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Cavaradossi
Guest
Why is that not possible? Is she not of the same nature as us? There is certainly nothing in our nature which should impede us from reaching the same height of glorification and deification.
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De_Montfort
Guest
What about sharing in Christ’s glory don’t you get? Is not His Glory, His divinity?
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De_Montfort
Guest
No one in God’s creation nor in His mind will he be loved honored and glorifed as he is in Mary. No one will ever be Immaculate like Her, or be so intimately united to Christ as was the Immaculata. All these things take place in Mary who was and always will be full of grace. Its not me who says this but God who has set Mary above all creation.
B
Brooklyn
Guest
I guess you’re just not going to read that in conterxt, are you? Read it again.
“Mary is not God, but she is fully divine because, as a creature, she has no life except in her relationship with God: with the Father whose daugther she is; with the Son, whose Mother she is; with the Holy Spirit, whose sanctuary she is.
As creature she is close to us, as God’s own Mother she apporaches divinity. When we honor the Immaculata we are very specifically adoring the Holy Spirit.”
Don’t you see what he is saying? Mary IS A CREATURE (I apologize for the caps, but I really want you to see this), but because she is so united with God and because her entire existence has been and will always be about God, she is divine. That does not mean she has life in herself as God does, that does not mean she has the power that God has. It means she is so closely united to God that it is as if she and the Godhead were one. In that sense she is divine, but that does NOT mean that she is God. There is a huge difference.
B
Brooklyn
Guest
Mary was never at any time in her existence stained by sin. She was never separated from God at any time, not even in the smallest way. She has always been completely united with God. She was most definitely as human as we are, but she is also on a much higher level than we will ever be able to reach.
And it isn’t even just because of her sinless nature. She also suffered in the passion of her Son just as much as if she hung on the cross with Him. From the moment that Simeon told her in the temple that her soul would be pierced, her suffering began and only became more intense from that point on. Her whole life was one of suffering because, like Abraham, she offered her Son to God, with one major difference. Abraham was stopped at the last minute. Mary went through it with Jesus, every painful step. She is more glorified than any of us will ever be because she suffered more than any other human has suffered, and it was in the saving Passion of the Saviour.
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jwinch2
Guest
We have already established that not everything a particular saint said must be true. In addition, an individual saint’s writings are not part of the teaching authority of the Church unless they have also been infallibly defined by a pope or taught by the ordinary magesterium. As such, the Church does not bind the faithful to private revelation or to the opinion of theologians, no matter how virtuous their lives might have been or how popular their teachings.
If we want to go around throwing out quotes, we can take a look at:
B
Brooklyn
Guest
That’s all fine and good, but what does that have to do with the quote from St. Maximilian Kolbe? Just because one person is wrong in one thing doesn’t mean another is wrong in a completely different subject. Blessed John Paul II had no problems whatsoever with St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Marian devotion. You may not agree with the statement he made, but that doesn’t make it wrong,
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De_Montfort
Guest
Didn’t you tell me earlier in this thread that people wished to reject the Immaculate Conception?
The fact is dogmas take time. Teaching of the Saints are prayed over and studied. Pope John Paul II was a very holy Pope, I will take his advice on what He said about Holy Saints. The Holy Catholic Church does not proclaim Dogma’s all at one time. All you have to do is look at Church history to see that.
And nowhere in your quotes does it say to “disregard” wisdom from the Saints. It just basically states the Holy Spirit protects the Church, something that we all are well aware of…
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De_Montfort
Guest
Go back over this thread…
What really has me confused is that it’s ok when we die to one day share in Christ’s divinity, but not so for his own Mother!!!???
What really has me confused is that it’s ok when we die to one day share in Christ’s divinity, but not so for his own Mother!!!???
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Bezant
Guest
Haha! I like your response. Well said.The reason for caution is simple.
Not everyone is in the same spiritual class as the saints you mention above.
Not everyone has read their writings or understand their deep spirituality.
Not everyone has been properly catechized in these matters.
It is easy for people who are spiritual infants, or poorly catechized to hear or read things out of context and misunderstand and or misapply them in their own spiritual life and/or in conversation with others.
In my opinion, anyone who comes to Christ, needs to come to Christ first. Get to know Him and The Father. Then, let Them introduce the newcomer to the Holy Mother, her place and her role.
That way confusion and improper “worship” is far less likely AND the person will be prepared to correctly answer the questions of others.
But that is just my opinion…
Peace
James
P.S. I Love you Mom.
