Book, Behold Your Mother, by Tim Staples, Catholic Answers

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It seem that Mr. Staples stumbles and falls flat in his book, Behold Your Mother.

I ordered and have received two copies of his book, and I was stunned to see something strange confirmed that I saw in the preview at the amazon.com website. If you go there and do a “read inside” you will come to the lines in the brief introduction of his book:

“Mary, in a way, unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith: and when she is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father.” (emphasis added)p. 10 of the book. There is a footnote reference that this quote is from the documents of Vatican II edited by Austin Flannery, OP.

It is not so, as I will explain.

Well, I had to look this up. First, I downloaded Lumen Gentium from the EWTN website and looked at paragraph 65. In EWTN’s translation, the word substituted for “worship” above is “venerate.”

We venerate Mary, we do not worship her.

But, the problem is a bit more clumsy than that. Because “worship” is NOT the word used in Flannery’s book, either! The word used in the book edited by Flannery is “honor.”

That’s OK, too. We “honor” Mary.

I want to warn you about this, in case you want to do something like what I want to do, namely, to send this book to my evangelical Christian uncle.
**
YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO “WHITE-OUT” THE WORD “WORSHIP” AND WRITE IN THE WORD “HONOR”.**

I’ve only gotten as far as the introduction to the book, and I couldn’t rest until I wrote this post.

I can’t tell you if there are any other errors in his 352 page book.

"
 
sirach2v4 said:
It seem that Mr. Staples stumbles and falls flat in his book, Behold Your Mother.

I ordered and have received two copies of his book, and I was stunned to see something strange confirmed that I saw in the preview at the amazon.com website. If you go there and do a “read inside” you will come to the lines in the brief introduction of his book:

“Mary, in a way, unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith: and when she is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father.” (emphasis added)p. 10 of the book. There is a footnote reference that this quote is from the documents of Vatican II edited by Austin Flannery, OP.

It is not so, as I will explain.

Well, I had to look this up. First, I downloaded Lumen Gentium from the EWTN website and looked at paragraph 65. In EWTN’s translation, the word substituted for “worship” above is “venerate.”

We venerate Mary, we do not worship her.

But, the problem is a bit more clumsy than that. Because “worship” is NOT the word used in Flannery’s book, either! The word used in the book edited by Flannery is “honor.”

That’s OK, too. We “honor” Mary.

I want to warn you about this, in case you want to do something like what I want to do, namely, to send this book to my evangelical Christian uncle.
**
YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO “WHITE-OUT” THE WORD “WORSHIP” AND WRITE IN THE WORD “HONOR”.**

I’ve only gotten as far as the introduction to the book, and I couldn’t rest until I wrote this post.

I can’t tell you if there are any other errors in his 352 page book.

"
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Good luck reading that. You are braver than I am.
 
I don’t know what is the constant problem in english language with the term “worship”. In spanish is impossible to confuse “adoración” with “veneración”. They aren’t possible synonimous. No one says because it sounds very bad: “Adoramos a la virgen Maria” (We adore the Virgin Mary) but “Veneramos a Santa María y a los Santos” (We venerate Mary and the Saints). But in english the term “worship” has to have some broad connotation, because I’ve read sometimes as synonimous of veneration. Perhaps english speakers should use the term adoration rather worship, because it’s confuse.

PD: I don’t think Mr. Staples willingly stumbles and falls flat in his book:

youtube: /watch?v=MCWe10ypkvw#t=35m55s

The explanation is easily: There must to be a protestant-troll in the publisher 😃
 
I’ve read somewhere that it’s either a typo or a different meaning of the word worship. But most likely a typo.
 
Venerate and honor are all levels of worship. Dulia, hyper-dulia, latria… I think you know that.

Yeah, it is a poor choice of words for the modern reader but many writers of the past have said the same thing. Its just semantics. There is no need to resort to white-out or or 24 point bold font.

