Marian Veneration in the NT

[benedictgal]

Jesus had at least two opportunities to elevate his mother’s position for “veneration” but didn’t. We NEVER see one prayer offered to Mary and the only references to a “queen of heaven” in the Scriptures are to a false goddess that God abhors.

The first time Jesus could’ve let his disciples know to “venerate” his mother was here:

Mar 3:31 Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him.
Mar 3:32 And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.”
Mar 3:33 But He answered them, saying, "Who is My mother, or My brothers?"
Mar 3:34 And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers!
Mar 3:35 For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother."

If she was so important why didn’t Jesus use this opportunity to let us know that?

Or here an even more appropriate time:

Luk 11:27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.”
Luk 11:28 But **He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” **

Rather we see Jesus putting her maternal role into perspective, rather Jesus elevated the Word of God and God’s will.

NEVER is Mary prayed to and NEVER do the Scriptures say we are to go to Mary as our help.

Actually, you have forgotten a very important point. Mary kept the will of God, first and foremost. She is the only one, apart from Her Son, who was perfectly conformed to God’s will. Jesus’ comments aptly apply to his own Mother when he said, “blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Not only did she hear the word of God, but, she BORE the Word of God in her womb, Jesus. May was completely open to obeying and keeping God’s word because there was no sin in her that could obscure or hinder her. Jesus reognizes this and praises this.

Your viewpoint would, unfortunately, relegate Mary to the role of womb donor, if you will, and it does not take into account that she conformed her will perfectly to God’s, that is why Jesus elevates her. Only those who have a firm understanding of Marian theology would be able to see the real meaning behind Jesus’ words.

 

[Ignatius]

If Mary was supposed to be so highly venerated, why was it not addressed more clearly by Jesus in the Gospel or in other parts of the New Testament?

Joyful_1

:extrahappy: Mary was alive until after the close of the NT.

 

[mercygate]

Shopworn but the truth and one Catholics cannot answer effectively which is why they dodge it when it’s brought up (like now)

If Jesus were concerned that his mother be “venerated” why didn’t he use these two very obvious opportunities to do that. The answer? Because he NEVER intended that she be so venerated. There is ONE advocate, and ONE mediator and ONE helper and all compassionate one in heaven: Jesus Christ!

Have you ever taken a dispassionate look at the development of the Marian dogmas?

 

[boppaid]

Hi Joyful,
I don’t know why Jesus never specifically said to venerate Mary, but I don’t find it unusual. After all, He never specifically told us to worship Him (at least I don’t think He did) - and He was/is Our Lord and Saviour, far superior to Mary.

I understand that Jesus never said that, but we throughout the new testament we get to see the early church. Paul instructed the early church on many things, but we don’t really see much veneration of Mary in the scriptures.

 

[boppaid]

Mary is daughter of God the Father, Spouse of the Holy Spirit and Mother of the Son.

I don’t know how else to say this, but it sounds so strange to hear her referred to as God’s ‘spouse’. She was also Joseph’s spouse. I have never seen her referred to in scripture as God’s spouse. Was she both their spouse? Where did you hear this?

 

[mercygate]

I don’t know how else to say this, but it sounds so strange to hear her referred to as God’s ‘spouse’. She was also Joseph’s spouse. I have never seen her referred to in scripture as God’s spouse. Was she both their spouse? Where did you hear this?

This is a devotional title rather than a dogmatic one. She IS the spouse of the Holy Spirit in that the Holy Spirit conceived the Lord in her flesh. I believe the concept has been in use from the time of the Fathers, though popularized as late as Bonaventure.

 

[boppaid]

As to the question of Mary being conceved without sin. What did Jesus the Christ, do in those 9 months in her womb? Jesus sucked up Mary’s blood, her substance, into his divine person. Mary’s flesh fed, nurtured and protected Jesus Christ the second person of the Holy Trinity. Jesus became man from Mary.
Do your’re kids have any of your physical features? Would not Jesus also had inhearted some of Mary’s?

Are you suggesting that there is a “sin gene”?