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figs
Guest
I’m obviously not Tim but felt compelled to exclaim that whoever “they” were that said these things regarding converts must have had their head firmly situated in their posterior region.
I say, nonsense, to ALL of that rubbish spoken by “they”. All of us go through a spiritual journey and each of us has a different pace.
It makes me sad to hear there are “those” out there that think they are privy to something or have more devotion just because they were “born” into the religion.
I’ve always felt if have been called by the Lord to His Church then you are just as able to experience it’s full richness, no matter how old you are.
Just my :twocents:
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Hesychios
Guest
That is prideful.
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Hesychios
Guest
One ‘puts on Christ’ one ‘clothes oneself in Christ’ … one thinks like Christ.
This is the goal for all.
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Hesychios
Guest
I don’t think it is a learning curve. Not only the stronger objection, but the stronger enthusiasms, are from converts. This phenomena happens in many ideologies: Capitalism and Communism - Orthodoxy as well as Catholicism, Fundamentalism too.
The effect probably comes from cognitive dissonance, which has to be resolved one way or another.
People raised in families exposed to something from their earliest days very often learn to live with the paradox and they listen without paying attention, sort of with a hum drum attitude. It does not usually provoke a crises response unless or until their faith is really enlivened, which puts them also into a conversion mentality and they question everything. Then the same kind of response: either reject or embrace the ‘concept’, no more hanging on the fence or ignoring the paradox.
Often the response is purely emotional.
We see this with a lot of things. The JW’s for example, slowly build up a following, then they do something strange like predict an end to the world which does not manifest. Many abandon the group in disappointment, but other redouble their commitment, as if the failure is something that inspires them. The response is emotional either way, not rational.
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TrueLight
Guest
Makes sense.
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TimothyH
Guest
I was baptized Catholic when I was 29 days old in 1963, but my parents left the faith shortly after my first reconcilliation and first communion. I remember being scared to death as a little kid, of having to tell my sins to a stranger in a dark booth, and remember staring at the life size statue of Mary crushing the head of the serpent as I waited on line. It hated it. Religion terrified me. I recieved the Eucharist twice and was glad when my parents never went back.
They went from congregationalist (United Church of Christ) to Methodists and dragged me along through my teenage years.
I married a Catholic and was slowly drawn back into our faith, going to Mass occasionally, but couldn’t tell you why we knelt or what the word Eucharist was. I started searching for the truth about five years ago, studying with Evangelicals, went to Baptist men’s conventions, the tail end of promise keepers, and I tried real hard to be one of those steriotypical Bible thumping Evangelical.
One night about four years ago, I was reading John 6, looking for loopholes in the Catholic faith and God literally knocked me off my chair. I realized that everything people claimed about God was true, and that everything Catholics claimed about their Church was true, and I fell in love with God and his Church. I made a 37 year confession the next day.
About a year ago I met a Franciscan priest, and told him my story, and he told me that my conversion was because of Mary, that such a conversion of sinner was because she willed that it happen, and he suggested consecration as a way to serve Jesus through Mary. I looked into it and did it December 8 of last year.
-Tim-.
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TrueLight
Guest
Thanks. I was mistaken. You’re a revert.
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TimothyH
Guest
The Eastern Churches have the idea of divinization, of moving from the image of God in which we are all made to the likeness of God insofar as we cooperate with his will and become like him.
Is the bold Church teaching?
No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. (Luke 6:40)
I like the way Peter puts it.
***His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him *who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
Knowledge, or gnosis, was more than just book knowledge, or information, but intimate knowledge like that of friends who know each other on an intimate basis, or of lovers. Elswhere both Peter and Paul speak of tasting God. It’s palpable, and give a lasting impression upon the memory, and is something we can draw upon.
Peter speaks of becoming a partaker in God’s divine nature through this intimate knowledge, experience, or taste of God. Becoming partakers of the divine nature - divinization - is a hallmark of Byzantine spirituality.
When de Montfort or Kolbe or anyone else says that Mary is fully divine, this is what they mean, that she has become divinized, a partaker in the divine nature to the extent that it is possible for a human being, her will being fully united to her Sons. St. Therese understood the process of divinization as The Way to Perfection.
Mary has reached perfection. Mary is fully divinized.
-Tim-
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TimothyH
Guest
Yes, labels and categories and little boxes into which we put people and things are wonderful.
-Tim-
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TrueLight
Guest
Labels can actually help a lot in understanding where someone is coming from. They’re not always negative.Yes, labels and categories and little boxes into which we put people and things are wonderful.
-Tim-
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