-Tim-
 
I think it was last week, approximately 1/21/15, that Mr Staples appeared with Fr Mitch Pacwa on EWTN Live, to discuss the book. You might be able to watch the program if you look it up at www.youtube.com/ewtn
 
sirach2v4 said:
It seem that Mr. Staples stumbles and falls flat in his book, Behold Your Mother.

I ordered and have received two copies of his book, and I was stunned to see something strange confirmed that I saw in the preview at the amazon.com website. If you go there and do a “read inside” you will come to the lines in the brief introduction of his book:

“Mary, in a way, unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith: and when she is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father.” (emphasis added)p. 10 of the book. There is a footnote reference that this quote is from the documents of Vatican II edited by Austin Flannery, OP.

It is not so, as I will explain.

Well, I had to look this up. First, I downloaded Lumen Gentium from the EWTN website and looked at paragraph 65. In EWTN’s translation, the word substituted for “worship” above is “venerate.”

We venerate Mary, we do not worship her.

But, the problem is a bit more clumsy than that. Because “worship” is NOT the word used in Flannery’s book, either! The word used in the book edited by Flannery is “honor.”

That’s OK, too. We “honor” Mary.

I want to warn you about this, in case you want to do something like what I want to do, namely, to send this book to my evangelical Christian uncle.
**
YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO “WHITE-OUT” THE WORD “WORSHIP” AND WRITE IN THE WORD “HONOR”.**

I’ve only gotten as far as the introduction to the book, and I couldn’t rest until I wrote this post.

I can’t tell you if there are any other errors in his 352 page book.

"
Click to expand...
I wonder if that was Tim, or some editor’s change…

🤷
 
The text in question, Lumen Gentium 65:
Maria enim, quae, in historiam salutis intime ingressa, maxima fidei placita in se quodammodo unit et reverberat, dum praedicatur et colitur
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, ad Filium suum Eiusque sacrificium atque ad amorem Patris credentes advocat.

There’s an archaic use of worship which means the honor given to someone in recognition of their merit.

The semantic range of the Latin third-person singular present passive indicative of colō (colitur) **includes **this sort of notion of worship, and is related to the word cult… (archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wordz.pl?keyword=colitur)

The semantic range of the above word does not include *to venerate.

*Therefore, the translation is correct.

HOWEVER, this translation would be widely misunderstood, since we don’t use “worship” in that sense any more.

Therefore, it is perfectly fine to make a non-literal, dynamic equivalent translation of *colitur *as implying veneration.

Tim is doing just fine here, and also elsewhere in this book, which I highly recommend.

If you’d like to hear speak about this, see his recent EWTN Live appearance:

youtu.be/MCWe10ypkvw?t=35m51s
 
sirach2v4 said:
It seem that Mr. Staples stumbles and falls flat in his book, Behold Your Mother.

I ordered and have received two copies of his book, and I was stunned to see something strange confirmed that I saw in the preview at the amazon.com website. If you go there and do a “read inside” you will come to the lines in the brief introduction of his book:

“Mary, in a way, unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith: and when she is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father.” (emphasis added)p. 10 of the book. There is a footnote reference that this quote is from the documents of Vatican II edited by Austin Flannery, OP.

It is not so, as I will explain.

Well, I had to look this up. First, I downloaded Lumen Gentium from the EWTN website and looked at paragraph 65. In EWTN’s translation, the word substituted for “worship” above is “venerate.”

We venerate Mary, we do not worship her.

But, the problem is a bit more clumsy than that. Because “worship” is NOT the word used in Flannery’s book, either! The word used in the book edited by Flannery is “honor.”

That’s OK, too. We “honor” Mary.

I want to warn you about this, in case you want to do something like what I want to do, namely, to send this book to my evangelical Christian uncle.
**
YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO “WHITE-OUT” THE WORD “WORSHIP” AND WRITE IN THE WORD “HONOR”.**

I’ve only gotten as far as the introduction to the book, and I couldn’t rest until I wrote this post.

I can’t tell you if there are any other errors in his 352 page book.

"
Click to expand...
In page scans of the Austin Flannery book at this anti-Catholic webpage, the word used is “worship” not honor.

