I'm getting tired of hearing from Protestants that we worship Mary and the saints!

[ralphinal]

What can these Saints do for us that Jesus Christ Himself casnnot do?

They can do nothing for us that Christ cannot do, further they cannot do anything for us without Christ.

It is so simple. I can ask you to pray for me. You can be a jerk and say no. You can be a jerk and say yes and not do it. You can be a Christian and say yes and do it.

God is the GOd of the Living not the dead. Those who have been baptised and died in Chirst are not dead but alive in him.

If they are alive in Christ, and the Bible says they are, then there is not one bit of difference between me asking you to pray for me and me asking them to do it.

Any prayers that are answered, whether it is you doing it or a saint, is because of GOd.

 

[Chris_LaRock]

I’m free to if I want.

Was Abraham blessed among men.
Can I call you blessed among all men, Chris? Do you mind?

I guess, but I wouldn’t want people praying to me if I were dead. God’s word says we are to pray to Him through Jesus, not Mary or saints.

 

[RNRobert]

do you know, in over 20 years working with RCIA, I can’t recall one Protestant who made this claim? Several say they heard it various places, but no one actually believed it.

Years ago I was listening to my shortwave radio and came across someone named Brother Stair, sort of an uber-fundamentalist. One of the whoppers that came from his lips was that “The Pope was going to become Vicar of Jerusalem and have animal sacrifices to Mary.”

Another time I was listening to an Evangelical radio program titled (IIRC) “Through the Bible” and one time they were reading some letters from listeners, including one who wrote that “I’ve learned that it’s wrong to worship Mary.”
So yes, there are those out there who think that way…

 

[Thing]

I guess, but I wouldn’t want people praying to me if I were dead. God’s word says we are to pray to Him through Jesus, not Mary or saints.

Prayer in Catholicism means ‘to ask’.
Prayer is not worship as some see it.
The Catholic Mass is the highest form of worship as it offers Gods sacrifice to God.
There is worship of God and there is honouring of Gods friends, the saints, and there is asking God and there is asking His friends to ask God, both asking His friends who are still living with us and His friends who are living with Him.

 

[adstrinity]

What can these Saints do for us that Jesus Christ Himself casnnot do?

They can pray to Jesus Christ for us, which Jesus Christ Himself casnnot do.

 

[Cat]

What can these Saints do for us that Jesus Christ Himself casnnot do?

Be women. Jesus cannot be a woman like St. Ruth, or St. Teresa of Avila, or St. Edith Stein. It’s nice to talk to someone else who experienced periods and in some cases, bore babies.

They can be our buddies. We can all use more Christian friends. I somehow don’t think of Jesus Christ as my “buddy.” Friend, yes, buddy, no.

They are examples for us–if THEY, with all their shortcomings, made it to heaven, so can we.

 

[Cat]

I don’t know enough about the history and tradition of the Church to argue through the entire argument of the necessity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception for her role as Jesus’ mother. The ideas that I have about her Immaculate Conception are my own, not taken from any apologist’s book or speech.

I agree, it does seem that Joseph would have to be sinless, too, doesn’t it.

A few thoughts.

A child’s most impressionable years are the early years from birth to age five.

In the early years of a child’s life, he or she is raised primarily by mother, because mother is nursing him or her. I don’t know a lot about Jewish history, but I think that the father did not become intimately involved with the babies and toddlers in the same way that dads of today become involved. Even today, as much as fathers get involved in their children’s early lives, it is still mom who does the bulk of the child-rearing of the babies and toddlers.

So it is likely that during Jesus’ most vulnerable years, he was primarily under the influence of Mary, while Joseph’s main role was to provide for his wife and foster son.

Second thought: I don’t think that Joseph was sinless. Certainly Scripture or tradition says nothing about this, although I’ve read some of the more flowery biographies of St. Joseph implying that he was sinless, too. Hmmm.

But even if Joseph wasn’t sinless, I think he was probably totally darn close to sinless! He was a very VERY holy man! We can see that from the little bit that the Scriptures do tell us about him.

