lord without intercession (a potentially deadly heart defect was healed simultaneously, to boot). The saints also intercede for us.

Scripture says all believers bodies are to be temples of God. We are used in different ways.

Yes, but she was used uniquely. No one else was, or ever will be, the temple of the Incarnate Lord.

And I don't disrespect the fact that Mary bore the Son of God in her womb.

Yet Protestants in general tend to downplay that fact.

I disrespect how Catholics and others venerate her and make her almost equal to Christ for doing so.

As a former Protestant, I am highly conscious of the fact that I do not make her almost equal to Christ, though I do venerate her and the rest of the saints.

And when your mind is not made up, there is lots of room for error to creep in.

The Holy Spirit can protect against that, yes?

AND, I am pretty certain that your mind is as made up as mine is. So, sauce for the gander.....

Well, I converted (from growing up Independent Fundamental Baptist, no less), so there's that.

[robrecht]

I see nothing in scripture that says the saints in heaven DO love an care about us. Can you show me where in scripture it says that? Oh, and I will not accept the Apocrypha as part of scripture.

I don't believe in throwing out scriptures that don't agree with my theology. And I do think there are other sources and methods for good theology in addition to scripture, pared down or complete. I can't think of any reason why the saints in heaven would not continue to love and care for their brothers and sisters in Christ, all mankind, and all creation. God loves us; why wouldn't all the angels and saints in heaven love us? Are they not more like unto God than we? And we are obligated to love our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are not praising as they do in heaven. We are bound by time and space and can't even comprehend what praising Him in heaven will be like.

And yet you claim to know that they are too busy to care about us any more.

THEY are certainly not praising as we do. And they aren't praying FOR US.

How can you be so sure of this?

Show me from scripture where it says the saints in heaven pray for those on earth.

Let's assume for the sake of discussion, there is nothing in the books of scripture that you accept as scripture that says this. That would not mean that something is not true or possibly true. The New Testament scriptures were written by members of the church, produced by communal traditions that were eventually written down. Why divorce the scriptures from church tradition?

[Adrift]

Thanks for the links Adrift, I took a while writing this reply to Mossy and its 2:30am (woke up and couldn't fall to sleep). I'll check those blogs tomorrow, I appreciate you finding those examples.

You're welcome. The blogs are clearly by lay people who don't seem very deep on the theological aspects of their faith (of course), but having been raised in Catholic neighborhoods (mostly Portuguese and Irish) with close Catholic friends, these sort of lay comments (sadly) don't surprise me at all.

[Pentecost]

There is no issue of subscribing to any form of soul-sleep. We believe the saints (all of Christ's children are saints, not just those the Catholic church designates), who have died are alive and in spirit with Christ, and will, at the last day, receive their glorified bodies. To deny the veneration of Mary and all saints is correct, scripturally. And I will continue to point it out as error within the Catholic church.

It is error to pray to dead saints because they are unaware of us, and therefore cannot intercede as a living saint can. Not because those who pray to them and respect them are committing idolatry. It's pointless, but not sinful.

Then I guess you cannot agree with me.

Unfortunately.

The problem comes when lay people DO know what the RCC teaches and accept it as fact without going into scripture to study it for themselves. And that has been a huge problem for hundreds of years. Why do you think Latin was used so much for the masses performed by priests, and why do you think there was such dismay among the leaders of the RCC when the Bible was made readily available for the people to read for themselves? They didn't want the scriptures, the actual word of God, to interfere with their "traditions" set up by themselves to benefit the church, not the people. They were no better than the Pharisees of Jesus' time, who used religion as a hammer against the people to enrich themselves, and they kept the people away from the truth that Jesus came to present.

I recognize that there was a need for the Reformation, and to a lesser extent a need to Protest even today, I refuse to submit myself to the Pope as the heir of Peter and God's singular emissary on Earth, but I have met and I expect I will continue to meet those within the RCC those whom I know to be a brother or sister, not just because they claim to believe much of what I believe but because the love of Christ flows out of them in such a way that cannot be faked.

