How would you respond to this person?

  • Thread starter Thread starter DuskWind
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

DuskWind

Guest
“I am Catholic but the more I search and study the Scriptures the more convicted I feel that the Rosary has its place but that Mary would not be pleased that we pray through her to Jesus. Christ died that we may have direct access to Him. The temple curtain was ripped in half when He died giving us entrance into the Holies! Why now do we seek Mary and/or a priest to obtain graces? Isn’t that lack of faith or belief in all that he accomplished on the cross? Wouldn’t Mary be horrified how she has been so exalted in the place where her Son deserves to sit in our hearts?”

Thanks.
 
Christ didn’t necessarily die so that we have direct access to Him. He died as a peace offering for our sins, and he also came to establish His church on earth through the apostles and the work of the Holy Spirit.

All of the communion of saints magnify God in their own beautiful way. Baptised Christians are Christ’s body on earth, His hands and His feet.
A particular saint who lived a particular life can appeal to a soul on earth in a very particular way in solidarity. They can magnify God’s goodness in this way. The communion of saints, and particularly Mary, is a vehicle, a very sweet pathway to God.

Anyhow, I dont understand why you drifted away from your own advice here:
48.png
How can I resist masturbation and go to confession? Moral Theology
Our Lord finds it extremely difficult (impossible actually) to deny his mother anything. This is due to the fact that she denied him nothing during his earthly life, and because of the deep love he has for her. The first miracle Jesus ever performed was at her request even though he initially had no intentions of doing it - “Woman, what does this have to do with me and with thee? My hour has not yet come.” This give’s Mary an omnipotence in the sense that she can obtain virtually anything sh…
Click to expand...
I guess you’re wanting evidence from the Bible.
In your example given in March, Jesus himself listened to Mary and changed His mind at the wedding in Cana. And Jesus allowed this, and God USED this moment, planned this moment. It wasn’t a fluke.

The rosary is a vehicle to Jesus, especially if you are meditating on the Bible passages while reciting the prayers.
 
Last edited:
This person could not receive facts, solace or comfort, by the overall direction of their line of questioning.

I would simply ask a question of my own as a response from the Scriptures:

“Do you want to be His disciple too?”

If this person continues to question, I would default to resignation as a sounding board and wait for questions to end, as my schedule permits.
 
Daisy said:
Anyhow, I dont understand why you drifted away from your own advice here:
Click to expand...
I don’t know either. Sometimes my mind goes blank when my blood reaches its boiling point. Thanks for the reminder.
Daisy said:
I guess you’re wanting evidence from the Bible
Click to expand...
I think this individual has more of a protestant mindset.

Thanks for the advice.
 
God has allowed this reverence of Mary for many centuries, has He not?
I think He knows that some people feel too afraid to directly approach Him, and maybe they feel less afraid to approach our heavenly mother.
It’s not required to pray the rosary, and it’s not a requirement of the faith to have a strong devotion to Mary.
 
Last edited:
Well, aside from the first part of the Mail Mary being scriptural, there is solid evidence of Mary’s place in our prayers - the “why”.

In the Old Testament, The king was married to the queen; but the “power behind the throne” was not the queen, but the queen mother. If one wanted something from the king, one approached his mother.

See, e.g. FORMED - Lectio: Mary with Dr. Brant Pitre.
 
Here’s how I would respond,
God, and Mary have had ample time and avenues to address this. And Every time it is addressed, through Mary in apparitions, through Jesus in apparitions, and through the Holy Church Herself the answer has been clear. So, how can you accept and claim the Catholic Church if you think Her error is a direct breaking of the first commandment. Why believe any of the Church at all!?
 
Last edited:
When we pray through the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, we’re really asking them to pray for us and our intention. Protestants do this too - they have prayer-circles and ask their friends to pray for them.

“But that’s different, because protestants ask people who are alive?”

To that I say that the saints are alive too; though their earthly lives ended they are still alive in Christ. To say that saints can’t pray for us is akin to denying God’s promise of eternal life.
 
Last edited:
  1. The Communion of Saints. Explains prayer to those in heaven.
  2. The Rosary is contemplative prayer. Worth looking up.
  3. The Catechism. Scripture will lead astray without guidance.
 
I’d simply tell him that no, Mary would not be horrified, and that while he doesn’t need to say the Rosary, the fact that he’s adopting a sola scriptura mindset and questioning why we have priests is putting his soul in danger, and he better go talk to a priest about that ASAP.

Furthermore I’d tell him that if he really thinks Catholics are putting Mary ahead of Jesus in our hearts then he has a wrong understanding of Marian devotion and theology within the Church and the fault lies with his own lack of understanding and poor catechesis and not with the Church. I would point out to him that the Church is not sola scriptura and ask him where he’s getting the idea that he’s supposed to find everything in the Scripture, his own interpretation of Scripture at that. I’m willing to bet he’d say he’s been hanging around with proselytizing Protestants or watching their videos on Youtube.

