Discussing Mary

  • Thread starter Thread starter zemi
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
justasking4 said:
If you think i’m wrong about this, then show me in scripture another “mediator” like Jesus Who is no longer physically present with us that we are to pray to?
Even Paul when he was about to die did not exhort believers to pary to him after he had died. Nor did Peter, James or John. If anyone would be qualified to pray to it would be them and yet they never teach such a thing.
Click to expand...
**Justasking,

Read THIS if you are REALLY interested in the Catholic explanation of our teaching of “One Mediator”, praying to Mary and the saints, praying straight to God vs. interecessory prayer etc.**

It may be you will now really see it thoroughly explained. If you refuse it as a non-scriptural nonsense, I will probabaly have to say nothing to you more on this issue… If you want to see how the Catholics are BIBLICAL, read, please that article.

I’d be glad to answer your questions regarding that article, but if you bluntly reject it, we have finished discussing (because you would reject then what you want of us - biblical proofs). IMHO, nothing can be more biblical than things in what I give you to read.
 
justasking4 said:
If you think i’m wrong about this, then show me in scripture another “mediator” like Jesus Who is no longer physically present with us that we are to pray to?
Even Paul when he was about to die did not exhort believers to pary to him after he had died. Nor did Peter, James or John. If anyone would be qualified to pray to it would be them and yet they never teach such a thing.
Click to expand...
Moses was dead already and God says that even Moses’s prayer would not moved him to not send them away…meaning GOD CAN HEAR THE PRAYERS OF THE DEAD!!!

Jer 15:1
The LORD said to me: Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them away from me.
Click to expand...
 
justasking4 said:
Please show me from the NT ]someone praying directly
Click to expand...
]to a saint in heaven specifically for something.

Why do you assume that everything that a Christian believes is only to be found in the bible?

As for me, even if the teaching is found only implicitly in scripture, I will look to the teachings and the Traditions of the Church through out history.

I know that you are probably thinking " yes, but you are listening to the traditions of ‘men’., but I honestly believe that the Church that Christ established is protected from teaching error.
When Jesus promised the Advocate,(the Holy Spirit), to the Apostles to guide them to all truth, and to bring to remembrance of all that He had spoken, that wasn’t a short lived promise which would end once the New Testament was written, I believe that it was a gift given to the Church, so it could teach the truth until the end of time.

The Church has proven itself over the ages, countering the many heresies that have cropped up bringing to question the teachings of the church. How did the church counter the heretics who proved their teachings from scripture alone? By Scripture, the Traditions, and the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church. At one point Arianism had engulfed 2/3 of all the bishops, but the promise of the Holy Spirit, guided the church out of this heresy.

Well enough with my pontificating which I doubt you will ever agree with, and onto the writings of the Church fathers to which I look to see if Christians should pray to saints or not, and if it were a practice of Christians trough out the history of the Church.

Origen
But not the high priest [Christ] alone prays for those who pray sincerely, but also the angels… as also the souls of the saints who have already fallen asleep (On Prayer II [A.D. 233]).

Pectorius
Aschandius, my father, dearly beloved of my heart, with my sweet mother and my brethren, remember your Pectorius in the peace of the Fish [Christ] (Epitaph [A.D. 250]).

Cyprian
Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides 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 the 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. 252]).

Anonymous
Atticus, sleep in peace, secure in your safety, and pray anxiously for our sins (funerary inscription near St. Sabina’s in Rome [A.D. 300]).

Anonymous
Pray for your parents, Matronata Matrona. She lived one year, fifty-two days (ibid.).

Cyril of Jerusalem
Then [during the Eucharistic prayer] we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition… (Catechetical Lectures 23:9 [A.D. 350]).

Anonymous
Mother of God, [listen to] my petitions; do not disregard us in adversity, but rescue us from danger (Rylands Papyrus 3 [A.D. 350]).

Hilary of Poitiers
To those who would fain to stand, neither the guardianship of saints nor the defenses of angels are wanting (Commentary on the Psalms 124:5:6 [A.D. 365]).

Ephraem of Syria
Remember me, you heirs of God, you brethren of Christ; supplicate the Savior earnestly for me, that I may be freed through Christ from him that fights against me day by day (De Timore, Anim. in fin. [A.D. 370]).

