Discussing Mary

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The way I understand it is (and you can correct my fallacies):
*In the late 4th century, a local Synod (of Rome?) and two councils - Hippo and Carthage all came up with the same OT canon. They included the Deuterocanonicals as full Inspired Scripture. For the next 11 centuries, the Church accepted (though not as dogma) this Canon as Scripture. Although there was some dissent, the most notable being St. Jerome, it was only minor dissent for the most part.

That is, until the Reformation. As with most other Dogma’s (the Immaculate Conception being one exception), the Church didn’t officially declare something infallibly unless She had to settle a dispute that couldn’t settle itself. It seems that the official binding declarations is actually a last resort of the Church’s, rather than an oft-used way to throw Rome’s weight around.

The Council of Trent did not treat the OT Canon any differently (giving any books any more or less weight) than Hippo and Carthage.*

Now, does Mr. Beckwith agree with that?

BTW, where do the Protestant Bibles get their OT Canons from? By whose authority were they selected?
These are good questions but we can’t discuss them here or else this thread my be closed.
 
**Hi justasking4.

Thanks again for your reply. I am using a number of approaches to explain my arguments - bear with me. . .

*Adam was sinless yet he sinned. * So clearly Adam, though he was sinless at creation, was capable of sinning. This means that a person who is sinless CAN sin.

So whenever the claim is made that Mary was sinless - it does not mean she could not sin. Being partakers of the divine nature means this:* it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.*, it is equivalent to new wine in new wineskins, and obviously walking in the Spirit. All these tie in together and convey the same truth:

In simple propositional statements we can pick which one is consistent with God’s word:
  1. *it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me. *
  2. it is no longer I who lives but Adam who lives in me
  3. it is no longer I who live but Adam and Christ who lives in me.
Axiom 2 is outside the faith.
Axiom 3 is an admixture that, in the words of our Lord, represent someone who is neither *hot nor cold. *

It seems natural to me that Mary lived according to axiom 1.

blessings:
 
**Hi justasking4.

Thanks again for your reply. I am using a number of approaches to explain my arguments - bear with me. . .

*Adam was sinless yet he sinned. * So clearly Adam, though he was sinless at creation, was capable of sinning. This means that a person who is sinless CAN sin.

So whenever the claim is made that Mary was sinless - it does not mean she could not sin. Being partakers of the divine nature means this:* it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.*, it is equivalent to new wine in new wineskins, and obviously walking in the Spirit. All these tie in together and convey the same truth:

In simple propositional statements we can pick which one is consistent with God’s word:
  1. *it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me. *
  2. it is no longer I who lives but Adam who lives in me
  3. it is no longer I who live but Adam and Christ who lives in me.
Axiom 2 is outside the faith.
Axiom 3 is an admixture that, in the words of our Lord, represent someone who is neither *hot nor cold. *

It seems natural to me that Mary lived according to axiom 1.

blessings:
I don’t think its as straight forward as you state here. The reason can be found in Romans 5:12, 18 and 19.

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

These verses tell us that all men are sinners and the reason why. Even Paul who wrote that Christ lived in him still sinned. If Mary did not sin, then we should expect the scriptures to say so and make an exception to this principle that all men are sinners.
 
I don’t think its as straight forward as you state here. The reason can be found in Romans 5:12, 18 and 19.

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

These verses tell us that all men are sinners and the reason why. Even Paul who wrote that Christ lived in him still sinned. If Mary did not sin, then we should expect the scriptures to say so and make an exception to this principle that all men are sinners.
What you have here is a perfect example of original sin. All men are sinners. Yes, through the inherited sin of Adam also known as original sin.

But an infant has not committed any personal sin, have they?

What about a mentally handicapped adult with the intellegence of an infant? They have not committed any personal sin either, but they are not mentioned as exceptions.

All men are sinners in this sense. Mary was also. All of us need a savoir. The only difference is that Mary was saved and cleansed of all sin before she was even conceived. Not for her sake but because of the holiness of Whom she would bear in her womb.

God Bless,
Maria
 
I came across this in my research on Mary.

Our Lady of Fatima
The Fifteen Promises that Our Lady made for those who will pray the Rosary
  1. Whoever shall faithfully serve Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.
  2. I promise My special protection and the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary.
  3. The soul which recommends itself to Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.
  4. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death. If he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God and become worthy of eternal life.
    (You can find this at www.catholictradition.org)
    These are just some of the promises for those who pray the rosary.
    Do you believe this? Do you trust in these promiese made by Mary?
 
I came across this in my research on Mary.

Our Lady of Fatima
The Fifteen Promises that Our Lady made for those who will pray the Rosary
  1. Whoever shall faithfully serve Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.
  2. I promise My special protection and the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary.
  3. The soul which recommends itself to Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.
  4. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death. If he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God and become worthy of eternal life.
    (You can find this at www.catholictradition.org)
    These are just some of the promises for those who pray the rosary.
    Do you believe this? Do you trust in these promiese made by Mary?
Where are these listed? I looked on the web-site and it lists some different promises.
 