That’s if I even bothered to converse with the person because he sounds like he’s already been Protestantized and may be a lost cause already, in which case it would be pointless to talk to him and better to just pray for him. Such people are spiritually unwell.
 
Last edited:
DuskWind said:
“I am Catholic but the more I search and study the Scriptures the more convicted I feel that the Rosary has its place but that Mary would not be pleased that we pray through her to Jesus.
Click to expand...
I’d ask him, “does it displease you when loved ones ask you to pray to Jesus for them? And, if not, then why would it displease Mary?”
DuskWind said:
The temple curtain was ripped in half when He died giving us entrance into the Holies!
Click to expand...
I think he misunderstands the significance of this. The situation had been that no one could gaze upon the Presence (with limited exception, and even then, only a priest) and now, we all have access to the Presence of God. Still, that doesn’t mean that this access is through Jesus alone – after all, Jesus himself sets up the mediation of the Gospel through the Church and the teaching of the apostles, doesn’t He?
DuskWind said:
Why now do we seek Mary and/or a priest to obtain graces?
Click to expand...
That’s the way Jesus set it up: “do this in memory of me,” not “I’ll keep doing this to give you access to me.”
DuskWind said:
Isn’t that lack of faith or belief in all that he accomplished on the cross?
Click to expand...
Nope.
DuskWind said:
Wouldn’t Mary be horrified how she has been so exalted in the place where her Son deserves to sit in our hearts?”
Click to expand...
If you find a Catholic who only loves Mary, and not Jesus, then I’d answer “maybe.” But, I’d also answer that this person misunderstands the Gospel. Certainly, that isn’t representative of the Church, her teachings, or her people.
 
I totally get that going blank thing when put on the spot. 😦

That phrase is still stuck in my craw… that phrase that Christ came to earth so we’d have direct access to Him. I guess this way of thinking is that now that Christ is a human who lived and taught among us, He is more accessible, and now we are able to to approach Him alone, and everything else is an imperfect human distraction. But it seems that everything that Jesus preaches about is in relation to eachother, seeing Him in the downtrodden etc, not just a me and Jesus idea that leads us down a dark path of rationalization and loss of objective truth. And He wouldn’t have established an organization of the apostles. Hahn’s book Rome Sweet Home helped me understand so much in that regard, His focus on the covenant, His people, His lineage, it’s very community oriented.

Also, the rosary’s words come directly from Angel Gabriel and Elizabeth, her cousin. Why does the Bible even bother to put our human stories in the Bible if they are a distraction from me and Jesus? How will we ever know who Jesus is? Knowing He had a mother who loved Him and held Him, and the fact that we are able to talk to her, it seems to make Him all the more approachable.
 
Last edited:
otjm said:
In the Old Testament, The king was married to the queen; but the “power behind the throne” was not the queen, but the queen mother. If one wanted something from the king, one approached his mother.
Click to expand...
It’s like Bathsheba to her son, King Solomon.
 
Catholics practice an incarnational faith. A priest carries Christ in a special way, by virtue of his ordination. A priest doesn’t stand between Jesus and us: he brings Jesus to us.
 
otjm said:
In the Old Testament, The king was married to the queen; but the “power behind the throne” was not the queen, but the queen mother.
Click to expand...
Actually, that’s not exactly correct. In many cultures, the queen was the wife of the king. But, in the Davidic dynasty, the queen was the mother of the king. The king’s wives (plural!) were not the “queen”, but merely his consorts.
 
Christ established the priesthood and gave them power to forgive sins. He meant that we should go to the priests for this purpose.
He granted the priests the power to bring us the miracle of the Eucharist, and He commanded that this be done. “Do this in memory of Me.”

Christ performed His first public miracle explicitly because Mary interceded with him on behalf of the feast-goers at Cana.

As for ‘exalting’ Mary: God Himself exalted Mary in Luke 1.
When she visited Elizabeth, and Elizabeth called her “the mother of my Lord” Mary was inspired to speak a prayer of praise and thanksgiving in which she expressly said: (Luke 1: 47-49)
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name."

Mary priased God for what God was doing, and one of the things God was doing was to ordain that we should call Mary “blessed”
We give glory to Him by praying to her.
 
DuskWind said:
Why now do we seek … a priest to obtain graces?
Click to expand...
Because Sacred Scripture tells us to:
Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. (James 5:14-15 Douay-Rheims, 1899 American edition)
Click to expand...
 
So if I was king my mom would be queen but then my wife (presumably the wife that was the mother of my son) would be queen when I died and my son was king?
Monarchies are weird
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top