Liturgy of St. Basil
By the command of your only-begotten Son we communicate with the memory of your saints . . . by whose prayers and supplications have mercy upon us all, and deliver us for the sake of your holy name (Liturgy of St. Basil [A.D. 373]).
 
Gregory Nazianzen
Yes, I am well assured that [my father’s] 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 that obscured it, and holds conversation naked with the nakedness of the prime and purest mind . . . (Orations 18:4 [A.D. 374]).

May you [Cyprian] look down from above propitiously upon us, and guide our word and life; and shepherd this sacred flock . . . gladden the Holy Trinity, before which you stand (Orations 17 [24] [A.D. 376]),

Gregory of Nyssa
Do you, [Ephraem] that art standing at the divine altar . . . bear us all in remembrance, petitioning for us the remission of sins, and the fruition of an everlasting kingdom (Sermon on Ephraem the Syrian [A.D. 380]).

Ambrose of Milan
May Peter, who wept so efficaciously for himself, weep for us and turn towards us Christ’s benign countenance (Hexameron 5:25:90 [A.D. 388]).

John Chrysostom
He that wears the purple . . . stands begging of the saints to be his patrons with God, and he that wears a diadem begs the tent-maker [Paul] and the fisherman [Peter] as patrons, even though they be dead" (Homilies on 2 Corinthians 26 [A.D. 392]).

When you perceive that God is chastening you, fly not to his enemies . . . but to his friends, the martyrs, the saints, and those who were pleasing to him, and who have great power [in God] (Orations 8:6 [A.D. 396]).

Augustine
A Christian people celebrate together in religious solemnity the memorials of the martyrs, both to encourage their being imitated and so that it can share in their merits and be aided by their prayers (Against Faustus the Manichean [A.D. 400]).

Jerome
You say in your book that while we live we are able to pray for each other, but afterwards when we have died, the prayer of no person for another can be heard . . . But if the apostles and martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, at a time when they ought still be solicitous about themselves, how much more will they do so after their crowns, victories, and triumphs? (Against Vigilantius 6 [A.D. 406]).
 
justasking4 why are you here on these forums?

Is it to seek the truth?
Is it to guide the catholics away from error and to the truth?

Are you even open to anything we have to say here?

Is your mind is so set to what you believe, that you can’t be swayed to the fact that maybe, just maybe, some of those beliefs which you hold so deeply in your heart might have some error in it?

I kind of know where you are coming from, I think that if I were to go to a Mormon or a JW forum site, I would have a very hard time to listen to their teachings, because I know deeply inside that they are wrong. But unlike these groups which claim to be the “church”, only the Catholic church has the pedigree which can be traced to the Apostles them selfs.
We don’t have a 1,800 year gap of continuity which we just explain away by saying that the church some how disappeared and reappeared 1,800 years later on a different Continent, or that the Church was in error for over a thousand years before some person had a private revelation to what the truth really is.

The Catholic Church can trace it’s teachings and doctrine all the way back to the very foundation of the Church.
 
When I look to the Church and wonder is it right, or is it wrong. Then I look at Gamaliel’s words. If the Church was of God, then nothing can be done to destroy it (even when we try to destroy it from the inside (sigh)). But if it were of men, it will fall on its own. Gamaliel’s words ring so true today, Praise God!!!
 