I believe this is using the word “worship” in an old-fashioned sense in which it only means honor. This Catholic Answers tract explains that the word “worship” used to mean honor and gives examples showing this.
 
InNomineDomini said:
The text in question, Lumen Gentium 65:

There’s an archaic use of worship which means the honor given to someone in recognition of their merit.

The semantic range of the Latin third-person singular present passive indicative of colō (colitur) **includes **this sort of notion of worship, and is related to the word cult… (archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wordz.pl?keyword=colitur)

The semantic range of the above word does not include *to venerate.

*Therefore, the translation is correct.

HOWEVER, this translation would be widely misunderstood, since we don’t use “worship” in that sense any more.

Therefore, it is perfectly fine to make a non-literal, dynamic equivalent translation of *colitur *as implying veneration.

Tim is doing just fine here, and also elsewhere in this book, which I highly recommend.

If you’d like to hear speak about this, see his recent EWTN Live appearance:

youtu.be/MCWe10ypkvw?t=35m51s

This is an excellent explanation. Thank you.

All should read the post above. There is no need to overreact.

-Tim-
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Yeah, no need to get worked up over the word worship, although I think we should avoid it most of the time since it’s obviously something most people don’t quite grasp. The word has a broader history than most people use, today.

Or did we mean to call our judges gods, when we addressed them as “your worship”? Hah! No, the English language has just narrowed its usage of the term.

I’m sure if you go back far enough, you’ll see a point in history when people used the word “literally” to refer to things that were literal, and not figurative… weird huh!? :rolleyes:😃
 
Thank you all for your comments.

On my desk is apparently not the edition that was scanned for the anti-Catholic webpage. My personal copy is the first edition of the 1996 revision, which uses the word “honor.”

I’m about 60 pages into this very thoughtful book. I have a jittery personality and I go over the top when I see a mistake or an apparent mistake like I cited in my original post.

The use of the word “worship” in reference to Mary is not the modern doctrinal position of the Church, as I understand it, and I think it might stop a Protestant in his or her tracks as well.

OK, I see what the problem is here.

At the end of Staples book, he is referencing a different collection by Flannery than I have.

He is citing

Austin Flannery, ed, *Vatican Council II – The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents *(Boston, Mass, St. Paul Editions, Daughters of St. Pau), Vols 1-2 [note, the year of publication is not mentioned on page 349 of the book]

I am citing

Austin Flannery, O.P.,general editor, *The Basic Sixteen Documents of Vatican Council II, Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations *,Costello Publishing, 1996.

NOW I SEE that Staples citation might be accurate, I have no reason to doubt it, now. But, the use of the word “worship” is still controversial. ** If I had picked up Staples’ book in a store and read page 10, I would have set it down and walked away.**

As it actually is, I purchased two copies, and I feel entitled to offer some criticism of it.
 
sirach2v4

I put this link:

youtube.com/watch?v=MCWe10ypkvw#t=35m55s

when exactly a woman make mention to the word “worship” regards Mary and Tim Staples corrected her.

I’ve said this problem is exclusively in english language because for example in spanish there isn’t an equivalent translation to the verb “worship”, there is not any word with this ambigous sense, the translation is “adorar”, that match better with “to adore”.
 
sirach2v4.

You said:
I’m about 60 pages into this very thoughtful book. I have a jittery personality and I go over the top when I see a mistake or an apparent mistake like I cited in my original post.
Click to expand...
The use of the word “worship” in reference to Mary is not the modern doctrinal position of the Church, as I understand it, and I think it might stop a Protestant in his or her tracks as well.
Click to expand...
OK, I see what the problem is here.
Click to expand...
Very impressive humility here:thumbsup:. Good work sirach2v4!

I already put together something earlier so I will post it not for you sirach2v4 (you don’t need it), but for other readers of the thread that may happen upon here in the future so they don’t have to or readily can look it all up (I did some of the reference home work for them).

Keep up the good work sirach2v4.

God bless.