I wish i had some leeway to respond to this but i don’t want to get off topic.

Are you saying the catholic church determined what the canon would be or was it the Spirit of Christ working through the church that determined the canon?
Yes, The Church guided by the Holy Spirit were the one who put the 27 NT as part of the Canon of Scripture.
 
I came across this in my research on Mary.

Our Lady of Fatima
The Fifteen Promises that Our Lady made for those who will pray the Rosary
  1. Whoever shall faithfully serve Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.
  2. I promise My special protection and the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary.
  3. The soul which recommends itself to Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.
  4. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death. If he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God and become worthy of eternal life.
    (You can find this at www.catholictradition.org)
    These are just some of the promises for those who pray the rosary.
    Do you believe this? Do you trust in these promiese made by Mary?Hi JA4,
    Did it occur to you that these promises are not actually made by the Blessed Virgin, but are promises made to her by Our Lord in response to her intercession and then delivered to us by Mary?
Think about it. The Rosary is a Christocentric meditation that revolves around the life of Christ and faithful practice of it can only serve to deepen a person’s relationship to Our Lord.

Moreover, every Church approved apparition of the Blessed Virgin has the same essential message that Mary stated in John 2:5 “…Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye.”
 
Hi Justaksing,

sorry if it seems I’m repeating but could you state list me your criteria for a belief (theologically speaking) to be true? Sorry if you already responded, I just don’t see your answer anywhere. Thank you 😉
 
Do any of these promises contradict Scripture? No indeed, unless one makes the typical misinterpretation of some Protestants, who either insist on making words mean ‘only’ what they choose the word to mean, regardless of what the word actually meant when it was written (such as ‘prayer’ or ‘worship’) or else practice a sort of ellipsis/shorthand, taking a phrase ‘out of context’ and insisting that if Mary says we should ‘pray to her’, that somehow that means we are leaving JESUS out of the equation. As if Mary ever says, “pray ONLY to me”, or “these prayers are to ME ALONE”.

And there is the crux of the matter. For so many Protestants who are focused on their ‘personal’ relationship, the ‘me-and-Jesus’ and the “GOD ALONE” fallacies, it is an automatic, knee-jerk response to see (unwritten and unthought) ‘me alone’ in any phrases that express, “prayer”, “worship” etc. And of course, for them even to associate ‘prayer or worship’ with anyone other than “GOD ALONE” is anathema. It doesn’t matter that neither Mary or the saints EVER have said, “prayer is to alone”; it is so ingrained in many Protestants that Catholics treat Mary as a goddess and saints as demigods that they automatically look for these tempests in teapots and strawmen of their own making, to jubilantly shout, “AHA! You are denying God and worshipping others, and this prayer-devotion-writing PROVES IT, niener niener!”
 
Church Militant;2640293]Hi JA4,
Did it occur to you that these promises are not actually made by the Blessed Virgin, but are promises made to her by Our Lord in response to her intercession and then delivered to us by Mary?
Not according to what my source says— it says "Father Gruner’s pamphlets reprints **the Fifteen Promises that Our Lady made **for those who will pray the Rosary.There is nothing about the Lord in this that i see.
Think about it. The Rosary is a Christocentric meditation that revolves around the life of Christ and faithful practice of it can only serve to deepen a person’s relationship to Our Lord.
If that is the case why is there more prayers to Mary than God?
Moreover, every
Church approved apparition of the Blessed Virgin has the same essential message that Mary stated in John 2:5 “…Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye.”

This is a topic all unto itself.
 
Tantum ergo;2640545]Do any of these promises contradict Scripture?
In #1 this promise is given-“1) Whoever shall faithfully serve Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.”
Where in scripture is Mary said to have such power?
No indeed, unless one makes the typical misinterpretation of some Protestants, who either insist on making words mean ‘only’ what they choose the word to mean, regardless of what the word actually meant when it was written (such as ‘prayer’ or ‘worship’) or else practice a sort of ellipsis/shorthand, taking a phrase ‘out of context’ and insisting that if Mary says we should ‘pray to her’, that somehow that means we are leaving JESUS out of the equation. As if Mary ever says, “pray ONLY to me”, or “these prayers are to ME ALONE”.
When we want to know what a word means we can look it up in a dictionary. When we look at words like veneration, prayer and worship we do see how they do apply to the marian pracitices and they point to what catholics want to deny.
And there is the crux of the matter. For so many Protestants who are focused on their ‘personal’ relationship, the ‘me-and-Jesus’ and the “GOD ALONE” fallacies, it is an automatic, knee-jerk response to see (unwritten and unthought) ‘me alone’ in any phrases that express, “prayer”, “worship” etc. And of course, for them even to associate ‘prayer or worship’ with anyone other than “GOD ALONE” is anathema. It doesn’t matter that neither Mary or the saints EVER have said, “prayer is to alone”; it is so ingrained in many Protestants that Catholics treat Mary as a goddess and saints as demigods that they automatically look for these tempests in teapots and strawmen of their own making, to jubilantly shout, “AHA! You are denying God and worshipping others, and this prayer-devotion-writing PROVES IT, niener niener!”
 