savedsinner;2596718]Why do you assume that everything that a Christian believes is only to be found in the bible?
Click to expand...
Would you agree that what the scriptures teach we can believe its true with confidence?
As for me, even if the teaching is found only implicitly in scripture, I will look to the teachings and the Traditions of the Church through out history.
Click to expand...
I know that you are probably thinking " yes, but you are listening to the traditions of ‘men’., but I honestly believe that the Church that Christ established is protected from teaching error.
When Jesus promised the Advocate,(the Holy Spirit), to the Apostles to guide them to all truth, and to bring to remembrance of all that He had spoken, that wasn’t a short lived promise which would end once the New Testament was written, I believe that it was a gift given to the Church, so it could teach the truth until the end of time.
Click to expand...
Do you believe what the scriptures warn about false teachers coming into the church itself and decieving many? Do you also know that Jesus never taught nor promised that the church would be protected from error?
These are significant statements that counter the catholic church’ claim that it cannot teach error. Either the scriptures are false or the catholic church’ claim is. They both cannot be true.
The Church has proven itself over the ages, countering the many heresies that have cropped up bringing to question the teachings of the church. How did the church counter the heretics who proved their teachings from scripture alone? By Scripture, the Traditions, and the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church. At one point Arianism had engulfed 2/3 of all the bishops, but the promise of the Holy Spirit, guided the church out of this heresy.
Click to expand...
This is not the only issue to be concerned about. There are others in which the church has indeed erred.
Well enough with my pontificating which I doubt you will ever agree with, and onto the writings of the Church fathers to which I look to see if Christians should pray to saints or not, and if it were a practice of Christians trough out the history of the Church.
Click to expand...
Why start with the church fathers? Why not with the scriptures which carry far more weight than the fathers?
B]Origen
Click to expand...
But not the high priest [Christ] alone prays for those who pray sincerely, but also the angels… as also the souls of the saints who have already fallen asleep (On Prayer II [A.D. 233]).

Pectorius
Aschandius, my father, dearly beloved of my heart, with my sweet mother and my brethren, remember your Pectorius in the peace of the Fish [Christ] (Epitaph [A.D. 250]).

Cyprian
Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides 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 the 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. 252]).

Anonymous
Atticus, sleep in peace, secure in your safety, and pray anxiously for our sins (funerary inscription near St. Sabina’s in Rome [A.D. 300]).

Anonymous
Pray for your parents, Matronata Matrona. She lived one year, fifty-two days (ibid.).

Cyril of Jerusalem
Then [during the Eucharistic prayer] we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition… (Catechetical Lectures 23:9 [A.D. 350]).

Anonymous
Mother of God, [listen to] my petitions; do not disregard us in adversity, but rescue us from danger (Rylands Papyrus 3 [A.D. 350]).

Hilary of Poitiers
To those who would fain to stand, neither the guardianship of saints nor the defenses of angels are wanting (Commentary on the Psalms 124:5:6 [A.D. 365]).

Ephraem of Syria
Remember me, you heirs of God, you brethren of Christ; supplicate the Savior earnestly for me, that I may be freed through Christ from him that fights against me day by day (De Timore, Anim. in fin. [A.D. 370]).

Liturgy of St. Basil
By the command of your only-begotten Son we communicate with the memory of your saints . . . by whose prayers and supplications have mercy upon us all, and deliver us for the sake of your holy name (Liturgy of St. Basil [A.D. 373]).
Have you noticed a couple of things about these these quotes? For one they are at least 2-4 centuries after the apostles. Secondly, Not one of them ever refers to a particular verse in the NT to support their claims.
 
runandsew;2596786]justasking4 why are you here on these forums?
Click to expand...
Is it to seek the truth?
Is it to guide the catholics away from error and to the truth?
Click to expand...
Are you even open to anything we have to say here?
Click to expand...
Yes to all.
Is your mind is so set to what you believe, that you can’t be swayed to the fact that maybe, just maybe, some of those beliefs which you hold so deeply in your heart might have some error in it?
Click to expand...
I could ask the same about you. I am making my case from scripture and i have yet to see that done by what i have seen here and elsewhere.
I kind of know where you are coming from, I think that if I were to go to a Mormon or a JW forum site, I would have a very hard time to listen to their teachings, because I know deeply inside that they are wrong.
Click to expand...
How would you go about showing that they are wrong? If they are wrong don’t you have a responsiblity to engage them about it?
But unlike these groups which claim to be the “church”, only the Catholic church has the pedigree which can be traced to the Apostles them selfs.
We don’t have a 1,800 year gap of continuity which we just explain away by saying that the church some how disappeared and reappeared 1,800 years later on a different Continent, or that the Church was in error for over a thousand years before some person had a private revelation to what the truth really is.
Click to expand...
The Catholic Church can trace it’s teachings and doctrine all the way back to the very foundation of the Church.
Click to expand...
That may bring you comfort but they would reject this claim out of hand. The mormons for example would tell you that the catholic church essentially lost the truth centuries ago and is an apostate church. How would you deal with that?
 
justasking4 said:
(1)I could ask the same about you. I am making my case from scripture and i have yet to see that done by what i have seen here and elsewhere.

