Can a person just trust in Jesus and remain a Catholic?

[CAtoIL]

carol marie:

I think so long as you accept the Catholic teaching on Mary - without sin, Mother of God, remained a virgin etc., Jesus can remain your main focus. I too am evangelical so I know where your at with the Mary devotion. Maybe in time you’ll get more used to it…I did. I just continually remind myself that Mary always points the way to her Son. She too is His biggest fan so I don’t think she minds one bit if we are so in love with Jeus that we want to be devoted to Him. God bless you! CM

I intend the following response with all due respect. I believe in healthy, intelligent dialog.

Where does the doctrine of Mary being without sin come from? Romans 3:23 says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

 

[Malachi4U]

rarndt01:

I was formerly a evangelical who was a solely a believer in Jesus Christ and I only prayed and showed my devotion to him alone.

What about the Father or the Holy Spirit? Where in Scripture or the Gospel does Jesus ever say to worship, adore, venerate and pray to Him alone?

I find my new Catholic religion very hard to adjust to

Welcome to the club! All us “EX”-protestants have the same problem at first. To quote Bill, “I can feel yourpain!” Hey, my wife and relitives still scourne me over my decision to follow Jesus (and the Father and the Holy Spirit) wherever they were(their in protestant churches too. ) and wherever their Church was, His body, the Catholic Church.

, because a great deal of devotion is given to Mary as well as Jesus. Even the Rosary is divided between recital prayers to Our Father and Hail Mary. Can’t I just be devoted to Jesus alone and not Mary and still remain Cathoic?

Learn what the words adore, worship, pray and venerate all mean both to Catholics and to protestants. Should we forget the sacrafices of Moses, Blessed Mary, St. Stephen, St. Peter/Kephas, or our parents and ancestors? NO! We adore God, we venerate Blessed Mary and the Saints, etc. We can pray (“to ask”) anyone for help. This is different then adoring them. We adore God and God alone. We venerate many others. We can ask (pray to)others for help and intersession in our prayer chains at church or in heaven. Souls in Heaven are not dead, deaf, dumb and mute. They are living souls with God! They are more full of life then you or me for they are with God!

Has anyone who has recently converted form an evangelical background experienced these same feelings?

YES!!

Learn what the words mean to Catholics because protestants use the exact same words Catholics do but with a different meaning. Catholics and protestants might as well speak different languages. Come to think of it, speaking different languages might solve some of the language barriers we have? The main thing that stops and or interferes with Catholics and protestants comunicating is the English language.

As a Catholic you never have to pray to Blessed Mary or any Saint. As a Christian you should venerate and remember the sacrifices those who have gone before us have made. Today in other countries Christians a persecuted, beaten, and put to death. To forget their sacrifice is to forget the “LOVE” - our greatest gift - Jesus told us to have. I remeber the sacricies of our soldiers in Iraq, in WWI and WWII and in Veitnam and in Korea, etc… They suffered so that you and I could live in a free and wonderfull nation. I remeber the sacrifices of my armed forces on memorial day and say aprayer for them too.

Ask these questions to yourself instead:

Why not pray to the Father?
Why not pray to the Holy Spirit?
Why not “ask” Saints to pray with you to God?
Why not “ask” others on earth to be in your prayer chain?

 

[twf]

CAtoIL: The Bible often makes general statements, that while true, do not necessarily mean absolutely without exception. The Greek word, as you can see in Dave’s article cited below, can allow for a generality rather than a universal absolute. All infants are tainted by original sin, and thus fall short of God’s glory, but they have not themselves sinned. Mary was chosen since before the world began to be the Mother of Jesus, and thus the Mother of God (as Jesus is God). Could a sinful, tainted, impure vessel hold the God-Man? I think not! God is all-holy. Mary was prepared as a holy, pure vessel to bear the Son of God. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception says that she was conceived without original sin, as a direct special intervention of God…thus she did not inherit the guilt of original sin, nor its effects. (Meaning that she did not have the tendency towards sin that we have). So, by a special grace, God sustained her in this regard. The Bible does not clearly teach this doctrine, but as Catholics we need not expect it to clearly teach the entire Deposit of Faith, as the Apostles taught through both letter and word (2 Thes. 2:15) and Bible was not intended as an exhaustive summary of Christian theology.

The Early Fathers taught that Mary was the New or Second Eve. She said yes to God, representing the human race, as Eve had said no, also representing the human race. She chose to accept her role in bringing about God’s salvation. The Church, the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim. 3:15) is guided into all Truth by the Spirit of God (Jn. 16:13). The Church has declared, as a further understanding of this truth that Mary was the Mother of God, prepared since before she was born for this role as the New Eve, that Mary was thus also without sin.