If you know Catholics who deny some of the teachings at issue, and claim to have "saving faith", then please ask them what they are still doing in the Catholic church? And if they hold to the traditional teachings on these beliefs, then I would question their salvation.

They claim they are Christians and more than that I can tell they are simply by interacting with them. I would expect that you've felt kinship with a brother or sister of the faith beyond what you would expect simply from a normal human interaction? I could be wrong about this, but I have met people and have instantly recognized them as Christian, this does not always happen, but one woman I met recently for example was as close to me as my own sister minutes after we started talking and praying together (outside her house). The Holy Spirit testified to our communion, and I've experienced this with self proclaimed Catholics as well. I understand that this isn't a particularly strong argument, and I will step away from now, but it has convinced me that fellowship with Catholics is possible even if we don't like their doctrines.

[Leonhard]

Thanks for the links Adrift, I took a while writing this reply to Mossy and its 2:30am (woke up and couldn't fall to sleep). I'll check those blogs tomorrow, I appreciate you finding those examples.

[Leonhard]

Can you show me, from scripture, not tradition, that the saints in heaven intercede for us.

I've done so, it happens to be from Scripture you don't recognise. I can give you more, of course, there's talk of the prayers of the Saints in the Book of Revelations. Saints in Heaven don't pray for themselves. They don't see to, they have everything that could possible be given to them and that they merit to get as a reward for their good deeds in Christ's name while on Earth. So it goes to reason that if they pray for anyone, they pray for those for whom those prayers would help. There's multiples of other places that hammer home the point that the Saints are alive, now, in the presence of God. That we're all surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, etc...

She did not suffer as a martyr when Christ died! She suffered as a mother would over her dead child!

Agreed, which means she suffered more than any martyr. Jesus, who hung on the cross, was her son. She loved Him more than any other Christian.

And that suffering has NO merit whatsoever for her to obtain grace for herself OR her "children"!

Under protestant thought, no one can earn merit of any kind whatsoever.

And the Catholic Church agrees with one part of this, and distinguishes between condign merit and congruent merit. Condign merit is basically the reward our actions deserve in and of itself. This is always little, finite and doesn't extend much beyond natural blessings connected to that work. If you're industrious, you get a lot of things done, etc... the question about eternal merit, meriting salvation, meriting increase in the beatitudes, meriting rewards in Heaven, this is not something we can earn qua our small, imperfect and finite deeds. However the Bible clearly teaches that we need to work for our salvation, that without works our faith is dead. It also clearly teaches that we're rewarded by God for our fidelity, in a manner proportionate to our obedience and conformity to His will. Especially in Heaven any Saint joy will be proportionate to the works he did while on Earth.

Furthermore God listens favourable to the prayers of a just man. Which implies the more holy you are, the more favour you have with God. So qua the merit we earn, our prayers, if they conform to the will of God, will have greater efficacy because of God's Justice and Mercy.

God doesn't have to give congruent merit to our actions. That's a reward for our behaviour which He gives superabundantly out of His goodness. However it is also true that if He didn't give it, we couldn't even be saved, because to have your sins forgiven even once in your life (much less the many times you'll be asking for it) is a grace so infinitely great that nothing we can do could earn it. We can't save ourselves on our own merit.

So I don't see how it would be possible to assert, without denying scripture, that the virgin Mary would occupy only a relatively unimportant position in Heaven, or that she'd be left without merit beyond her salvation, or that she wouldn't have favour with God and therefore be able to intercede. In fact, there's basically no Saint possible who could be higher than her. I have no doubt that in Heaven, if you saw the virgin Mary, and tried to spot St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John, they would be like three small stars next to the moon in the sky.

The question is whether suffering obtains merit. I'll offer that it does, it was the way Christ obtained infinite merit and pleased His Father, repaying him superabundantly for our crimes. When we suffer, especially when Mary suffered, there can be in that (depending on the disposition of the person) a conformity to the Will of God. Uniting yourself to Christ on the Cross.

She cannot obtain grace for anybody!

If her prayers can't obtain grace from Christ for others, then you have no business praying for anyone ever again. Pray for yourself, but not your children. And yet Christ told the women, while on His way to the Cross, to pray for their children. I say He was willing to listen to their prayers. The same goes with His mother.