(2)That may bring you comfort but they would reject this claim out of hand. The Mormons for example would tell you that the catholic church essentially lost the truth centuries ago and is an apostate church. How would you deal with that?
Click to expand...
(1) I need to go back through this thread, but on many threads on this subject, when the passages are brought up, the Protestants just blow them off. With out an authority outside scripture, I guess you can interpret Scripture any way you want to. How do you know that your interpretation is the correct one?

And as for praying to the saints not a practice for hundreds of years later, I would say that references to praying to the saints were written much earlier on the tombs in the catecombs.

(2)I would ask them to show me where in all of the early Christian writings that there was a notion that the church had gone apostate. If it had indeed gone apostate, there should be some record of it.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by justasking4
If you think i’m wrong about this, then show me in scripture another “mediator” like Jesus Who is no longer physically present with us that we are to pray to?
Even Paul when he was about to die did not exhort believers to pary to him after he had died. Nor did Peter, James or John. If anyone would be qualified to pray to it would be them and yet they never teach such a thing.
Click to expand...
Moses was dead already and God says that even Moses’s prayer would not moved him to not send them away…meaning GOD CAN HEAR THE PRAYERS OF THE DEAD!!!
Jer 15:1
Click to expand...
Quote:
The LORD said to me: Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them away from me.
Click to expand...
Look at the context for this. Its not about praying to the dead but that even if Moses and Samuel stood before the Lord they would not be able to persuade him. This is not about prayer.
 
zemi said:
**Justasking,

Read THIS **if you are REALLY interested in the Catholic explanation of our teaching of “One Mediator”, praying to Mary and the saints, praying straight to God vs. interecessory prayer etc.

It may be you will now really see it thoroughly explained. If you refuse it as a non-scriptural nonsense, I will probabaly have to say nothing to you more on this issue… If you want to see how the Catholics are BIBLICAL, read, please that article.

I’d be glad to answer your questions regarding that article, but if you bluntly reject it, we have finished discussing (because you would reject then what you want of us - biblical proofs). IMHO, nothing can be more biblical than things in what I give you to read.
Click to expand...
There is nothing new in this article and Madrid does what i have seen all catholics do on this and that is to read into passages catholic doctrine. For example in his article he does not give one verse of anyone praying to a saint in heaven. Its all implied that such a thing is possible. It may sound reasonable but in reality the scriptures don’t teach this.

I don’t blame for wanting to leave this topic. I would to considering that you and others have not been able to support these doctrines with support from the scriptures. The main reason these doctrines fail is that the verses and passages that are used to support these doctrine in context in which they are found. This is why you don’t see any praying to Mary or the saints in protestant churches.
It also fails historically. These doctrines and practices were unknown for centuries. Just look at the quotes people have used here.
 
justasking4 said:
Stephen and James. Are there any prayers in the NT to them?
Click to expand...
My point is that there weren’t the myriads that we have today. The Church was 7 years old before Stephens death, and much older before James’ death.

Besides we don’t see the great prayers that the NT writers offered up to God like we see with Jesus in the Gospels. And of course, Stephen and James weren’t dead, yet.
 
runandsew;2597049](1) I need to go back through this thread, but on many threads on this subject, when the passages are brought up, the Protestants just blow them off. With out an authority outside scripture, I guess you can interpret Scripture any way you want to. How do you know that your interpretation is the correct one?
Click to expand...
The burden of proof is on you. We already agree that we can pray to God. The scriptures teach that and catholics agree. What you need to do is to show that praying to a saint directly is taught in scripture. That has not been done and it can’t.
And as for praying to the saints not a practice for hundreds of years later, I would say that references to praying to the saints were written much earlier on the tombs in the catecombs.
Click to expand...
That really doesn’t help. For one this is what one person wrote. Its not an offical church endorsement.

