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Bill_Pick
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AMEN
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roselily
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I believe in God , the Father Almighty! Who created heaven and earth! and believe in His great and loving law, I believe in our Lord Jesus , for us He was suffering on the cross the great pain crucifixion, and His glorious Resurrection, and what His daring Mother endured,to see Her darling darling son agony on the Cross, what kind great pain She has suffered for us? and Her darling son suffered for us, for this I love Lord Jesus and His Holy Mother greatly and deeply in my heart.
I do hug her statue, and kiss her statues and call her :MaMa…’
Hail Holy Mother!
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NDN
Guest
This is a common complaint the protestants have against us. No matter how many Catholics explain, no matter how many times it is explained, they don’t believe us. They get their knowledge of the Catholic faith from each other and won’t believe that they have been mislead about Catholic theology. One guy told me that as far as he was concerned, worship and veneration was the same thing. Some guys just don’t want to let go of their preconceptions, or their prejudices. Pax Christi
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elvisman
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Why should you ask me (or anybody else, for that matter) a flawed human being who is still struggling for his heavenly reward to pray for you and not ask one of those made perfect in heaven to pray for you?
As I indicated before, doesn’t it say in James 5:16:
"The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful"?
How many truly righteous people do you know - that are guaranteed to be righteous? Those in heaven - who are more radically alive than you or I have been made perfect and righteous - as “nothing unclean can enter heaven”. Rev 21:27
**So, I ask you again - why wouldn’t you take advantage of this gift of a prayer army - this “great cloud of witnesses” spoken of in Hebrews **12:1?
Here’s some food for thought:
**1 Cor. 12:20-26 says - **
*But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. *
*The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I do not need you.” *
***Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, **and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, **whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, *so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. **
*If (one) part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. *
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planten
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planten
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Elvis, praying for somebody is different to “Praying to somebody.” But you have almost come around to the real meaning of things.
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planten
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**There are limits of honor and adoration. Paganism starts by being careless. There were statues of Budha on high mountains in Afghanistan. The Taliban bombarded them. I felt that was wrong. They were monuments, not idols of worship. there was no need to destroy them.
But we must be careful about Mary, the mother. We should not do anything to harm her stature by making her statues and idols. There are many other ways of love and respect. It is a very serious sin to go near idolatory**.
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Tantum_ergo
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Nobody has made an idol of Mary in the Catholic Church.
And Iconoclassicism is a heresy. Unfortunately, it gets resurrected among some Christians every now and then. All the ‘old’ heresies do. This kind of recycling we don’t need. . .
Now I suppose to Muslims who have long in their religion been strict iconoclasts, statues of any kind are anathema. . .but with respect, we are not speaking of Muslims but of** Catholic Christians**, who do not hold Muslim beliefs . We are not forcing Muslims to erect statues and we respect that to them, worshipping their Allah, and their concept of Mary, they would not do this. But Catholics do not worship** Allah** --they worship God. They do not worship Mary or the saints, or indeed any human. . .and so they do not make the mistake of thinking that a statue is an ‘idol’.
And Iconoclassicism is a heresy. Unfortunately, it gets resurrected among some Christians every now and then. All the ‘old’ heresies do. This kind of recycling we don’t need. . .
Now I suppose to Muslims who have long in their religion been strict iconoclasts, statues of any kind are anathema. . .but with respect, we are not speaking of Muslims but of** Catholic Christians**, who do not hold Muslim beliefs . We are not forcing Muslims to erect statues and we respect that to them, worshipping their Allah, and their concept of Mary, they would not do this. But Catholics do not worship** Allah** --they worship God. They do not worship Mary or the saints, or indeed any human. . .and so they do not make the mistake of thinking that a statue is an ‘idol’.
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planten
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Good try to evade the issue. It is good news. If the Catholics do not pray to Mary (or worship Mary) that is good. Then who will worship her? Surely the Protestants will never go near her.
But still there are many sects in christianity. The Catholics and the Protestants are the two biggest bodies (Catholics are much more than the protestants)… But as per Protestants there are many many sects, perhaps in Protestants only.
There may be some model of christians who rever Mary and pray to her and worship her.
After all she was a great lady (superb).
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Tantum_ergo
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Why wouldn’t I pray to Mary and the saints?
They are alive in Christ; that means that they are as much a part of the Body of Christ as I am. In fact, more so, as they are more ‘alive’ in Heaven, united to God, than I am on earth. Scripture says that we see ‘in a glass darkly’ but they will see ‘face to face’; Scripture says that God is God of the living and not the dead. . .see?
Prayer is simply a communication; it has never been directed to God alone and a simple examination of dictionaries and of literature shows this (Shakespeare’s use alone, as he wrote in a Protestant England, should prove that the earliest Protestants accepted the established use of the word as ‘ask’ and directed at anybody, living or dead). . .
But as I said, the old heresies creep in and out.
I pray to the Virgin that she will ask God to open your eyes to the full truth and beauty of Christianity. . .
They are alive in Christ; that means that they are as much a part of the Body of Christ as I am. In fact, more so, as they are more ‘alive’ in Heaven, united to God, than I am on earth. Scripture says that we see ‘in a glass darkly’ but they will see ‘face to face’; Scripture says that God is God of the living and not the dead. . .see?