Cathoholic

PS I bought 2 copies too.
The latin word for worship due God alone is “latria”. If latria is given to anyone or anything else it is called idoLATRIA (idolatry).

Vatican II Lumen Gentium 65 is what Tim Staples is quoting.

The word “worship” can be used in other English-speaking cultures merely to mean venerate or cherish. That’s all it means here too.

We use similar words that have differing meanings based upon context.
  • I just “adore” our new baby. Or this or that actor or actress (Does that mean you give latria to the baby etc.? No!)
  • This is chocolate “to die for”! (Does that mean you are willing to be “martyred” on behalf of a chocolate bar? No!)
  • I think this kitten is just “adorable”. (Does infer animal worship? No!)
Tim Staples ALSO quotes Vatican II Lumen Gentium section 62 saying (bold mine). . .
No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer; but just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by his ministers and the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is radiated in different ways among his creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.
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Staples likewise has 2 segments (encompassing pp 282-289) discussing the differences of honor versus worship in the sense due God alone.
Here is the salient Vatican II passage for those interested.

Lumen Gentium (LG) 65 (Vatican translation here)

LG 65b. For Mary, who since her entry into salvation history unites in herself and re-echoes the greatest teachings of the faith as she is proclaimed and venerated, calls the faithful to her Son and His sacrifice and to the love of the Father.

Lumen Gentium 65b (Austin Flannery translation)

LG 65. Having entered deeply into the history of salvation, Mary, in a way, unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith: and when she is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father.

Lumen Gentium 65b (Latin translation from the Vatican here)

LG 65 Maria enim, quae, in historiam salutis intime ingressa, maxima fidei placita in se quodammodo unit et reverberat, dum praedicatur et colitur, ad Filium suum Eiusque sacrificium atque ad amorem Patris credentes advocat.

English word for the Latin word colitur = “cherished” here.
Some other translational sites just say: “worship” but don’t tell you what that means contextually.

Vatican Latin to English (Google Translate)

Latin

Maria enim, quae, in historiam salutis intime ingressa, maxima fidei placita in se quodammodo unit et reverberat, dum praedicatur et colitur, ad Filium suum Eiusque sacrificium atque ad amorem Patris credentes advocat

English translation (of Vatican Latin original)

Mary , (sic) who since her entry into salvation history , unites in herself and re-echoes the greatest of the faith as she is proclaimed and venerated, calls the faithful to her Son and His sacrifice and to the love of the Father

(English was from Google Translate)
google.com/#q=Latin+to+English
 
I am about 130 pages into the book and I am very impressed with Staples depth of research into each subject.

Regarding the annunciation, he shows how “full of grace” is actually a new name that the angel was addressing to Mary – which is why the gospel records that Mary was surprised and wondered what kind of greeting this could be. Read the book for the full delicious details.

A bit later, he is using typology to explain the Immaculate Conception, in a wonderfully revealing way.

I had to go online to find a scripture citation he referenced in the Book of Judith (13:23) , but the search was rewarded when I found exactly what he was referring to. He says his references are to the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition. I only have the “second” edition and could not locate the text he was referring to, except later, as I said, online.
 
I finished reading the book last evening. There was another instance in the book(page 156 or so) of citing the quotation in my original post, and, consistently, it used the word “worship” which seems to be referring to Mary.

Well, this was a first-time, once-through, push to the end type of reading. Its level of detail was, frankly, somewhat tedious, but thorough at the same time.

As an apologetics book, I think it conveys the message quite well. But, for a budding apologist, it seems like it would be hard to remember all the detail in the book, as the scriptural citations and discussion are quite involved. And, Staples uses his knowledge of Biblical Greek to get at the heart of the matter, which is to say, express the depth of the meaning of the scripture writer.

It has to be said, too, in regards to the apologetics itself, Staples uses principles established certain earlier teachings about Mary to develop those which he discusses later. It is natural to find the inter-relatedness and order of his discussion, which is a lesson in itself.

I am enriched and I am glad that I got two copies; it is my plan that I will be sharing both copies.
 
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