Catholics accused of worshiping Mary

[E.E.N.S]

Karin:

Della, Deb1, Brendan, Robert (in SD),Orionthehunter and the head banger E.E.N.S. and everyone else that have provided answers and examples I thank you all! You have explained something to my satisfaction and I totally understand now that Catholics do not worship Mary or the saints but they HONOR them for who and what they are!!! Lance for starting this thread thank you!

So who wants to tackle the next hang up???:bigyikes:

I am glad to hear it! So what is your next hang up?

 

[Paris_Blues]

Haha this is too funny. (Being sarcastic)

Okay so maybe it’s not just Protestants who accuse us of worshipping Mary. IT’S OTHER RELIGIONS outside Christianity as well.

Okay this tells me and perhaps convinces me even more that the CC is the TRUE Church!!! See, when you have other religions outside Christianity who just want to accuse us for doing this and that, ha, well, that gets me excited in a way. We don’t tell them what to do or not to do, do we?

I’M QUITE IRRITATED!!! See, other outside-Christianity religions are even ANTI-CATHOLIC!!!

 

[Della]

Paris Blues:

Haha this is too funny. (Being sarcastic)

Okay so maybe it’s not just Protestants who accuse us of worshipping Mary. IT’S OTHER RELIGIONS outside Christianity as well.

Okay this tells me and perhaps convinces me even more that the CC is the TRUE Church!!! See, when you have other religions outside Christianity who just want to accuse us for doing this and that, ha, well, that gets me excited in a way. We don’t tell them what to do or not to do, do we?

I’M QUITE IRRITATED!!! See, other outside-Christianity religions are even ANTI-CATHOLIC!!!

I understand your frustration, but most of the misperceptions of non-Catholics is merely ignorance and not intentional. Only when someone knows better and STILL accuses us of what we don’t do are they anti-Cathoic and even in some of those cases it is merely personal distaste rather than true understanding that makes people have the attitudes they do.

 

[Paris_Blues]

Della:

I understand your frustration, but most of the misperceptions of non-Catholics is merely ignorance and not intentional. Only when someone knows better and STILL accuses us of what we don’t do are they anti-Cathoic and even in some of those cases it is merely personal distaste rather than true understanding that makes people have the attitudes they do.

Exactly and I can’t help but think that people who “invented” all these other religions (Islam, Buddishm, Shinto, Hindu, etc.) apart from Christ’s Church didn’t like what the CC had to say so they decided to make their own religion. I really hate to say that but I think it’s true in a way.

Not to mention in my art history class we are starting to read about the art of Asia and it includes the religion and reading that gets me to think, what? Who said that these people were God for crying out loud? The people who invented a certain religion thought that they were God, how crazy! There is no other god except our Lord JESUS CHRIST!!!

I guess it’s good that I’m learning more about other religions in a way.

I know some of you guys think I’m crazy and arrogant but how do you know how I really feel?

 

[Church_Militant]

Paris Blues:

Haha this is too funny. (Being sarcastic)

Okay so maybe it’s not just Protestants who accuse us of worshipping Mary. IT’S OTHER RELIGIONS outside Christianity as well.

Okay this tells me and perhaps convinces me even more that the CC is the TRUE Church!!! See, when you have other religions outside Christianity who just want to accuse us for doing this and that, ha, well, that gets me excited in a way. We don’t tell them what to do or not to do, do we?

I’M QUITE IRRITATED!!! See, other outside-Christianity religions are even ANTI-CATHOLIC!!!

Hi Paris (and all!)
One thing that I’ve learned (the hard way) is that just because someone says something, does not mean that they themselves are “anti-Catholic”. Very often people (somewhat like little kids do) repeat what they have been told by others, such as family, friends, or pastors and have no real knowlege of their own. This seems to be the case with Karin (and yes Karin, I got your message, so that is there just for further review if you need it and FYI for everyone else) and some of the other non-Catholics on this site of late.

“Anti-Catholicism” is more like the various preachers and organizations that intentionally disseminate misinformation about our most holy faith for whatever motivations are respective to them. Jack Chick makes a living off of it… so do some others, and some others still are willfully ignorant of the truth and will not accept the facts even if presented with them (The sort of “My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts” mentality). Some of the Seventh Day Adventists come to mind, though some of the Baptists and various Pentecostals like the Assembly of God I’ve met seem like this as well.

