Church Mariology making me nuts!

[RobbyS]

Guys …
Me thinks u are reading way too much into this OT scripture !!
Mary said “Do whatever he tells you”. So, did Christ teach us to go thru Mary … to reach him?

Rather, he gave us the Lords Prayer …where we are taught to pray directly to the Father…no Meditrix or Queen mentioned.

St Paul knew the OT Scriptures much better than we…and he never taught this Queen Mary idea or Mediatrix of All Graces gospel !! To the contrary, Paul taught the early Christians to test & reject any message not c/w that early First Century one.

Our veneration of Mary is based on the fact that in the beginning, she is the proofthat Jesus is divine, and our most immediate link to Jesus both as God and Man.

 

[RobbyS]

“Liturgical Institutions”, by Fr. Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., includes a study of the protestant liturgical practices from the XIVth to the XVIIIth century. In it we find:

protestants are primitivists and modernists at the same time.

 

[Kopratic]

With regards to inkaneer’s post on Mary’s Queenship, here are some other threads exploring the same topic:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=688732
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=712528
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=699815

As you can see, and as is pointed out, God didn’t put a reference to the queen-mother in the Old Testament multiple times for no reason. Jesus is a Davidic king, and the mother of the king is the queen…hence “queen-mother.” Mary, being the mother of the king of heaven, is thus the queen of heaven. She is in a high place, and we honor her. I’m certain it has been pointed out that Mary has been highly honored in the Bible. There’s the angel Gabriel, Elizabeth, the woman in the crowd {I forget what verse this is, sorry!}, etc. “Henceforth all generation shall call me blessed.”

Mary’s words are recorded only on four occasions in the Gospels: The Annunciation, The Visitation, The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, and The Wedding Feast at Cana.

Does this make her any less important? No, it does not. God speaks some of the most {if not the most} beautiful things in silence. {Just a quick example:} The first man, Adam, was created in silence. The first woman, Eve, was created in silence. For most everything else, God spoke it into existence. {Heaven, the earth, and the Sabbath also do not have any recorded word of God for their creations.} For man, God fashioned it into existence in silence like a potter fashioning a clay vessel. {And yes, that was a reference to Isaiah; again, I forget the exact verse, sorry!}

Mary, who sits at the right hand of Jesus, always leads us to Him. She is our mother, given to us by Jesus her son. In that same passage, Jesus calls his mother “woman,” which leads all the way back to Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmities between you and the woman, and your seed and her seed: she shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for her heel.” {Taken from newadvent.org.} Mary fulfills this by being the Mother of our Savior…the new Eve.
The Church always has and always will honor her.

{Please, note, that honor does not equal worship. The Church does not and never will worship Mary.}
EDIT; I’ll be praying for you that you can come to accept all of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

 

[Mark121359]

“Liturgical Institutions”, by Fr. Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., includes a study of the protestant liturgical practices from the XIVth to the XVIIIth century. In it we find:

Such is Protestant liturgy. Pretending to treat nobly with God, Protestant liturgy has no need of intermediaries. To invoke the help of the Blessed Virgin, or the protection of Saints, would be, for them, a lack of respect due to the Supreme Being. Their liturgy excludes that entire “papist idolatry” which asks from a creature what only should be asked from God. It purges the calendar of all those names of men, which the Roman Church so boldly inscribes next to the name of God. It has a special horror for those names of monks and other persons of later times who one can find figuring next to the names of the Apostles, whom Jesus Christ had chosen, and by whom was founded this primitive Church which alone was pure in faith and free from all superstition in cult and from every relaxation in morals.

I think you nailed what’s at the heart of this whole discussion. For the most part it’s converts who just cannot fully embrace Mary for some reason. And how you can place another Saint over the Mother of God simply baffles me. I think you, inkaneer, Cranch and others have composed great posts clearly explaining Church teachings on Our Lady… sadly to no avail. What a shame.

 

[brb3]

And how is this going to the Father through Jesus? Remember the only way to the Father is through Jesus.

Bingo… even more evidence/ proof, that the 3 PERSON Trinity is ONE BEING.

LETS hope u are not suggesting this text is leaving open idea Christ wants us to go thru Mary … to reach the Father !!!