(
2)I would ask them to show me where in all of the early Christian writings that there was a notion that the church had gone apostate. If it had indeed gone apostate, there should be some record of it.
Click to expand...
That would be a good question to ask.
 
justasking4 said:
That may bring you comfort but they would reject this claim out of hand. The mormons for example would tell you that the catholic church essentially lost the truth centuries ago and is an apostate church. How would you deal with that?
Click to expand...
I agree with runandsew, if the church had gone apostate and lost the truth, it would be evident in the writings or in the history books.

And it is very evident.

It is very clear to me that a large section of the church in Europe went apostate with protestant reformation. Many Christians left the true church that Jesus established, and became apostate, and began teaching errors as truth.

And even to this day, they will try to prove that these errors are truth, by claiming that the only authority is the bible, and that their interpretation is the correct one, therefore rendering the authority of the church useless.
Just like the Arians tried in the 4th century.
 
justasking4 said:
There is nothing new in this article and Madrid does what i have seen all catholics do on this and that is to read into passages catholic doctrine. For example in his article he does not give one verse of anyone praying to a saint in heaven. Its all implied that such a thing is possible. It may sound reasonable but in reality the scriptures don’t teach this.

I don’t blame for wanting to leave this topic. I would to considering that you and others have not been able to support these doctrines with support from the scriptures. The main reason these doctrines fail is that the verses and passages that are used to support these doctrine in context in which they are found. This is why you don’t see any praying to Mary or the saints in protestant churches.
It also fails historically. These doctrines and practices were unknown for centuries. Just look at the quotes people have used here.
Click to expand...
First you are doing precisely the thing P. Madrid said in the intro - once you have the verses before you you asked for, you are “unmoved in your objections even in the face of a thoroughgoing biblical defense of a Catholic doctrine.” What you really disagree with is “the Catholic interpretation of verses, thus moving the argument beyond the “It’s not in the Bible” category to the subjective “I don’t agree with your interpretation of these verses” category.”

Secondly, you are completely incoherent with yourself. You said you believe in the doctrine of Original Sin - BUT IT’S A LATE DEVELOPEMENT! Compare it with the belief in purgatory. Yes, I know that you probably think Henry Cardinal Newman doesn’t know the Scriptures as he’s has converted to Catholicism (due to his research into the doctrine developement of the RCC) but maybe you should read what he writes about the (proto-)Purgatory belief and the (Proto-)doctrine of Original Sin. Then you can talk about late developement.
Let us proceed to another example. There are two doctrines which are generally associated with the name of a Father of the fourth and fifth centuries, and which can show little definite, or at least but partial, testimony in their behalf before his time,—Purgatory and Original Sin. The dictum of Vincent admits both or excludes both, according as it is or is not rigidly taken; but, if used by Aristotle’s “Lesbian Rule,” then, as Anglicans would wish, it can be made to admit Original Sin and exclude Purgatory.
Click to expand...
On the one hand, some notion of suffering, or disadvantage, or punishment after this life, in the case of the faithful departed, or other vague forms of the doctrine of Purgatory, has in its favour almost a consensus of the four first ages of the Church, though some Fathers state it with far greater openness and decision than others. It is, as far as words go, the confession of St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, St. Hilary, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, and St. Augustine. And so, on the other hand, there is a certain agreement of Fathers from the first that mankind has derived some disadvantage from the sin of Adam.
Click to expand...
Next, when we consider the two doctrines more distinctly,—the doctrine that between death and judgment there is a time or state of punishment; and the doctrine that all men, naturally propagated from fallen Adam, are in consequence born destitute of original righteousness, we find, on the one hand, several, such as Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyril, St. Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nyssen, as far as their words go, definitely declaring a doctrine of Purgatory: whereas no one will say that there is a testimony of the Fathers, equally strong, for the doctrine of Original Sin, though it is difficult here to make any definite statement about their teaching without going into a discussion of the subject.
Click to expand...
*Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine , pp.20-21 - found *HERE

You wanted history… there you have it.

PS: Talking about late developement and history - when did Sola scriptura develope…?
 
I will keep this short and sweet. Jesus paid his taxes even though he was KING, to show His followers that they should respect the present authority. I believe Mary was also doing what was expected of her. She did not go around telling everyone she was still a virgin when they accused her and Joseph of premarital sex.Flying under the radar, humility, was the way of all Holy people.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top