She cannot obtain repentance or conversion!

You don't pray that someone else will be converted? If you do, do you think you're doing so in vain and that God doesn't listen?

It is the Holy Spirit who draws us to Christ, and indwells us so that we are conscious of sin in our lives.

Amen.

Show me in scripture where Mary does all these things.

Sola scriptura is a false doctrine, even so I've shown you enough for you to interact with.

And I must say, that at the wedding at Cana, Jesus was distancing Himself from Mary. She came to Him, said, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” This terminology had the effect of distancing Himself from His mother, and would have been about the same as Him saying, "Ma'am". While Jesus was not being rude, He was being rather abrupt.

Did Jesus do as she requested?

Mary needed to realize at that point that she ought to be recognizing Jesus not as the son she had raised, but as the promised Messiah and Son of God, and that He had entered into the reason for His mission on earth.

Mary was the first to believe. There's no evidence that she didn't believe this at this point. I think it was done more for our sake than for hers, but I agree with you. Up until this point he's lived so much as a human that aside from not sinning (and what a difference that would be!), His divinity wasn't seen. This is it, now He's invoking His divine title. It means His mission is beginning, which is probably why God had Him come to this wedding in the first place, and moved the virgin Mary to say what she did.

Remember also that it was St. John who wrote this, who went to live with the virgin Mary, and he calls her the Mother of Jesus. If Mary did not consider herself the mother of Jesus, or even if she did in feeble error (if that could be possible) then the Holy Spirit would have corrected him. However he didn't. Mary was the Mother of Jesus.

And lets not forget that the virgin Mary gives her famous answers to the servants "His mother said to the servants, Whatsoever he says to you, do it." Which is another part of Marian devotion, its constant focus on obeying Christ in everything He teaches, and to repent of sins.

How can I use scripture? You need to use scripture to prove to ME that what you believe about Mary is true. I can't find enough about her in scripture to even scratch the surface of what you are trying to tell me. It just isn't there.

I'd say its there, explicitly or implicitly. Which again leaves us with one subjective interpretation against another. If only God had given us a divinely inspired way of knowing how things are to be read on certain critical issues, so we could recognise error, and be one in the way that Christ prayed that we would be...

I know its not that easy, right now I'm content explaining Catholic positions on these things, and offering the scripture the Church Fathers walked through as well.

And tradition? Nope. I will not follow tradition before scripture.

I wouldn't either, if there was a contradiction between tradition and scripture, so much worse for tradition. Though actually scripture is considered part of the tradition, though a pre-eminent part.

Because if he is REALLY interpreting the scriptures and not tradition, he will get down on his knees and repent for worshiping Mary and all the other saints, and leading millions upon millions of people astray in the process, instead of giving all glory to Jesus Christ, the ONLY Redeemer, the ONLY path to heaven. Who needs no help from His earthly mother to gather His children in.

Of course Christ needs no help from His Mother. Nor does He need prayers. He doesn't need Bibles. He doesn't need Church buildings. Worship music. He doesn't need tweb. He doesn't need us. Whatever He does He does because He wants to and out of the goodness of His Sacred Heart and Infinite Mercy and Unfathomable Wisdom. He wants us to pray to Him and to give Him worship, because its what we're made for, He wants us to experience the joy that comes from knowing Him. If He wants us to pray vocally, its because he made that one means of reaching Him. If the Bible exists, its because He wanted this to be a way for believers to come to know Him, rather than simple imparting inspired knowledge directly. He wants tweb to exist, because it does, and probably because of conversations like this one.

If He gave us His Mother for ours, then there was a reason for it. Christ, while on Earth, didn't perform as much as a single insignificant miracle that didn't teach us something. St. John didn't even call them miracles but signs. Likewise he wasn't exactly a man of vain words. There's been no disagreements between Christians until the protestants came on the scene, Christ gave his Mother Mary as a gift to the Church, as our Mother, and expressed final honours to her before His death.