On a one on one basis I have met some very cool people on here who though they are having a tough time understanding what we believe, they are having an even harder time getting past the rhetoric that we put forth, especially when we use the a-C label on them.

So I guess what I am saying, (and those of you who know me from this forum know that I’m no slouch when it comes to the defense of the faith. :irish1: ) is that I have learned that very often (not always) the rhetoric may be a-C…but the person we are talkin’ with isn’t. They’re just a normal soul who got bad info.

Patience…though sometimes difficult…is imperative.
Before I sling that a-C term at someone…I bite my tongue. It’s possible it’s just the rhetoric…and not the person himself.
Pax vobiscum,

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

NonDenom:

I still can’t understand why you would need to pray to anyone other than God himself. It almost sounds like you think that God is to busy and he needs a secretary.
Thanks

Herein lies the problem. Protestants seem to be under the very distinct impression that the word “pray” has one and only one meaning even after it is explained again and again and again and again and again that in English, there is MORE than one meaning:

Pray:
1 : to make a request in a humble manner
2 : to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

As has been explained several times in this thread and bajillions of time elsewhere the #2 definition is prayer to God whereas the #1 definition is simply a prayer request to someone alive with Christ in heaven.

Still, after being shown how, in English, the word “prayer” can properly be used to to mean ASKING one to pray FOR you, Protestants will STILL ask “why pray to anyone when you can pray to God himself?”

If asking someone in heaven to pray for you is like thinking God needs a secretary then so is asking someone on earth to pray for you thinking God needs a secretary because they are both EXACTLY THE SAME THING. The ONLY difference is that one is alive in heaven with Christ and the other is alive on earth.

“Pray” is a homonym:

Homonym:
one of two or more words spelled and pronounced alike but different in meaning

Yet, someone will read this and STILL say “ok, I understand that, but why pray to someone in heaven when you can go right to God?”

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Karin:

Why ask for the Saints and Mary to intercede for you in the first place…wont God help you with out their help?

Why ask your best friend or your mom or people at your church to interecede for you? Won’t God help you without their help?

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

NonDenom:

Hi
There is one huge difference between what you are saying and what I’m saying. I will go and ask my Wife face to face to pray for me, now if I were to kneel before a picture of her and say “Dear Wife, I ask that you…” You would think I’m a wacko. There is a ton of difference between asking someone to pray FOR you, and praying TO someone.
Thanks

To pray TO someone in heaven is to ask him/her to pray FOR you.

Incidently, if you are requesting that your wife pray for you then yes, you are praying to her according to one of the definitions of the word “pray” in the dictionary:

1 : to make a request in a humble manner

If you are making a request of her you are praying. No, you are not doing this:

2 : to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

but rather you are doing this:

1 : to make a request in a humble manner.

Doing this:

2 : to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

is praying and so is doing this:

1 : to make a request in a humble manner.

This is to God alone:

2 : to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

whereas this:

1 : to make a request in a humble manner.

is to fellow Christians.

In Christ,
Nancy

PS. Waiting now for someone to say “yes, but why pray to someone in heaven when you can just go to God?”

 

[Singinbeauty]

Again and again in my research of the bible I see countless times where someone prayed for someone else or a whole country. So yes, we are supposed to be praying to God for others and asking others to pray for us. Not so much that the more we have praying for something the more likely it’s going to happen but it’s more of a comfort for us to know that there are others who care so much about us that they join us in prayer to our God when we are in times of need. BUT I do not, in the whole search of the bible I have done, see any time where someone has asked another who has passed on from this earth for help praying for something. In times when anyone is alone and praying the only person they address is GOD. If we are to ask those who have passed on to pray for us then WHY wouldn’t the ancients have done it?

I think that once we pass on from this earth our job is done. We are in Heaven with the Almighty God and our days are spent worshipping Him and rejoicing in our peace. I do not believe that those in Heaven or Hell can hear us or interact with us.

 

[hilde_the_dog]

Paris Blues:

Haha this is too funny. (Being sarcastic)

Okay so maybe it’s not just Protestants who accuse us of worshipping Mary. IT’S OTHER RELIGIONS outside Christianity as well.

Okay this tells me and perhaps convinces me even more that the CC is the TRUE Church!!! See, when you have other religions outside Christianity who just want to accuse us for doing this and that, ha, well, that gets me excited in a way. We don’t tell them what to do or not to do, do we?

