After this week I recognize the Reformers’ wisdom in excising every possible trace of Mariolatry from our services. I thank God for that. Singing songs to Mary in the service, it seems to me, would be uncharitable, like giving gin to an alcoholic. There are repeated admonitions about ‘the Lord God alone you shall serve’. I have seen enough Catholics committed to Mary who are disrespectful to priests to last me a lifetime. If I had a statue of Mary in my garden right now I would smash it after the disgusting spectacle of this week. The threads are gone but the memories remain. The Catholic Church indulges idolatry by singing such songs. That has been made extremely clear.
We do not sing birthday songs, patriotic songs, or anything to anyone except God in our services. There is a Reformation principle of To God Alone Be the Glory, and idolatry such as has been posted here, and still is, over in Spirituality, is the reason. Some people are weak-minded enough they should not be around songs that would cause them to worship Mary, or anything else as God. And the glory rightly belongs to God, and to give it to anyone else is robbing Him of His glory. He will deal with glory thieves and people who worship the creature rather than the Creator.
Tomyris,
Which reformers? Martin Luther? Here’s what the founder of the Reformation had to say about Mary:
“The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart.”
“[Mary is the] highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ… She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. Still honor and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures.”
Source:
churchpop.com/2017/03/07/5-surprising-quotes-from-martin-luther-on-the-blessed-virgin-mary/
So was Martin Luther right or wrong? How do you know? If he was wrong about Mary, then how do you know he was right about Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura or the Canon of Scripture?
As to “the Lord God alone you shall serve,” what about asking for Mary to pray for us violates that? In what way?
You say our Church indulges idolatry, but have you read what God commanded the Israelites to do while wandering in the desert?
“and the LORD said to Moses: Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover. Accordingly Moses made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever the serpent bit someone, the person looked at the bronze serpent and recovered.” (Numbers 21:8-9)
And what about the instructions on building the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 25? Specifically verses 18-20 where He instructs them to craft two cherubim. Doesn’t this violate the commandment against idols? How about the commandment against making a likeness of “anything in heaven or on earth”?
Lastly on this point, are we not called as Christians to imitate Christ? And did He not fully entrust Himself to Mary for 9 months in the womb, and the years of his hidden life in Nazareth? So if Christ entrusted Himself to Mary, isn’t it fitting for us to entrust ourselves to her following the same pattern? And if God is unchanging, and Grace entered the world through Mary by virtue of her giving birth to the Messiah, doesn’t it follow that Grace continues to flow through Mary?
God will indeed deal with those who worship the creature rather than the creator, but that’s not what the Catholic Church teaches us to do with regards to Mary. We are taught to
venerate her. There are indeed Catholics who elevate Mary far beyond what is acceptable, but they are the minority. You’d have an easier time finding a Catholic with no relationship/devotion to Mary at all.
The proper Catholic understanding of Mary is that she is the pinnacle of creation. She is all that we are meant to be as humans. And so we honor her as the mother of our lord and ask for her intercession because we know she is a powerful intercessor with her Son.
When you walk through a museum and see the pinnacle work of an artist, is your awe and admiration of the work taking away in any way from your admiration for the artist who created it? Or does praising his work, especially his greatest work, minimize him as an artist?
This is the proper Catholic belief about Mary. When we praise her we praise the God who created her and gave her a special grace to be the mother of God.
Please don’t misunderstand anything written above as me looking down my nose at a “comical rustic Protestant.” That’s not my intention at all. I seek only to explain the Catholic point of view and invite you to consider some things about your own.
And for EVERYONE in the forums, let us all practice the Jesuit principle of Presupposition. Let us all endeavor to see Christ in one another, and assume the best intentions of those who challenge us.