So I don’t think he would have undermined anything that Mary taught Jesus. If he did commit a sin, I get the feeling that he and Mary probably used it as an occasion to teach Jesus the Way of God.

I belong to Holy Family parish. When I contemplate images of the Holy Family and read the Scriptures about them, I think it is a logical conclusion that this wasn’t just another Jewish family with a rather nerdly Son with a religious fixation. This family was The HOLY family. They weren’t like all the rest of us.

 

[LilyM]

Be women. Jesus cannot be a woman like St. Ruth, or St. Teresa of Avila, or St. Edith Stein. It’s nice to talk to someone else who experienced periods and in some cases, bore babies.

They can be our buddies. We can all use more Christian friends. I somehow don’t think of Jesus Christ as my “buddy.” Friend, yes, buddy, no.

They are examples for us–if THEY, with all their shortcomings, made it to heaven, so can we.

Just as importantly, they are our rolemodels.

Awesome as Jesus is, due to our human frailty it’s much more difficult for us to learn how to be, for example, a good lawyer from His life than from that of St Thomas More.

Whose life you can read and get practical examples of how a good Catholic Christian conducts themselves in the practice of the law, for example doing the utmost to serve secular authority to the best of his ability while, on issues of faith, not compromising an inch.

And in other ways too - St Thomas brilliantly balanced being a wonderful father with his very busy working life, for example, so he can help us to do that too.

 

[Peter_J]

The ideas that I have about her Immaculate Conception are my own

Good disclaimer.

 

[adrift]

I totally understand what you are referring to but unfortunately I am speaking of what Pius XII specifically proclaimed about who Mary was and what she means to us. It goes far beyond cultus.

Nothing you have provided so far shows worship. Do you believe that Catholics regard Mary as a god? Would you substantiate that claim. What I see as the problem is that Protestants have a unique definition of the word worship apart from what is commonly accepted or what is true worship.

 

[Cat]

Nothing you have provided so far shows worship. Do you believe that Catholics regard Mary as a god? Would you substantiate that claim. What I see as the problem is that Protestants have a unique definition of the word worship apart from what is commonly accepted or what is true worship.

This is certainly true. At the invitation of a good friend, I attended the dedication service for her new church building (Evangelical Free) yesterday.

At one point in the service, we were invited to “worship.” The “worship” consisted of about ten minutes of singing praise and worship songs. (When my husband and I were still Protestant, we used to call this the “Twenty Minute Worship Workout” because it was done standing and there were often “movements” along with the singing–we always wished that they would just add aerobics and that way we would have a real workout out of the way!).

To me, that’s not “worship.” It’s a “singspiration” or “congregational singing.”

To me, ALL of the service was “worship”–the greetings, the opening prayer, the choir numbers, the offering, the silent prayers, the testimonies, the sermon, and the challenge. ALL of it. (Of course, I’m approaching this from a Protestant point of view. I agree with the Catechism of the Catholic Church that Protestants are separated brethren and that their churches contain a portion of the Gospel, so IMO, what happened at my friend’s church yesterday was WORSHIP. Not the perfect worship of the Mass, but the worship of incomplete Christians.)

BTW, the service yesterday lasted two and a half hours, and the sermon portion was 55 minutes. Aren’t you all glad to be Catholic?! At least the chairs (not pews) were very comfortable and cushioned.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

What can these Saints do for us that Jesus Christ Himself casnnot do?

Of themselves, nothing​

Voting for X means not voting for Y - to vote for one is to not-vote for the other; X is not Y, nor is Y X; the two choices are mutually exclusive.

To talk to someone, & to do so by using the voice, are not mutually exclusive: the voice is not the rival of speech, otr its enemy, but its means.

The Saints are not - save by the misuse of them - rivals or alternatives to Christ; they are His Body parts. That is what a member is is: a limb, a part of the body. The members of Christ are parts of Him. So to oppose a Saint to Christ, is like treating the limb as though it were opposed to the person of whom it is a part - or like treating the voice as though, because it is not the speaker, it is opposed to its speaker.