Prayer is simply a communication; it has never been directed to God alone and a simple examination of dictionaries and of literature shows this (Shakespeare’s use alone, as he wrote in a Protestant England, should prove that the earliest Protestants accepted the established use of the word as ‘ask’ and directed at anybody, living or dead). . .
But as I said, the old heresies creep in and out.
I pray to the Virgin that she will ask God to open your eyes to the full truth and beauty of Christianity. . .
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roselily
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elvisman
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You’re absolutely correct - well, at least with the first sentence. As for your second sentence, what are you talking about?
Who said Catholics pray FOR Mary?
**She has no need of our prayers as she is already in heaven. **I never said we pray FOR saints - we pray TO them for intercession.
We ask them to pray for US and we don’t hide that fact.
**You see, Planten - we don’t have a direct phone line to heaven so we communicate by prayer. **
Is that clear enough for you?
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elvisman
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Please tell me how u used a “jugglery” of words, Planten. How did I manipulate or trick Willingheart?
**Please enlighten me. I am riveted . . .
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willingheart
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**Please enlighten me. I am riveted . . .
You didn’t manipulate or trick me at all. But Planten does make the point very simply that I was trying to make all along - that praying with or for someone is not the same as praying to someone.
Prayer may be audible or inaudible - God can hear both. People can’t hear both. I still don’t see why you think this ability of God’s is conferred on people who have died/passed over/gone to heaven/been translated from this life to the next. (Just avoiding a previous trap.)
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Bill_Pick
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ARE YOU SAYING PEOPLE IN HEAVEN CAN’T HEAR OUR PRAYSYou didn’t manipulate or trick me at all. But Planten does make the point very simply that I was trying to make all along - that praying with or for someone is not the same as praying to someone.
Prayer may be audible or inaudible - God can hear both. People can’t hear both. I still don’t see why you think this ability of God’s is conferred on people who have died/passed over/gone to heaven/been translated from this life to the next. (Just avoiding a previous trap.)
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willingheart
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I have no reason to believe they do. This is an ability of God.
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elvisman
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You can’t be serious. Are you telling me that those made perfect in heaven can’t hear us even though they are spoken of in Hebrews 12:1 as “a great cloud of witnesses”?You didn’t manipulate or trick me at all. But Planten does make the point very simply that I was trying to make all along - that praying with or for someone is not the same as praying to someone.
Prayer may be audible or inaudible - God can hear both. People can’t hear both. I still don’t see why you think this ability of God’s is conferred on people who have died/passed over/gone to heaven/been translated from this life to the next. (Just avoiding a previous trap.)
Secondly, Planten has no point because as I told him, I never said we pray FOR saints - we pray TO them for intercession. We ask them to pray for US.
Either you and Planten can’t read or you refuse to. It has already been established that prayer isn’t necessarily worship. It’s not even the first definition in the dictionary. Prayer means to request something of somebody.
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elvisman
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Then the authors of Hebrews and Revelation are liars - making the Bible a farce.
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Linda_Marie
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These people actually worship Mary as God. The Church excommunicated them. They are no longer considered either Catholic or Christian because they have accorded divine status to Mary. This is anathema to us. The problems with this bunch were extremely frustrating to faithful Catholics who had reported their goings-on because the Vatican took many years to act. First investigating the reports, then calling on them to recant their position and return to the fold and giving them ample time in which to comply.
We pray to Mary to pray for us, not to grant us our prayers from her own power.
God incarnated into the world through her. He took her very flesh to form His Body. That makes her very very special indeed, very close to God, closer than any other human being, closer than any of the Saints. She is the Beloved of God. He loves her so much that He resided in her physically, in her womb and put Himself into her care as a helpless infant. He trusted her to raise Him properly. Not just anyone would have been trusted with this task, only someone especially prepared by God beforehand for this very purpose.
Planten, as a Muslim, you would understand about the proper way to treat your mother. I lived half my life in Saudi Arabia and one thing I noticed was how men treated their mothers, not just with respect, but with obedience as well. (at least they used to, things have changed considerably in the last 25 years or so.) Wives can come and go, but you only ever have one mother. The only power a woman ever has is from her son.
I ask you to consider this to understand how much we revere Mary and why. We believe Jesus is the Christ, God Himself. Mary is His mother, even though she is not divine herself. Being His mother, she is higher in God’s esteem than any other created being. The only power she has is from her Son, Jesus Christ.
Consider a great artist when he has produced an exceptional work of art. Everone flocks around it, ooh’s and ahh’s, and says, ‘what a marvelous work of creation.’. Articles are written about how wonderful the work is. The artist takes all the praise granted to his work as praise of himself and he is greatly pleased with it. God, in creating Mary, created His Masterpiece. All praise and honour given to Mary, is actually given to God, who made her. I can’t imagine God not being pleased with praise of Mary.
One thing we emphatically do not do is accord bits of stone, wood, plaster, canvas, paint or paper with divine attributes. We may have pictures or statues of Jesus, Mary or Saints in our homes, maybe even a Grotto to Mary which is a specially created place of prayer but we do not accord these things divine powers. They are merely aids to keeping our minds on God, just as Muslims have verses from the Koran, written in the very beautiful caligraphy of formal Arabic, hung around their homes to bring their minds to God.
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