Derail thread on Mary

[mossrose]

To deny that Mary had any role in our salvation is to deny that Jesus was born of her.

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.

Agreed. That in no way diminishes her role, however. (As an aside, the dogma of the immaculate conception is a logical consequence of St. Augustine's doctrine of original sin).

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.

When Mary bore the Son of God in her womb, she was literally a living temple of God. How can you not respect that?

Scripture says all believers bodies are to be temples of God. We are used in different ways. And I don't disrespect the fact that Mary bore the Son of God in her womb. I disrespect how Catholics and others venerate her and make her almost equal to Christ for doing so.

When your mind is made up, there is no room for the Spirit to work.

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

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

[Spartacus]

None of those statements as such were infallible simply by merit of JPII saying them, though I daresay all of them are nonetheless defensible.

I believe I already pointed this out, but the Immaculate Conception-- the idea that Mary was, by the Grace of God, conceived without original sin-- was infallibly defined in the mid 19th century.

[mossrose]

Here are some things I have learned about JPII's devotion to Mary. I don't have the references anymore because I did this study a long time ago before everything was available on the internet.

If post-JPII Catholics disagree with any of this, then how could you consider this man God's (or maybe I should say, Mary's) authority on earth?

JP II believed these things about Mary.

--After his mother died when he was 8, he developed an intense devotion to Mary. When he became pope in 1978 he formally rededicated himself and his whole pontificate to Mary. He traveled around the world making numerous visits to various Marian shrines so he could venerate her in the fashion that Catholic theology calls him to -- “hyperdulia” -- a higher veneration than the angels receive. Following his example, millions of Catholics made Mary the primary focus of their lives and prayers because of his example.

--His papal crest, or coat of arms, was a huge “M” for Mary. His coffin was decorated with a large “M”.

-- His personal slogan, which was embroidered into all his papal robes in Latin, translates to “I am totally yours, Mary”. These are also the opening words of his last will and testament, and in that document he says, “I place this moment (of my death) in the hands of the mother of my master. In the same maternal hands I leave everything and everyone to whom I have been connected by my life and my vocation. In these hands I leave above all the church, and also my nation, and all of humanity. Each of us has to keep in the mind the prospect of death. I, too, take this into consideration constantly, entrusting that decisive moment to the mother of Christ, and of the church, to the mother of my hope………Victory, when it comes, will come through Mary.”

May, 1997 -- Message to general audience…..”The history of Christian piety teaches that Mary is the way which leads to Christ.”

After the failed assassination attempt in 1981, he credited Mary with saving his life. In 1992 and 1994, on the anniversary of the assassination attempt, he made special pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima to offer ceremonial prayers of thanksgiving to Mary.


He wrote the book, “John Paul II’s Book of Mary”. The ad copy inside the book says the book is for people “who seek a deeper relationship with Jesus and His mother.” The table of contents lists all the titles that the pope applied to Mary:

Gate of Heaven, Mediatrix of All Graces, Mirror of Perfection, Mother of the Church, Mother of Mercy, Pillar of Faith, Seat of Wisdom.

From the book:

--“Mary shares our human condition but in complete openness to the grace of God. Not having known sin, she is able to have compassion on every kind of weakness.” ( Why in her Magnificat did she call God her Saviour, then, if she never knew sin?)

--“She understands sinful man and loves him with a mother’s love. Precisely for this reason she is on the side of truth and shares the church’s burden in recalling always and to everyone the demands of morality.”

--“For every Christian, for every human being, Mary is the one who first believed, and precisely, with her faith as spouse and mother, she wishes to act upon all those who entrust themselves to her as her children. And it is well known that the more her children persevere and progress in this attitude, the nearer Mary leads them to the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

--”According to the belief formulated in the solemn documents of the Church, the glory of grace referred to in Eph. 1:6 (*to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved) is manifested in the “mother of God”, for the fact that she has been redeemed in a more sublime manner. As Christians raise their eyes with faith to Mary in the course of their earthly pilgrimages they strive together to increase in holiness. Mary, the exalted daughter of Zion, helps all her children wherever they may be, and whatever their condition, to find in Christ the path to the Father’s house. Nobody else can bring us, as Mary can, into the divine and human dimension of the mystery of the gospel.”

-- “We can turn to the blessed virgin, trustfully imploring her aid, in the awareness of the singular role entrusted to her by God, the role of Cooperator in Redemption, which she exercised throughout her life and in a special way at the foot of the cross.”

And, following JPII, Benedictus XVI, in his first statement as pope said, “I place the church and myself into the hands of Mary.”

Bold and italics here are mine.

[One Bad Pig]

Sorry. To say that any person plays any sort of role in our salvation is error.

