Acts 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
Now Acts chapter two is a referrence to the Holy Spirit and what will be.
I say that to say this.
In September 1953, Pope Pius XII inaugurated the Roman Catholic Church’s First Marian Year, or “Little Holy Year,” devoted to the Virgin Mary who had always been the object of his special veneration. He announced the Marian Year in his encyclical letter “Fulgens Corona”. Hundreds of thousands of Romans lined the route of the papal cortege when Pius XII, in one of his rare appearances in the streets of Rome, went to the Basilica of St. Mary Major to open the Marian Year on Dec. 8, 1953—the 99th anniversary of the proclaiming of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary by Pope Pius IX.
One hundred years before, Pius IX, surrounded by a vast retinue of Cardinals and Bishops, with infallible apostolic authority defined, pronounced and solemnly sanctioned in the dogmatic bull Ineffabilis Deus:
Dogmas and Doctrines
Mother of God • Perpetual virginity • Immaculate Conception • Assumption • Mother of the Church • Mediatrix • Co-Redemptrix
The doctrine, which holds that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary at the first moment of her conception was, by singular grace and privilege of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the Human race, preserved from all stains of original sin, is revealed by God, and therefore to be firmly and resolutely believed by all the faithful.
{The encyclicals states}, that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes herself seemingly wished to confirm the definition, since in less than four years in a French town of Lourdes, “the Virgin Mother, youthful and benign in appearance, clothed in a shining white garment, covered with a white mantle and girded with a hanging blue cord, showed herself to a simple and innocent girl at the grotto of Massabielle. And to this same girl, earnestly inquiring the name of her with whose vision she was favored, with eyes raised to heaven and sweetly smiling, she replied:
I am the Immaculate Conception.
This was properly interpreted by the faithful, who from all nations, and almost countless in number, flocked in pious pilgrimage to the grotto of Lourdes. This doctrine of the immaculate conception is based on Sacred Scripture and the early fathers. Though Thomas Aquinas himself did not support the doctrine of the immaculate conception, he does state that “The Blessed Virgin, because she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good, which is God” …and: “The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God: therefore, she is the purest and the most holy, so that under God a greater purity cannot be understood” (Cf. Summa Theologiae,
The encyclical notes that Non-Catholics and protestant reformers are mistaken when because of this pretext they find fault with, or disapprove of, our devotion to the Virgin Mother of God, as if it took something from the worship due to God alone and to Jesus Christ. The contrary is true because “any honor and veneration which we may give to our Heavenly Mother undoubtedly redounds to the glory of her Divine Son, not only because all graces and all gifts, even the highest, flow from Him as from their primary source, but also because “The glory of children are their fathers”
Pope Pius XII links the solemn definition of the Immaculate Conception with his dogma of the corporal Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven. It seems to him, that the faithful can with greater and better reason turn their minds and hearts to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. For the two dogmas are intimately connected in close bond. And now that the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven has been promulgated and shown in its true light—that is, as the crowning and complement of the prior privilege bestowed upon her—there emerge more fully and more clearly the wonderful wisdom and harmony of the Divine plan, by which God wishes the most blessed Virgin Mary to be free from all stain of original sin.
It seems that the Blessed Virgin Mary herself wished to confirm by some special sign the definition, which the Vicar of her Divine Son on earth had pronounced amidst the applause of the whole Church. For indeed four years had not yet elapsed when, in a French town at the foot of the Pyrenees, the Virgin Mother, youthful and benign in appearance, clothed in a shining white garment, covered with a white mantle and girded with a hanging blue cord, showed herself to a simple and innocent girl at the grotto of Massabielle. And to this same girl, earnestly inquiring the name of her with whose vision she was favored, with eyes raised to heaven and sweetly smiling, she replied: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Fulgens Corona Encyclical of Pope Pius XII
on another thread, a poster, stated that the dogmas relating to our Blessed Mother were “wildly un biblical.” to go into this would have derailed that particular thread, and out of respect to the posters wishes not to pursue this debate, i have decided it would be interesting to hear from anybody at all, Catholic or protestant who believe that the Marian dogmas are un biblical. i myself, do not see them as such. when a side by side comparison is made between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant. there is a very strong parallel. when we read o.t. accounts, about solomon for example, and bathsheba( the queen mother, who had her sons ear) there seems to be a deeper meaning pointing to another Mother and Her Son, and how She would intercede to Him on our behalf. just a few examples. feel free to come up with your own. its wide open. the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, the assumption into heaven. all of it. peace to all of us, and may this be a friendly discussion.