Finally Catholics do not worship the Virgin Mary. We do not attribute to her things that are the sole prerogative of God. We don't honour her for things one could only honour God for. We call to her for our intercession, and we honour the things God did for her. All gifts freely given, undeserved on her part. She did not deserve to be born without sin, or to be kept free from sin all her life, or even while in that supremely clean state (last held by Eve after her creation) to have the Word of God incarnate within her, or having done that to raise the Child Jesus herself with St. Joseph, there's no way she could have merited the joys this gave her, or to be able to endure the sufferings that came with it, to become a gift as the Mother of the Church, to nurse the growing Church in Ephesus, to finally be assumed into Heaven and keep doing what she had always done, help the Church come to know her Son.

Is acknowledging this honouring the Virgin Mary greatly? Yes of course it is. However the Virgin Mary had nothing of this on her own. Her soul magnifies the Lord. However great I honour the Virgin Mary, it just means that Jesus her Son, is so much more infinitely great. So great Marian devotion, goes hand in hand, with deep reverence of Christ.

It certainly kills what I call best-buddy-Jesus syndrome.

Mary is the wrong place to search for idolatry in the Church. If there's one place where this could take place its the Eucharist. I'd have a harder time defending that. Not because its inconsistent with the Bible, or because its logically impossible, but because its hard to defend that Christ would love us enough to do something like that. That's the only place where occasionally a flies across my mind if what I'm doing is idolatry.

[mossrose]

Wait, are people denying Mary as Theokotos?

And denying veneration of the saints without appealing to an orthodox form of soul-sleep?

There is no issue of subscribing to any form of soul-sleep. We believe the saints (all of Christ's children are saints, not just those the Catholic church designates), who have died are alive and in spirit with Christ, and will, at the last day, receive their glorified bodies. To deny the veneration of Mary and all saints is correct, scripturally. And I will continue to point it out as error within the Catholic church.

My fellow Protestants, if you are attacking the official RCC positions I cannot be in agreement with you.

Then I guess you cannot agree with me.

On the other hand if you are attacking the tendency of RCC lay people to know nothing of what the RCC teaches, then you have a bit of a point. I have met multiple Catholics who I know to have saving faith and they all either deny some of the teachings at issue, or hold to a proper and traditional teaching on these beliefs.

The problem comes when lay people DO know what the RCC teaches and accept it as fact without going into scripture to study it for themselves. And that has been a huge problem for hundreds of years. Why do you think Latin was used so much for the masses performed by priests, and why do you think there was such dismay among the leaders of the RCC when the Bible was made readily available for the people to read for themselves? They didn't want the scriptures, the actual word of God, to interfere with their "traditions" set up by themselves to benefit the church, not the people. They were no better than the Pharisees of Jesus' time, who used religion as a hammer against the people to enrich themselves, and they kept the people away from the truth that Jesus came to present.

If you know Catholics who deny some of the teachings at issue, and claim to have "saving faith", then please ask them what they are still doing in the Catholic church? And if they hold to the traditional teachings on these beliefs, then I would question their salvation.

[Adrift]

Again, vague insinuations. This isn't really an argument I have to acknowledge. Is it that hard to think of a concrete example?

I mean...just a quick google search brings up a number of examples.

We worship God the father, God the son and God the holy spirit. This is the holy trinity. Yes we worship Mary being the mother of Jesus.

So do I worship Mary? Yes... but not as divinity... I worship her as the Mother of He whom I need for sustenance and subsistence.

Source: https://ourladyof.wordpress.com/

Admit That You Worship Her

“I do not worship her.” “She isn’t God.” “Guadalupe is just a woman.” These are all typical responses I get when I am talking to Latinos about Guadalupe. These objections arise when I try to articulate back what they have just told me about the Virgin. I’ll word things in a way they don’t like. They don’t want to be accused of worshiping Mary in any way. I often get treated to a lecture about how God and Jesus are the only people to be worshiped and Mary is just a helper or mediator for the people. ADMIT THAT YOU WORSHIP HER!