IF Catholics actually worshipped Mary in the way you claim, why would we deny it? If Mary was so important to us that we believed she was a goddess, WHY WOULD WE HIDE IT?

Really, especially from somebody who says he WAS once a Catholic, you seem to have either received very poor Catholic teaching if you actually believe there is some sort of secret ‘Mary worship’ going on, that we are supposed to deny in public but practice in private. . .or else you have, for whatever reason, chosen to completely disregard the truth regarding Catholicism and to attempt to calumnate an entire group of your fellow Christians, knowing that they are not guilty of what you accuse them.

I have yet to see a reasonable explanation for this supposed ‘disconnect’. Either Catholics worship Mary, for good reason, and are proud of the fact and give the same type of ‘reasoning’ behind it that we give about every OTHER practice we are questioned on. . . or we do NOT worship Mary, and our denials are truth. You appear to think that we worship Mary, for no good reason, and lie about it, again for no good reason. Over and over you’ve been told we don’t, you insist we do. Well, I have news for you. No amount of your saying, “You worship Mary” is ever going to have Benedict XVI call the news conference, “People of the world, Justasking has forced me to reveal that secretly the Catholics of the world really DO worship Mary, and have lied about it for centuries”. . .because that really would BE a lie.
 
In #1 this promise is given-“1) Whoever shall faithfully serve Me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.”
Where in scripture is Mary said to have such power?
‘Behold thy mother (Mary)’ + ‘honour thy mother’ (obey her in all reasonable requests, and praying is certainly a reasonable request) = more than enough scriptural support for such power.

She’s ordering us to pray and promising us graces (help) if we do. Paul ordered us to pray unceasingly, and Christ himself promised that prayer would be heard and answered if sincere and faithful.

The one difference is simply that she’s just advocating a particular prayer, the Rosary. An entirely Christocentric prayer when prayed properly, reflecting non-stop on the Gospel events and ‘pondering them in our hearts’ just as she herself did while saying the words of the Our Fathers and Hail Marys.

The ony person who WOULDN’T want us to pray a prayer that causes us to focus on and think over the events of the Gospels is Satan.

The Rosary is entirely biblical and worthwhile - try it for a few weeks before criticising it! Many thoroughly solid non-Catholic Christians pray it. As did Luther and John Wesley - you calling them idolaters or wrong for doing so?
 
The Hail Mary to me covers the greatest event in Human History.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee reminds us of the Annunciation.

*Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus *harkens us to the Visitation of Elizabeth.

What event happened sometime between these two scenes? The Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ!!!
 
Does the Rosary bring us closer to God?

Most people that I know who attend daily Mass will tell you that they first started saying the Rosary each day, and when drawn to attending Mass.
 
I came across this in my research on Mary.
So, is any of the research you are doing on Mary in the Catechism, the official teaching of the Catholic Church?

And did you start first with the teachings on Christ since the only way you can truly understand the teachings and “unofficial” devotions about Mary is if you first understand the teachings on Christ.

Although maybe this one may help about Mary.

971 “All generations will call me blessed”: "The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship."515 The Church rightly honors "the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs. . . . This very special devotion . . . differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration."516 The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an “epitome of the whole Gospel,” express this devotion to the Virgin Mary.517
 
Another thread to discuss more in depth, but do you realize what the prolouge and the first three things in the Catechism actually are?

PROLOGUE

"FATHER, . . . this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."1 "God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."2 "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved"3 - than the name of JESUS. I. THE LIFE OF MAN - TO KNOW AND LOVE GOD

1
God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

2 So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."4 Strengthened by this mission, the apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it."5

3 Those who with God’s help have welcomed Christ’s call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ’s faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.6

1 Jn 17 3.
2 1 Tim 2:3-4.
3 Acts 4:12.
4 Mt 28:19-20.
5 Mk 16:20.
6 Cf. Acts 2:42.
 
MariaG;2642619]So, is any of the research you are doing on Mary in the Catechism, the official teaching of the Catholic Church?

And did you start first with the teachings on Christ since the only way you can truly understand the teachings and “unofficial” devotions about Mary is if you first understand the teachings on Christ.

Although maybe this one may help about Mary.
URL=“http://javascript:openWindow(‘cr/971.htm’);”]971
“All generations will call me blessed”: “The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.”
What does this sentence mean?
515 The Church rightly honors "the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs. . . .
This sounds so much like one of the psalms in praise of God.
This very special devotion . . . differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit,
and greatly fosters this adoration."516

How is it different?
The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an “epitome of the whole Gospel,” express this devotion to the Virgin Mary.517
 
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