To deny that Mary had any role in our salvation is to deny that Jesus was born of her.

She was the human vessel to carry the Saviour, but she needed Him the same as anybody else.

Agreed. That in no way diminishes her role, however. (As an aside, the dogma of the immaculate conception is a logical consequence of St. Augustine's doctrine of original sin).

She is blessed because of her willingness to obey God in this, but should not be venerated as she has been by the Catholics and Orthodox.

When Mary bore the Son of God in her womb, she was literally a living temple of God. How can you not respect that?

This is an unreconcilable point that can't be bridged by any ecumenism.

When your mind is made up, there is no room for the Spirit to work.

[Paprika]

But if one denies that the Virgin Mary was Mother of God

Only natural because 'mother' is so often connoted with 'source'.

[Spartacus]

We are all God's children

That's not quite an answer to my question. Does God use our love for each other as a way of drawing us closer to Him?

[mossrose]

Does your love for your children and grandchildren being you closer to God, or lead you further away from loving Him as you should?

What? I am talking about people praying to Mary to intercede for them with Christ, and ultimately, God the Father. I can pray to any person of the Trinity without having to ask another sinful human to do it for me. And although we often ask others to pray on our behalf, they are living people, not dead ones.

And Mary was another sinful human who I am certain would be telling people they are in error praying to her, venerating her, even paying the slightest bit of attention to her beyond what is told us about her in scripture, if she even cared about what we are doing.

She is likely too busy glorifying her Saviour to even have a single thought about anyone here, let alone intercede for anybody.

[rogue06]

Does your love for your children and grandchildren being you closer to God, or lead you further away from loving Him as you should?

We are all God's children

[Spartacus]

Does your love for your children and grandchildren being you closer to God, or lead you further away from loving Him as you should?

[mossrose]

Apologies for not responding sooner: long day at work and haven't been able to log in until a little while ago. Hopefully what I'm saying isn't too redundant with what Leon has said.

Cath and Leonhard are right to say that co-redemptrix and mediatrix are not infallibly defined, though the Immaculate Conception and Assumption both meet the criteria for papal infallibility. We can get to those later, and no doubt you already have objections to at least the former (Romans 3:23, anyone?), but I think it's better to start with the earlier stuff. Incidentally, if any of y'all are looking for a readable book on mariology, the 3-part series Mary, Mother of the Son by Mark Shea is an exploration by an evangelical convert to Catholicism of the Church's teachings about Mary. Shea himself has no particular devotion to Mary: the book is his attempt to make sense of why other people do (iirc, the 3rd book is explicitly an exploration of the marian dogmas: I may well dig up my copy and refer to it if this conversation goes on long enough). That said, let's dive in.

The title of theotokos was officially recognized by an ecumenical council as a definitive repudiation of Nestorianism and an unequivocal commitment to the truth of the Incarnation: that Jesus was fully God and fully human. Saying that Mary is the mother of God is saying that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, that the divine and human were truly united in the person of Christ. To deny that Mary gave birth to God is to deny that Christ was fully and truly divine. The title, "Mother of God," in other words, says more about Jesus than it does about Mary.

I happen to believe that this pattern holds for other marian doctrines and dogmas: when we talk about Mary, we're fortifying our commitment to some other significant theological or soteriological concept. Or, as Mary herself put it, her soul magnifies the Lord. The immaculate conception and the assumption, as I understand them, point us toward a better understanding of the Church and of God's infinitely loving plan, but I think it's better if we just focus for now on the title of "Theotokos". Mossy, do you have any further questions about that title?

My issues go way beyond the title. I appreciate you all trying to enlighten me, but I have far more problems with the veneration given to her. We can discuss the title till heck freezes over but it doesn't change in the slightest the veneration given to her. And the prayers to her.

I have a friend who was once a nun. She told me that Catholics pray to Mary because God is unapproachable and Christ is somewhat aloof, but God can't resist the Son and the Son can't resist His mother. So they pray to Mary to intercede with Christ.

Does not compute.

Look. Most of you know that I have issues with Catholicism. I have gone into it in detail in the past, and I know that none of us are going to change our minds.......at least I am not. I just don't understand how, if you are reading scripture, you can believe some of this stuff.

And I am not trying to insult anybody. I am very fond of you all, and I am troubled to think that so many here that I care about are, in my mind, being led astray by sometimes nothing more than tradition.

I challenge you to really get into scripture, line it up with what the RCC says, and then decide what you think is the truth.

And it isn't just issues with Mary. It is the priesthood, the pope, the eucharist, everything.

[Spartacus]

Thirdly, ESPECIALLY LATELY: Pope Francis while definately a man of the people, has changed the morals of divorce, homosexuality, environmentalism, birth control and even abortion and birth control in away that the Church has long held Traditional interpretations of scripture.

