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adstrinity
Guest
Except when I pray to the Saints in Heaven, they hear me and ask God, and He answers.
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Arglaze
Guest
why is it so hard to obey the words of Jesus when He says: pray to the Father (not the saints), in His name?
Instead, we do the break a direct command and do something that neither him nor his apostles told us to do.
Neither Jesus, nor the apostles ever give command to pray to the saints on earth, nor in heaven.
If we do so, we break His command. And “they that love Him keep His commandments”
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SenorSalsa
Guest
If you can show me one prayer to a saint that doesn’t at it’s core, ask for the saint to pray for them, and also gives glory to God, I can show you a devotion gone astray. Lets take two more popular ones and look at them
lets see, We start out with a biblical reference, then give glory to God the Son, then ask Mary to pray for us. Notice that even the Hail Mary, the quintessential Marian prayer, does not technically pray to Mary, but rather implores her help, as I would implore my neighbor to also pray for me
Again, notice that the only time the word pray is even mentioned is to ask God, in this case the Father, to do something. Other than that, we are taking the biblical references to Michael and the Devil in Revelations, and asking that he continue to fight the war against our unseen enemies. We even recognize that it is only because of God that he is able to do such a thing, shown also by his name Michael, or Quis Ut Deus?: Who is like God? There is also plenty of biblical references to be assured of the assistance of Angels in our lives
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adstrinity
Guest
This doesn’t address, though, that when I pray to the Saints in Heaven, they hear me and ask Jesus what His Will on the matter is.
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Arglaze
Guest
Let’s see what Jesus says not a prayer someone else wrote:
Luke 11:1-4 - "one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, ‘Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.’ "
John 14:13 - “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
John 15:16 - " Ye… whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you."
John 16:23 - “And… Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you”
No need to complicate Jesus’ words. Pray to the father, not a prayer to the saints, no matter what is at its core, if its not a prayer directly to the Father (God not men), the way Jesus said to pray (to the Father), it is doing something contrary to what he asked us to do.
Neither Jesus, nor his 12 apostles, nor Paul ever give command to pray to the saints, or ask for their intervention with God in your behalf or any of that. Prayer is one of the most simple and powerful doctrines of the Scriptures, and we ought to come to the Father through Jesus **boldly **(no one else).
Hebrews 4:16 - “Let us therefore come **boldly **unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”
You don’t need the help of any saint to approach or ask God directly, Jesus said go to the Father directly. Its a command, not a suggestion.
M
mercygate
Guest
Jesus is my King. I am grafted into Him by faith and baptism. Therefore, Mary is my Mother.
Mary is the mother of the King. In the Davidic Kingdom, the mother, not the wife (wives?) of the king bears the title of Queen. Jesus reigns in Heaven as King. What does that make His mother?
The scriptures supporting this are found in the Books of the Kings.
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SenorSalsa
Guest
I suppose then that the only prayer you ever say is the Lord’s Prayer? or else, you aren’t following the word of Jesus
Also what about all the things people pray for and do not get? Jesus clearly promises he will grant whatever we ask for.
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Arglaze
Guest
Mary was no where alive when the Books of the Kings were written. If however you’re trying to explain it as something prophetic in nature, you need something stronger than “are found in the Books of the Kings” to support that.
She was a receptacle that the Holy Spirit used to hide His Divinity in humanity. That doesn’t make her the “Mother of God”, that only makes her an egg donor, and sorry it sounds so impersonal. But Jesus existed before Mary, therefore she cannot be the “Mother of God”. Jesus was, like the angel said, “that Holy thing” in her womb.
By being born of her, that doesn’t make her a queen. Nor did God married her, seeing she was Joseph’s wife, so Joseph is her husband, not God. Joseph had relations with her after Jesus was conceived from that virgin’s womb, because he had brothers and sisters.
She’s blessed among all women, for having that wonderful privilege, and the fruit of her womb is blessed. But she did not give Jesus his divinity, in fact she gave Jesus his mortality, in order that he could die on the cross, because in his ‘God form’ He cannot die. In his human state, his Divinity was hid in mortality, that’s why he said everything he does, he did through the Father, not of his own.
Jesus’ prayer to God fulfilled on Sunday at His resurrection. The prayer was:
John 17:5 “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
Before Mary ever existed.
Again, Mary gave Jesus his mortality, the Father, after Jesus’ death, gave Jesus his immortality back the way it was in the eons of eternity. In that light, Mary is definetly not God’s Queen, nor she sits Queen. The throne in heaven is the Throne of the Father and the Lamb, not the Father, and the Lamb, and the Mary.