Would it really be that bad? Yes I worship Mary. She was the Mother of God and had to watch her son suffer and die. She began his ministry for him, at the wedding of Cana, and supported him throughout his life. Not only does she serve as an example for women she is an example of true faith. Add on top of that her appearance to Juan Diego in Mexico and we got ourselves a saint! Guadalupe’s influence over the natives of Mexico could arguably be the greatest conversion in Catholic history. What would be so wrong about worshiping her? Jesus didn’t come to Mexico, and if you think you can find God somewhere there then please show me. Guadalupe came though. She came for us when no one else did. And for that we should thank her and honor her.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: http://janiceweeklylife.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-i-worship-mother-mary.html

Why I Worship Mother Mary?

Basically she's the Mother of Jesus Christ & she was the chosen 1 so that's explaining that she was so pure that God the Father of Heaven had chosen her instead of any other women.

When it comes to my Mother, I adore her so much & I love her alot & she conceived me in a natural way. So wen it comes to my Saviour Jesus Christ who has died just to save us from hell, why can't I worship his Mother.

Earthly Mothers Children are all born as gift of Love that's natural but when Mother Mary conceived it was the obedience of God, isn't she a good example in our spiritual life so why shouldn't I worship her?

I don't think she had her own children after Jesus, it has never been proven & it doesn't bother me. If there is an acceptance of female Pastors then I don't really see a need to avoid Mother Mary who is gift to the world.

Earthly Mothers Are Mothers but if people are saying that Mother Mary shouldn't be worshipped b'coz she's just a tool then I presume it's just 'crab'.

Mother Mary also sacrificed her life for God & conceived Jesus Christ.

It's a very painful moment for a Mother when a child dies so how would it have been for Mother Mary to have seen her God given son to die such a torturous death.

In my 26years of worship life to Mother Mary she has never failed me in any way. So she does exist as a Mother of Heaven there's not a single reason as to why I shouldn't worship her.

© Copyright Original Source

There are plenty of people who worship Mary, whether explicitly or implicitly. When you have more than 1.2 billion members worldwide, many in places where public education is extremely low, and superstition is very high, it'd be the height of naivety to assume that there aren't Catholics who don't actively worship Mary in the way a god is normally worshiped. To deny this doesn't seem very sincere. Surely we can all agree that there are many Protestants who hold to unorthodox beliefs, so it seems certain that there are Catholics that do so as well. The problem that many Protestants have with Catholicism and the Orthodox Church is that there doesn't seem to be any effort to remove that context or feel of worship away from Mary.

Official prayers like the following seem to incite Mary worship.

Source: http://www.marypages.com/PrayerstoMary.htm

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary 1

My Queen, my Mother, I give myself entirely to thee, and to show my devotion to thee, I consecrate to thee this day, my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my heart, my whole being without reserve.
Wherefore good Mother as I am thine own, keep me, guard me, as thy property and possession.
Amen.

© Copyright Original Source

I think for a lot of non-Catholics, the problem comes down to what we believe worship is. As Paprika pointed out, one could think Jesus is Lord, but through their actions, focus, and devotion, make money their Lord, or make their children their Lord, or make Mary their Lord. A lot of the issue I think comes down to what "devotion" means to either side. Is "devotion" a form of worship? Can "devotion" become a form of worship? When does "devotion" cross from non-worship to actual worship? Are there examples in pre-Christian history where "devotion" was done to idols, icons, and the like with the understanding that it wasn't actual worship of a god? Was their "devotion" still idolatry?

[mossrose]

I do not pretend to really know in any great detail what life is like in heaven, nor would I try to prove anything from one of your favorite hymns. I am not sure exactly what the nature of our mystical communion with the saints entails, but I see no biblical or other reason to exclude the fact that the saints in heaven love and care about us. Do you?

I see nothing in scripture that says the saints in heaven DO love an care about us. Can you show me where in scripture it says that? Oh, and I will not accept the Apocrypha as part of scripture.

Do you believe, along with the early church, that in the liturgy we pray and worship God together with all the angels and saints?

We are not praising as they do in heaven. We are bound by time and space and can't even comprehend what praising Him in heaven will be like. THEY are certainly not praising as we do. And they aren't praying FOR US. Show me from scripture where it says the saints in heaven pray for those on earth.