 

[fbl9]

Bingo… even more evidence/ proof, that the 3 PERSON Trinity is ONE BEING.

LETS hope u are not suggesting this text is leaving open idea Christ wants us to go thru Mary … to reach the Father !!!

Are you suggesting that Christ is the Father?

Still not one has said to reach the Father one goes through Mary. It has been repeated several times one can go through Mary to reach Jesus.Not once has it been said through Mary to the Father.

 

[MotoCatholic]

Boy I’ve run through the full spectrum of emotions in following this thread…For me the simple response is this: Because the Catholic Church said so! If we, as Catholics or especially as protestants don’t agree with or “aren’t quite there yet” with a teaching of the church - the burden is on us-WE need to pray and study. Especially as Catholics, our default position has to to that the Church, speaking with the majestic power and authority of the magisterium, is correct. You’ve asked a great question brb3, and several people have used a lot of time and patience in providing some truly compelling responses. I think you still need to separate what you think Church teaching is from what it actually is. This is really very simple.

I’ve been praying for you ever since I started following this thread. I’m sure others here are doing the same. Thanks everyone for this great discussion.

Moto

 

[inkaneer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
Then quote me the verse that says Jesus is consubstantial with the Father. Show me where the scriptures speak of God as persons. The fact is that unitarians can use the very same verses in the Bible to , upport their modalist beliefs as trinitarians can to support their beliefs…

At the very beginning, Genesis… God says " Let US make man in our image"

Then, in New Testament, Christ says He and the Father are ONE…and later he says “I will pray the Father, and. HE WILL send you the Holy Spirit” …

And Christ taught he was returning to the Father, to sit at the Right hand, and John in Revelation depicts Christ and God the Father…as different Persons.

These examples are a small# of all that offered in Scripture.

Your protestantism is showing. All of these verses are used by unitarians who will argue that there is but one God and these expressions are only ‘modes’ of the one God. Thus when Jesus prays to the Father he is praying to God as a human and not as the second person of God. No where in scripture is the understanding of the Trinity that Trinitarian christians believe in expressed. That is precisely why there was a controversy about the Godhead that required the Church, as the pillar and foundation of truth to formally define the belief.

 

[inkaneer]

Guys …
Me thinks u are reading way too much into this OT scripture !!
Mary said “Do whatever he tells you”. So, did Christ teach us to go thru Mary … to reach him?

Think what you will. But the fact remains that Jesus stated that whoever would sit at his right was already established. So when was it established? I say it was established by Solomon and was followed by all of the Davidic kings and Jesus is most definitely a Davidic king. Now if that does not suit you then you tell us where you think it was established. Then explain the conversation at Cana. Mary is asking Jesus for a miracle. Jesus says it is not time to commence His public ministry. Mary seems to ignore His remark and tells the servants to do as Jesus says. Jesus then tells them what to do . Desoite the fact it is not His time Jesus does not refuse His mother’s request. So did Christ tell us to go through Mary? In a way, yes. Unless you want to think that not everything in the scriptures is meant to teach us something. Unless you want to think that there are little meaningless snippets in the scripture that rise no higher than being just little human interest stories. If that is the case then the question arises are these little human interest stories just stories or are they inspired? If inspired then why are they so if they serve no other function that just something to satisfy the human interest aspect?

Rather, he gave us the Lords Prayer …where we are taught to pray directly to the Father…no Meditrix or Queen mentioned.

No Jesus mentioned either. So, by your reasoning, we are not to pray to Jesus either. Do you really want to do that?

St Paul knew the OT Scriptures much better than we…and he never taught this Queen Mary idea or Mediatrix of All Graces gospel !! To the contrary, Paul taught the early Christians to test & reject any message not c/w that early First Century one.

Paul also did not teach the Trinity. Or rather Paul never wrote about it. In fact there is a lot of things that Paul never wrote about. But Paul preached. His letters were remedial in nature. They were to correct errors that arose in the places he initially preached. To limit Paul’s entire missionary work to just fourteen letters is foolhardy. It would be akin to reducing your entire life to what is contained in your writings on this thread alone. Yet there is something else here that you unknowingly exhibit. That is your protestantism. Your linking Paul’s teaching to what we have received via his letters is nothing but pure unadulterated sola scriptura. Maybe the problems you are experiencing, whether they be 2% or more, is because you are still guided by the vanity that you can decide what scripture means and what it doesn’t. In short, it is you rather than the church, who is the pillar and foundation of truth.