I’M QUITE IRRITATED!!! See, other outside-Christianity religions are even ANTI-CATHOLIC!!!

Two weeks ago this came up in CCD class. Some of the boys thought we worshiped Mary and the Crucifx. So we gently corrected them. Its not Protestants, its all uniformed or misinformed people, yes even some C’s

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Singinbeauty:

Again and again in my research of the bible I see countless times where someone prayed for someone else or a whole country. So yes, we are supposed to be praying to God for others and asking others to pray for us. Not so much that the more we have praying for something the more likely it’s going to happen but it’s more of a comfort for us to know that there are others who care so much about us that they join us in prayer to our God when we are in times of need. BUT I do not, in the whole search of the bible I have done, see any time where someone has asked another who has passed on from this earth for help praying for something. In times when anyone is alone and praying the only person they address is GOD. If we are to ask those who have passed on to pray for us then WHY wouldn’t the ancients have done it?

No one in the bible ever carried a bible to church.

No one in the bible ever took notes during a church service.

No one in the bible was ever baptized in a baptismal pool inside a church.

No one in the bible ever prayed the “sinner’s prayer”.

No one in the bible ever asked anyone if he had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.

Do all practices HAVE to be recorded in scripture?

I think that once we pass on from this earth our job is done. We are in Heaven with the Almighty God and our days are spent worshipping Him and rejoicing in our peace. I do not believe that those in Heaven or Hell can hear us or interact with us.

The book of Revelation paints a slightly different picture. Which scriptures do you believe supports what you’ve written above?

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[djrakowski]

Sorry to jump in so late in the thread, but there’s something in here that I’ve seen addressed a number of times. Please forgive me if I don’t do the subject justice, as I’m only in RCIA.

Why would anyone think it logical that, just because a Christian has died and may be in heaven, that he is suddenly cut off from the vine? These folks are no less part of the Christian community than the Christians who walk around in ordinary bodies down here on earth. It is a logical conclusion from what is in the Bible.

I don’t have the evidence in front of me, but I’ve read that the practice of seeking intercession from the departed saints was accepted from the earliest days of the church.

Singinbeauty:

BUT I do not, in the whole search of the bible I have done, see any time where someone has asked another who has passed on from this earth for help praying for something. In times when anyone is alone and praying the only person they address is GOD. If we are to ask those who have passed on to pray for us then WHY wouldn’t the ancients have done it?

 

[E.E.N.S]

Singinbeauty:

…I do not, in the whole search of the bible I have done, see any time where someone has asked another who has passed on from this earth for help praying for something. In times when anyone is alone and praying the only person they address is GOD…I do not believe that those in Heaven or Hell can hear us or interact with us.

That’s fine if you don’t believe any of the thousands of intercessory miracles that have happened through out the last 2000 years with regards to the saints in heaven, and it is also okay that you don’t believe in any of the demonic possesions that have taken place as well…but this doesn’t mean that they haven’t happened. (Think of the millions of people who have seen [and converted] because of various apparitions throughout the world and time.)

Here is a link to many references in the Bible with regards intercessory prayer (there are too many to list in a post.)
scripturecatholic.com/saints.html#saints-III

 

[E.E.N.S]

djrakowski:

I don’t have the evidence in front of me, but I’ve read that the practice of seeking intercession from the departed saints was accepted from the earliest days of the church.

Here are just a couple of examples:

“[Appealing to the three companions of Daniel] Think of me, I beseech you, so that I may achieve with you the same fate of martyrdom.” *Hippolytus of Rome, On Daniel, 11:30 (A.D. 204). *

“Thus might you console us; but what of the flock? Would you first promise the oversight and leadership of yourself, a man under whose wings we all would gladly repose, and for whose words we thirst more eagerly than men suffering from thirst for the purest fountain? Secondly, persuade us that the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep has not even now left us; but is present, and tends and guides, and knows his own, and is known of his own, and, though bodily invisible, is spiritually recognized, and defends his flock against the wolves, and allows no one to climb over into the fold as a robber and traitor; to pervert and steal away, by the voice of strangers, souls under the fair guidance of the truth. Aye, I am well assured that his intercession is of more avail now than was his instruction in former days, since he is closer to God, now that he has shaken off his bodily fetters, and freed his mind from the clay which obscured it, and holds intercourse naked with the nakedness of the prime and purest Mind; being promoted, if it be not rash to say so, to the rank and confidence of an angel.” *John Chrysostom, On the Death of his Father, Oration 18:4 (A.D. 374). *

 

[Lance]

I want to thank everyone who has posted here. The civility of this thread is amazing. No yelling or screaming and everyone has had their say. I think Karin and others who were under the impression that we worshiped Mary, have read what many of you have said and had a change of mind if not heart about it. I have even learned a couple of things. Again thanks to all of you.