If I can be forgiven for setting aside the rest of your post and personal story, Cath, I think you've bought into a media narrative that quite simply isn't true. Pope Francis hasn't changed the Church's position on any of those issues. In almost every question of doctrine, he is following in the footsteps of JPII and Benedict XVI. His personality is quite different from theirs, and his articulation might therefore not be as precise and careful as we saw from his predecessors, but nowhere have I seen him reject established Church teaching.

[Spartacus]

Apologies for not responding sooner: long day at work and haven't been able to log in until a little while ago. Hopefully what I'm saying isn't too redundant with what Leon has said.

Cath and Leonhard are right to say that co-redemptrix and mediatrix are not infallibly defined, though the Immaculate Conception and Assumption both meet the criteria for papal infallibility. We can get to those later, and no doubt you already have objections to at least the former (Romans 3:23, anyone?), but I think it's better to start with the earlier stuff. Incidentally, if any of y'all are looking for a readable book on mariology, the 3-part series Mary, Mother of the Son by Mark Shea is an exploration by an evangelical convert to Catholicism of the Church's teachings about Mary. Shea himself has no particular devotion to Mary: the book is his attempt to make sense of why other people do (iirc, the 3rd book is explicitly an exploration of the marian dogmas: I may well dig up my copy and refer to it if this conversation goes on long enough). That said, let's dive in.

The title of theotokos was officially recognized by an ecumenical council as a definitive repudiation of Nestorianism and an unequivocal commitment to the truth of the Incarnation: that Jesus was fully God and fully human. Saying that Mary is the mother of God is saying that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, that the divine and human were truly united in the person of Christ. To deny that Mary gave birth to God is to deny that Christ was fully and truly divine. The title, "Mother of God," in other words, says more about Jesus than it does about Mary.

I happen to believe that this pattern holds for other marian doctrines and dogmas: when we talk about Mary, we're fortifying our commitment to some other significant theological or soteriological concept. Or, as Mary herself put it, her soul magnifies the Lord. The immaculate conception and the assumption, as I understand them, point us toward a better understanding of the Church and of God's infinitely loving plan, but I think it's better if we just focus for now on the title of "Theotokos". Mossy, do you have any further questions about that title?

[Leonhard]

Sorry. To say that any person plays any sort of role in our salvation is error.

Did anyone ever teach you to pray and had a proximate hand in your coming to know God?

It wasn't all you and God alone. Some printed the Bible you read and someone translated it.

Are humans the source of our salvation? No of course not. But we do coorporate with God. The Virgin Mary is the single greatest example of this. She believed in Christ before anyone else, and stood at the foot of the Cross along with those who loved him the most.

She was the human vessel to carry the Saviour,

This makes her His Mother.

but she needed Him the same as anybody else.

This has always been affirmed by the Church. In the Canticle of Mary she even says it herself "...for He has looked with favour on His lowly servant."

She is blessed because of her willingness to obey God in this,

Amen!

but should not be venerated as she has been by the Catholics and Orthodox.

If one can't honour any saint for their actions, I'd agree you can't honour the Virgin Mary. If you ought to honour the saints, then you ought more than anyone else to honour the Virgin Mary for the grace God gave her.

This is an unreconcilable point that can't be bridged by any ecumenism.

There's no ecumenism about this. Protestants, and I've seen staunch Calvinists agree, that the Virgin Mary should be called Mother of God.

Both Luther and Calvin honoured her in their writings. Using both of the titles I've used in this discussion. And it goes back in the Church as we basically have writings on her. St Augustine painted her greater than I did here.

[mossrose]

the definition is Mary plays a small role in our salvation

Sorry. To say that any person plays any sort of role in our salvation is error.

She was the human vessel to carry the Saviour, but she needed Him the same as anybody else. She is blessed because of her willingness to obey God in this, but should not be venerated as she has been by the Catholics and Orthodox.

This is an unreconcilable point that can't be bridged by any ecumenism.

[Catholicity]

We can start with co-redemptrix.

Co redemptrix wasn't Dogma never defined, however I was never comfortable with this word as I felt it was very bad terminology. The definition is Mary plays a small role in our salvation as she agreed to undo Eve's "no" by agreeing to Bring our Lord Jesus into the world for our Salvation.
Now to address Mother of God: She bore Jesus who is God. The term denotes her role as the Earthly mother of Jesus who is God. Another term is God-bearer or Theotokos which may perhaps be more appropriate, that she bore God the Son in her womb. Hence the title of Reverence. I greatly appreciate this more than the co-redemptrix/mediatrix as I find Theotokos says enough about Mary's Role in God's Plan for salvation.