 

[brb3]

Are you suggesting that Christ is the Father?

/QUOTE
No.
Here is best way to conceptualize the Trinity. Draw/Visualize a triangle,… with a star @ its center. Place GOD @ that central star. Now write the name Father at one corner of triangle, and Son at another, and HS at the third corner. Now place = sign between each corner and the center Star.
Finally, put a not-equal sign between each corner and its neighbor corner.

That is best depiction of reality…to understand what Sacred Scripture teaches…

 

[inkaneer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by fbl9
And how is this going to the Father through Jesus? Remember the only way to the Father is through Jesus.

Bingo… even more evidence/ proof, that the 3 PERSON Trinity is ONE BEING.

LETS hope u are not suggesting this text is leaving open idea Christ wants us to go thru Mary … to reach the Father !!!

Well the unitarians would disagree. I don’t want to turn this into a thread on Unitarianism but basically they see one God who expresses Himself in different Modes. But these modes are not distinct. So when God, in His Jesu mode tells us that no one comes to the Father but by Him what He means is that the one God is speaking in his human mode about his divine mode. Do not confuse the term mode and person as being interchangeable because they are very different.

 

[inkaneer]

fbl9;10101406:

Are you suggesting that Christ is the Father?

So then with a “not-equal sign between each corner and its neighbor corner” that would mean that the Son is not equal to the Father. That then denies “consubstantial with the Father” as stated in the Nicene creed. Of course if you replace the “not-equal sign between each corner and its neighbor corner” with an “equals sign” then you have the Unitarian concept.

 

[brb3]

Put yourself at one corner of triangle … lets say at the Father’s place. Hold your arms out forming two sides of triangle. CHRIST would be at the Father’s RT. Hand & the H.S. would be at his Lt. Hand spot. Together, their 3 Persons constitute the Unified Godhead.

Now, my question for Catholics … where is Mary sitting in this pictorial ?

 

[brb3]

I came across this pictorial…in a Catholic Church. Within a large Stained Glass window …as I meditated on it, I was blown away by the power / truth it conveyed !!

 

[Mark121359]

Put yourself at one corner of triangle … lets say at the Father’s place. Hold your arms out forming two sides of triangle. CHRIST would be at the Father’s RT. Hand & the H.S. would be at his Lt. Hand spot. Together, their 3 Persons constitute the Unified Godhead.

Now, my question for Catholics … where is Mary sitting in this pictorial ?

At Jesus right hand!

 

[Mark121359]

This;

Boy I’ve run through the full spectrum of emotions in following this thread…For me the simple response is this: Because the Catholic Church said so! If we, as Catholics or especially as protestants don’t agree with or “aren’t quite there yet” with a teaching of the church - the burden is on us-WE need to pray and study. Especially as Catholics, our default position has to to that the Church, speaking with the majestic power and authority of the magisterium, is correct. You’ve asked a great question brb3, and several people have used a lot of time and patience in providing some truly compelling responses. I think you still need to separate what you think Church teaching is from what it actually is. This is really very simple.

I’ve been praying for you ever since I started following this thread. I’m sure others here are doing the same. Thanks everyone for this great discussion.

Moto

 

[Mark121359]

And this;

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer

Your protestantism is showing. All of these verses are used by unitarians who will argue that there is but one God and these expressions are only ‘modes’ of the one God. Thus when Jesus prays to the Father he is praying to God as a human and not as the second person of God. No where in scripture is the understanding of the Trinity that Trinitarian christians believe in expressed. That is precisely why there was a controversy about the Godhead that required the Church, as the pillar and foundation of truth to formally define the belief.

 

[brb3]

Christ never said he was the Father. But, he said they were ONE

… That he was the Image/The Reflection/The Essence of the Father. Thats what Consubstantial means.

 

[brb3]

At Jesus right hand!

Nope …

The HS is !!
And the Father at his Left.

 

[brb3]

How else could the HS proceed…from the Father & Son ???

Per our creed.