What I don’t understood is that Evangelicals have no problems using Bibles in their communion with Christ - yet Bible are no more uncreated than Saints Is the Bible the rival of Christ because He is not made of paper ?

To oppose Christ to His Saints, makes no sense; just as it makes no sense to pit Him against any other means by which He works. As well might a man be the enemy of the head, hands, feet, eyes by which he works.

 

[ralphinal]

Chris, in all seriousness, If I told you that I had some personal issues and asked you to pray for me, what would you say?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Just as importantly, they are our rolemodels.

Awesome as Jesus is, due to our human frailty it’s much more difficult for us to learn how to be, for example, a good lawyer from His life than from that of St Thomas More.

I find the reverse is true - because He is both God & man, He has a universality no Saint could have: He fills all the “difference” between Infinite Being, & non-being. The BVM OTOH is a bit too much for me - how can a sinless creature possibly have any idea of what being a sinful human being is like ? She’s too remote from the reality of life to be much help; unlike Jesus Christ For in Him, God gets filthy with all the filth of the human condition at its foulest & most inexcusable; the BVM lacks the capacity for this; she lacks His universality, which is why His Mediation exceeeds hers. In Christ, God is made sin; He is made offensive to God. And that is a trick the BVM cannot pull off.​

She is like a spectator at a game - He is both a spectator & a player. So He is far more approachable, far less threatening, far more understanding, than she ever could be. Filthy creatures like us need a God Who is equally filthy, & yet not filthy. She is too pure to be of any help. Other Saints are much more helpful, because they are in origin no better than any of us; they know sin from the “inside”, from being sinners - & that is a knowledge she does not have; whereas Christ was “made sin” for us, He knows sin & evil perfectly.

Whose life you can read and get practical examples of how a good Catholic Christian conducts themselves in the practice of the law, for example doing the utmost to serve secular authority to the best of his ability while, on issues of faith, not compromising an inch.

And in other ways too - St Thomas brilliantly balanced being a wonderful father with his very busy working life, for example, so he can help us to do that too.

 

[Chris_LaRock]

Be women. Jesus cannot be a woman like St. Ruth, or St. Teresa of Avila, or St. Edith Stein. It’s nice to talk to someone else who experienced periods and in some cases, bore babies.

They can be our buddies. We can all use more Christian friends. I somehow don’t think of Jesus Christ as my “buddy.” Friend, yes, buddy, no.

They are examples for us–if THEY, with all their shortcomings, made it to heaven, so can we.

Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, and created everything. Why would you have to speak to someone who is female in order to feel they ‘identify’ with you?

 

[Chris_LaRock]

Chris, in all seriousness, If I told you that I had some personal issues and asked you to pray for me, what would you say?

I would say that this is the context Paul was refering to when he wrote about having the saints pray for you. He didn’t mean pray to dead people so they could pass it along to God.

 

[Chris_LaRock]

They can pray to Jesus Christ for us, which Jesus Christ Himself casnnot do.

If you are praying directly to Jesus, as we are told to do, why would you want to pray to some dead guy?

 

[jean8]

To Cat

Trying to study the religion is exactly why I am here. Everyone just assumes that I am trying to tear apart a religion and all I’m am trying to do is find out the truth for myself and not for anyone else.

mm,
don’t feel bad about what other folks say. I have noticed most non-cathoilcs know next to nothing about the RCC. They are the ones that get everything wrong, the worship of Mary is one subject. They tend to parrot what they have heard others say.Just pray for them.

God bless,
jean8

 

[jean8]

If you are praying directly to Jesus, as we are told to do, why would you want to pray to some dead guy?

chris,
I may have misunderstood your statement. I have to ask, are you saying Jesus is some dead guy?
The Bible teaches Our Lord is the God of the living. Mt.22:32
When a person dies they are immediatly in the presense of the Lord. Do you know what happens then? I’ll let you tell me.

God bless,
jean8

 

[Cat]

Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, and created everything. Why would you have to speak to someone who is female in order to feel they ‘identify’ with you?

Are you a man or a woman?