“There are not 100 people who hate the Catholic Church; But there are millions who hate what they believe the Catholic Church to be.” -Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 

[E.E.N.S]

A piece from True Devotion by St. Louis de Montfort (I have been re-reading this book again, it’s great! ) :

Since grace enhances our human nature and glory adds a still greater perfection to grace, it is certain that our Lord remains in heaven just as much the Son of Mary as he was on earth. Consequently he has retained the submissiveness and obedience of the most perfect of all children towards the best of all mothers.

We must take care, however, not to consider this dependence as an abasement or imperfection in Jesus Christ. For Mary, infinitely inferior to her Son, who is God, does not command him in the same way as an earthly mother would command her child who is beneath her. Since she is completely transformed in God by that grace and glory which transforms all the saints in him, she does not ask or wish or do anything which is contrary to the eternal and changeless will of God. When therefore we read in the writings of Saint Bernard, Saint Bernardine, Saint Bonaventure, and others that all in heaven and on earth, even God himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin, they mean that the authority which God was pleased to give her is so great that she seems to have the same power as God. Her prayers and requests are so powerful with him that he accepts them as commands in the sense that he never resists his dear mother’s prayer because it is always humble and conformed to his will.

Moses by the power of his prayer curbed God’s anger against the Israelites so effectively that the infinitely great and merciful Lord was unable to withstand him and asked Moses to let him be angry and punish that rebellious people. How much greater, then, will be the prayer of the humble Virgin Mary, worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with the King of heaven than the prayers and intercession of all the angels and saints in heaven and on earth.

 

[Paris_Blues]

hilde the dog:

Two weeks ago this came up in CCD class. Some of the boys thought we worshiped Mary and the Crucifx. So we gently corrected them. Its not Protestants, its all uniformed or misinformed people, yes even some C’s

Correct. I myself was ignorant before I came to the CC. Only then after finding the reat truth about Mary and the Saints did I calm down. Now I understand.

 

[Mickey]

Singinbeauty:

I think that once we pass on from this earth our job is done. We are in Heaven with the Almighty God and our days are spent worshipping Him and rejoicing in our peace. I do not believe that those in Heaven or Hell can hear us or interact with us.

Fundamentalists often challenge the Catholic practice of asking saints and angels to pray on our behalf. But the Bible directs us to invoke those in heaven and ask them to pray with us.

Thus, in Psalm 103 we pray, “Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!” (Ps. 103:20–21). And in the opening verses of Psalms 148 we pray, “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!”

Not only do those in heaven pray with us, but they also pray for us. In the book of Revelation, John sees that “the twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8). Thus the saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the people on earth.

Angels do the same thing: “Another angel came and stood at the altar [in heaven] with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God” (Rev. 8:3–4).

Jesus himself warned us not to offend small children, because their guardian angels have guaranteed intercessory access to the Father: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 18:10).

Because he is the only God-Man and the Mediator of the New Covenant, Jesus is the only Mediator between man and God (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5), but this in no way means that we cannot or should not ask our fellow Christians to pray with us and for us (cf. 1 Tim. 2:1–4). In particular, we should ask the intercession of Christians in heaven, who have already had their sanctification completed, for “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (Jas. 5:16).

Catholic Answers

 

[deb1]

Singinbeauty:

I think that once we pass on from this earth our job is done. We are in Heaven with the Almighty God and our days are spent worshipping Him and rejoicing in our peace. I do not believe that those in Heaven or Hell can hear us or interact with us.

I mean no offense to the people that believe the above statement but I have always found the belief that we won’t care about the children and loved ones we leave behind to be very depressing. Is there any scriptural support for this belief?

 

[Mickey]

St Cyprian of Carthage

Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides [of death] always pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father’s mercy (Letters 56[60]:5 [A.D. 253]).