Catholic Confusion - Urgent

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JoshuaHamm2004194

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Greeting everybody. I recently talked with a fellow Roman Catholic. I was asking him a few questions about the faith. One of them was if we Catholics worship Mary and the Saints. Now, I already knew that we didn’t worship them, but I was still curious. His answer was yes. I explained him how we just venerate them, because we can only worship God. He understood me, but It left me in a bit of a fuzz. He wasn’t a bad Catholic, he was really devout, but he said that he hadn’t received a proper catechism. Still, I wonder how he might have come to that conclusion. Any ideas?
 
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Hello @JoshuaHamm2004194!

Will this help?
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Hyperdulia is an act of reverence and respect reserved for the Blessed Mother. And Dulia is a reverence for the saints. They shouldn’t be confused with worship and respect to God, which is Latria. Hyperdulia and Dulia appear to be worship for some people but it’s actually a kind of respect because they’re respectable. However, it doesn’t mean that they did greater than God that’s why we distinguish it.

We worship one God who has three Persons as Catholics. It would break our Monotheism if we will worship Mama Mary and the Saints.
 
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In English, there are different meanings for “worship”.

It means the worship we give God alone, it can be a word of respect (referring to those of a certain rank or title as “your worship”), it can be used as romantic “I worship the ground on which you walk” or as mundane hyperbole as “I worship those cupcakes”.

To many non Catholics, worship means praise and singing.
 
JoshuaHamm2004194 said:
Greeting everybody. I recently talked with a fellow Roman Catholic. I was asking him a few questions about the faith. One of them was if we Catholics worship Mary and the Saints. Now, I already knew that we didn’t worship them, but I was still curious. His answer was yes. I explained him how we just venerate them, because we can only worship God. He understood me, but It left me in a bit of a fuzz. He wasn’t a bad Catholic, he was really devout, but he said that he hadn’t received a proper catechism. Still, I wonder how he might have come to that conclusion. Any ideas?
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Modern Catholic Dictionary, worship
Acknowledgment of another’s worth, dignity, or superior position. In religion, worship is given either to God, and then it is adoration, or to the angels and saints, and it is called veneration. Divine worship actually includes three principal acts, namely adoration (or the recognition of God’s infinite perfection), prayer or the asking for divine help, and sacrifice or the offering of something precious to God. Worship as veneration also has three principal forms, whereby the angels and saints are honored for their sanctity, asked to intercede before the divine Majesty, and imitated in their love and service of God.
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Okay, but, isn’t worshiping anything and anyone who is not God, idolatry? I mean, it’s what Jesus said to Satan when He was being temped. Jesus said that we can only worship God.
 
JoshuaHamm2004194 said:
Okay, but, isn’t worshiping anything and anyone who is not God, idolatry? I mean, it’s what Jesus said to Satan when He was being temped. Jesus said that we can only worship God.
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Matthew 4
10 Then Jesus saith to him: Begone, Satan: for it is written, The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve.
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Notice the definition is twofold:
  • worship as Divine adoration
  • worship as veneration
 
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JoshuaHamm2004194 said:
He wasn’t a bad Catholic, he was really devout, but he said that he hadn’t received a proper catechism. Still, I wonder how he might have come to that conclusion. Any ideas?
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Like with most things, people tend to understand things in ways that take them too far in the wrong direction.

In the Catholic church, there is a difference understanding to the meanings of the word prayer and worship but when those understandings gives anyone or anything, before or in a higher level of importance than God than there is a problem.
 
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Yes. That’s why I explained to him how it all works. It seemed as if he understood.
 
well to be honest it’s very hard to understand and very confusing… but if he says he understands Catholic’s do not worship Mary or saints, guess you have to trust him.
 
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IIRC, the great Catholic convert Orestes Brownson wrote an article entitled Mary Worship.
 
In some English speaking judicial systems the judge is referred to as “your worship”. In the US sometimes the language of a petition is “we pray the Court to…”, meaning we request from the Court this kind of action, or relief. It doesn’t mean we think the judge is divine.
 
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I’ve got a Protestant brother-in-law who expresses similar comments about Mary and the saints. Thanks al, for arming me with info the next time we talk!
 
TheLittleLady said:
In English, there are different meanings for “worship”.

It means the worship we give God alone, it can be a word of respect (referring to those of a certain rank or title as “your worship”), it can be used as romantic “I worship the ground on which you walk” or as mundane hyperbole as “I worship those cupcakes”.

To many non Catholics, worship means praise and singing.
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Heck, what do you think the yoofs are saying when they say they " 'ship" something or someone? The word is.literally a shortened from of the word worship.

Do they literally put that celebrity, that band or that movie or whatever, on the same.level as God? Of course not.
 
One of the issues I see with English language is this weird confusion that words like worship and others create in the mind of the hearer.

When someone asks me that question my answer is with a counter question. “Do we offer Mary or the Saints sacrifice?”
Typically that throws people (Protestants) for a curve since they have no idea what is the purpose of the Mass.
Then I proceed to explain to them that we only offer “sacrifice” to GOD alone.
And if they have doubts about it they can look the many versed in Scripture that attest to this.
The Jews offered bloody sacrifices to GOD while we now offer an un bloody sacrifice as it was prophesied in the Bible.

Peace!
 
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