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adstrinity
Guest
If Jesus or Mary is so offended by us paying homage to Mary and calling her Queen of Heaven, how come neither Jesus nor Mary corrects us in their apparitions?
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SenorSalsa
Guest
Why then, does Jesus call her Mother?
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Arglaze
Guest
Jesus didn’t say pray these words, he said after this manner pray ye.
And the prayers are directed straight to God, with no in betweens.
So the “Lord’s Prayer” like most people call it, is to be studied to know how to pray.
There are also prayers in the old testament which God answered, that are a good example of how to pray also.
Anything outside of that, is doing something Jesus did not ask for. There’s only one mediator between God and men in the Scriptures, and that is Jesus. There’s no mediator between Jesus and men. People may pray for you, but you must pray to God directly.
The command is simple, pray to the Father. And the only church that tells people to repeat the same things over and over are the Roman Catholic. I don’t know of any other group that repeats prayers like that.
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Arglaze
Guest
Its a formality. I’m sure he also called his dad, father.
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adstrinity
Guest
What if it’s an athiest’s friends praying to God for athiest’s conversion? Athiest doesn’t need to pray to God directly for his conversion.
B
Believe_85
Guest
This is illogical. By your reasoning we have no parents and mother and father just cultural terms, euphemisms for gamete donors.
Did Mary give birth to Jesus? Yes. Is Jesus God? Yes. Put them together and…WHAM! Mother of God!
What do ya know. Miracles happen.
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6glargento
Guest
I think its pretty hipocritical for protestants to say “there is no patristic evidence for the Assumption of Mary” since there is even less patristic evidece for many of their beliefs such as “symbolic eucharist” or “baptism as mearly a sign” these beliefs didn’t exist for over a thousand years after the ressurection of Christ! They make this argument because they think that they will score points with Catholics who have studied the fathers, but in the end wether or not the fathers taught the assumption of Mary is not the real issue for them [the protestants] and they could really care less what the fathers say becuase they follow sola scriptura.
And even if all the fathers had taught the Assumption, they would still not believe. And at any rate, there is early church evidence for the assumption of Mary. For instance the Oriental Orthodox who broke away from the church in 451 over the council of Chalcedon accept the assumption of Mary as a valid teaching (though not dogmatic) as do the Eastern Orthodox who broke away in 1054. There is also a passing reference to the assumption of Mary in “Epiphanius, Panarion in 377 AD”
“If the Holy Virgin had died and was buried, her falling asleep would have been surrounded with honour, death would have found her pure, and her crown would have been a virginal one…Had she been martyred according to what is written: ‘Thine own soul a sword shall pierce’, then she would shine gloriously among the martyrs, and her holy body would have been declared blessed; for by her, did light come to the world."
Epiphanius, Panarion, 78:23 (A.D. 377).
notice he uses the language of “IF the holy virgin had died” indicating that she did not die.
And even if all the fathers had taught the Assumption, they would still not believe. And at any rate, there is early church evidence for the assumption of Mary. For instance the Oriental Orthodox who broke away from the church in 451 over the council of Chalcedon accept the assumption of Mary as a valid teaching (though not dogmatic) as do the Eastern Orthodox who broke away in 1054. There is also a passing reference to the assumption of Mary in “Epiphanius, Panarion in 377 AD”
“If the Holy Virgin had died and was buried, her falling asleep would have been surrounded with honour, death would have found her pure, and her crown would have been a virginal one…Had she been martyred according to what is written: ‘Thine own soul a sword shall pierce’, then she would shine gloriously among the martyrs, and her holy body would have been declared blessed; for by her, did light come to the world."
Epiphanius, Panarion, 78:23 (A.D. 377).
notice he uses the language of “IF the holy virgin had died” indicating that she did not die.
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Arglaze
Guest
By the way, I just did some research, and no where in the gospels or anywhere does Jesus call Mary, “mother”.
But regardless of that I wouldn’t be surprised if he did, although, strange enough, he referred to her as “woman” several times.
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adstrinity
Guest
Just like Adam called Eve.
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Arglaze
Guest
Lo and behold, this is how doctrines of men, replace what the Bible plain and simple states. To avoid this, read everything in its context.This is illogical. By your reasoning we have no parents and mother and father just cultural terms, euphemisms for gamete donors.
Did Mary give birth to Jesus? Yes. Is Jesus God? Yes. Put them together and…WHAM! Mother of God!
Jesus never called Mary “mother” in the Bible. Its an assumption. If I follow that type of doctrine, that would make Joseph the father of God also, which is ridiculous. This is truncating God into human philosophy. God did not marry Mary, Mary married Joseph of Arimathea, her husband.
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