[mossrose]

Again, this comes from your belief that no saint in Heaven intercedes for us. I think that's a mistake.

Can you show me, from scripture, not tradition, that the saints in heaven intercede for us.

I know what you're saying, but I just told you earlier in this thread that she has no glory she didn't receive from her Son. While she likely suffered more than any martyr when He died on the cross, this merit would not be sufficient to obtain the forgiveness of even the smallest sinner. However, like with the wedding and Christ's first miracle, I do think she can obtain graces for her children, such as repentance, conversion, purity, and other things they need when they try to seek Christ's forgiveness.

She did not suffer as a martyr when Christ died! She suffered as a mother would over her dead child! And that suffering has NO merit whatsoever for her to obtain grace for herself OR her "children"! She cannot obtain grace for anybody! She cannot obtain repentance or conversion! It is the Holy Spirit who draws us to Christ, and indwells us so that we are conscious of sin in our lives. Mary does nothing!

Show me in scripture where Mary does all these things.

And I must say, that at the wedding at Cana, Jesus was distancing Himself from Mary. She came to Him, said, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” This terminology had the effect of distancing Himself from His mother, and would have been about the same as Him saying, "Ma'am". While Jesus was not being rude, He was being rather abrupt.

Mary needed to realize at that point that she ought to be recognizing Jesus not as the son she had raised, but as the promised Messiah and Son of God, and that He had entered into the reason for His mission on earth. And His hour of death and exaltation was not yet at hand. He was on God's divine timetable decreed before the foundation of the world. She was pushing it.....

So far you haven't represented what I believe, so I have no problem agreeing that some of the things you're talking about is false. However you're the one who's in error if you think the saints in Heaven don't pray for us, or that its somehow only the prayers of sinful humans on Earth who matter. You're also in error if you think the Virgin Mary won't intercede for us, or that if she does that there's anything her Son will refuse her.

I guess we won't agree here, because I believe that you are the one in error.

Since you're not using Scripture, I think in the end this is going to come down to a discussion of Tradition, and who has the authority to interpret it.

How can I use scripture? You need to use scripture to prove to ME that what you believe about Mary is true. I can't find enough about her in scripture to even scratch the surface of what you are trying to tell me. It just isn't there.

And tradition? Nope. I will not follow tradition before scripture. And I certainly will not follow a man elected by other men to be the "Vicar of Christ" (whatever that means), who claims to have authority to interpret the scriptures. Because if he is REALLY interpreting the scriptures and not tradition, he will get down on his knees and repent for worshiping Mary and all the other saints, and leading millions upon millions of people astray in the process, instead of giving all glory to Jesus Christ, the ONLY Redeemer, the ONLY path to heaven. Who needs no help from His earthly mother to gather His children in.

If you can prove any of what you believe, by scripture alone, I would be delighted to discuss it with you. But no tradition will work with me.

[Paprika]

If you want to keep up this discussion

I don't, really. As before I'd rather skip to the rhetoric.

[Leonhard]

Idolatry is first and foremost not only limited to ascription but action. Secondly it can can also be false attribution of other things not dignities or powers - worship, for example.

If you want to keep up this discussion, I'll say there's another thread for it now.

[Paprika]

I'm not sure we're in an entire agreement. You end it on a 'but yes', yet you also say that its not merely attributing 'the dignities and powers that belongs solely to God' to a creature. Or is that exactly what you're saying. I'm just confused here.

Idolatry is first and foremost not only limited to ascription but action. Secondly it can can also be false attribution of other things not dignities or powers - worship, for example.

[Leonhard]

This is the usual definition I go by.

Catholic Encyclopedia
"Idolatry etymologically denotes Divine worship given to an image, but its signification has been extended to all Divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God. St. Thomas (Summa Theol., II-II, q. xciv) treats of it as a species of the genus superstition, which is a vice opposed to the virtue of religion and consists in giving Divine honour (cultus) to things that are not God, or to God Himself in a wrong way. The specific note of idolatry is its direct opposition to the primary object of Divine worship; it bestows on a creature the reverence due to God alone."