As well, Gabriel greeted Mary “full of grace” in Luke 2. (Well, this is the traditional Catholic translation of the Greek, many translations will say "you who are highly favoured’ or ‘favoured one’, but traditional Catholics believe this is the correct translation, as did, I believe, the Early Fathers of the Church). See “Mary: Full of Grace” at catholic.com/library/Mary_Full_of_Grace.asp here at this site.

Feel free to check out the articles on Mary (including one on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of our Lady) at catholic.com/library/mary_saints.asp.
As well I recommend anything you find at catholicoutlook.com/mary.php#The%20Immaculate%20Conception (I admit I haven’t read everything here yet, only a few things).

You might be interested in Dave Armstrong’s “All Have Sinned…Mary?” ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ135.HTM

God bless,
Tyler

 

[paidfor]

help !! I too am confused by the “Mary devotion” and please dont be offfended but can you tell me anywhere in scriptue that says she was a virgin untill death ? or that she is interceeding for us ? and I have the same problem with the saints interceeding for us where in the bible exactly is that ? thanks for your patience… I am a new christian and one of my closest friends is catholic and worried about me since I am not…yours in Him

 

[twf]

Paidfor: Do you understand the Catholic position on Divine Revelation? We do not believe in sola scriptura, which is the notion that the Bible alone is our authority for faith and morals. We believe, like the Orthodox Churches, that the Apostles transmitted the faith to the Church both through the written word and orally. So we do not expect to find every teaching clearly laid out in Scripture. The Church is the Pillar and Foundation of Truth (1 Tim. 3:15), the Bible is an important source of truth, but does not the only source. (Actually the Bible and Sacred Tradition, the oral portion of God’s Revelation, are both from the same source, Christ). We do, however, find passages that support the teachings of the Church. I hope to post tomorrow a defence of our position on this.

Please read Revelation 8:3-4, and Rev. 5:8. These verses show the heavenly beings (the 24 Elders, usually taken to represent the 12 patriarchs of Israel, so the 12 tribes, and the 12 apostles, representing the Church) offering up our prayers before God. We are a communion of saints. Just like we ask our brothers and sisters here on earth to pray for us, we can ask those in heaven to pray for us as well. I invite you to read some of the articles on Mary and the Saints here at Catholic Answers. See catholic.com/library/mary_saints.asp. Also feel free to check out scripturecatholic.com/saints.html and catholicoutlook.com/mary.php.

 

[puzzleannie]

could we cradle Catholics on these forums remember that when we join a thread begun by a non-Catholic seeker, an RCIA catechumen or candidate, or a neophyte (newly baptized or professed Catholic) that we are being asked in good faith to explain aspect of Catholic life and devotion that may be puzzling or misunderstood. Absolutely no service is performed when the discussion degenerates to a slug-fest between Catholics who ought to know better.

here is a news flash, folks, you don’t have to say the rosary or engage in any private devotion, Marian or otherwise, to be a faithful Catholic. What is required is full active participation in the Eucharist through the holy sacrifice of the Mass and the other sacraments, all of which flow from the Eucharist. The liturgy, that is the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, is the public prayer of the Church. All else is private devotion, including the rosary, even when it is done in public, in a group, in church, and is optional.

there a literally thousands of private devotions, most of which developed as ways to assist the faithful, who through much of history were illiterate, to find ways to hear, recall, remember and meditate on events in the life of Christ and the Paschal mystery as contained in scripture. The rosary, angelus, stations of the cross, creche, various litanies are examples of this, as is sacred art and music.

It is arrogant and presumptive to assume that you can judge the nature of someone else’s prayer, spiritual life, or state of their soul by observing their outward behavior, during their devotions or at any other time. Anyone with time to spend worrying about other people’s spiritual life should attend to their own.

 

[tuopaolo]

If you trust in Jesus, you will also trust in the merciful instrument Jesus gave you to help you in your pilgrimate towards the heavenly homeland.

 

[tuopaolo]

Mary doesn’t just help us by her intercessory prayer; she also distributes graces to us as the dispensatrix of all graces.

 

[dominosNbiscuts]

tuopaolo:

Mary doesn’t just help us by her intercessory prayer; she also distributes graces to us as the dispensatrix of all graces.

Now you’ve got my interest peaked. Where is Mary proclaimed the dispensatrix of all graces’?

 

[tuopaolo]

dominosNbiscuts:

Now you’ve got my interest peaked. Where is Mary proclaimed the dispensatrix of all graces’?

A lot of saints and popes have said Mary is the dispensatrix of all graces. Here’s one of many examples:

Pope St Pius X:
"When the supreme hour of the Son came, beside the Cross of Jesus there stood Mary, his Mother…From the community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary ‘she became most worthily the reparatrix of the lost world’ and dispensatrix of all the gifts that our Saviour purchased for us by his death and his blood."

christendom-awake.org/pages/marian/5thdogma/voxpopbk2-2.htm

 

[Carolyn]

Can a person just trust in Jesus and remain a Catholic?

Yes but remember:

John 19:26
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home."