 

[mercygate]

Are you suggesting that there is a “sin gene”?

Perhaps he is attempting to illustrate Original Sin. Does your faith tradition recognize Original SIn?

 

[boppaid]

Perhaps he is attempting to illustrate Original Sin. Does your faith tradition recognize Original SIn?

Yes, my faith recognizes original sin. I’m Catholic. But even as a Catholic I don’t get the connect that if Mary had sin, Jesus would “inherit it”. I don’t think there is a gene for sin that makes it something you pass through from generation to generation like hair color. I guess that is what is confusing me.

 

[mercygate]

Yes, my faith recognizes original sin. I’m Catholic. But even as a Catholic I don’t get the connect that if Mary had sin, Jesus would “inherit it”. I don’t think there is a gene for sin that makes it something you pass through from generation to generation like hair color. I guess that is what is confusing me.

I believe the point is not that Jesus would inherit it so much as the environment would not be “fitting”. The Immaculate conception goes to the point of “fitting” rather than “necessary.” God didn’t NEED the ark of the covenant to be overlaid with gold. But it was fitting.

 

[benedictgal]

Shopworn but the truth and one Catholics cannot answer effectively which is why they dodge it when it’s brought up (like now)

If Jesus were concerned that his mother be “venerated” why didn’t he use these two very obvious opportunities to do that. The answer? Because he NEVER intended that she be so venerated. There is ONE advocate, and ONE mediator and ONE helper and all compassionate one in heaven: Jesus Christ!

By your words, I can tell that you are a member of a Protestant ecclesial community. You have joined our forum and you are most welcome; however, please know that by doing so, you are now opening yourself to some serious debating. If your intent is to sincerely seek and discern the Truth, then, you are welcomed. If your intent is to merely hurl insults and salvos at what the Church believes, then, you must be prepared for a solid defense by the Church and her members.

How do you know what Jesus intended and what He didn’t intend? How can you know the inscrutable ways of the Lord?

The Church does not dispute your assertation regarding Jesus. However, God uses the smallest of instruments to perform His greatest works. Mary is God’s opus magnum, His greatest work. The angel Gabriel greets Mary with the words, “Hail, full of grace.” No other human being is referred to in those terms in the Bible. Mary is full of grace because God had to prepare a pure vessel to for His Son. Mary is also the new Ark of the Covenant because in her womb, she held the fulfillment of what the original Ark held: the living Bread from Heaven (manna), the fulfillment of the Law (10 Commandments) and the Eternal Priest (the rod of Aaron. Just as no one could lay a finger on the former Ark of the Covenant because of the holy objects it held, so, too, no man could touch Mary because she held the King of the Universe, the fulfillment of the Old Covenant in her womb, Jesus.

Furthermore, Mary, herself, predicted that “all generations will call me blessed”. If you hold that Sacred Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, then, you need to accept this scriptural passage as well.

And, at whose insistance did Jesus work his first miracle at the wedding at Cana? Mary told Jesus they had no wine. Jesus told her his hour had not come. However, recall that Jesus, at the age of 12 was already wanting to begin his ministry. Mary, in effect, told him that his hour had not come yet. Now, at the age of 30, her simple comment, “they have no wine”, in effect, signalled to Jesus that his hour had indeed come. What you may read as a rejection on the part of Jesus, is not so, because Mary’s final words in the Gospel are “Do whatever He tells you.” Jesus asceded to his mother’s request. You know the rest of the story.

Just as Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit the moment that she told God that she was his slave (the real definition of the word “handmaid”) and that whatever happens to her be according to His will, she joined the Apostles to await the birth of the Church, the descent of the Holy Spirit. She prayed with them and for them.

Remember that in the beginning, a man, a woman and a tree are what set back the human race and shut the doors to Paradise. When the fullness of time arrived, another Man, another Woman and another Tree undid the damage. Jesus is that new Man. Mary is the new Woman. The Cross is the new tree.

One last thing for you to chew. How many times have you asked someone to pray for you? Let’s say you are having some difficult times and you approach your pastor or your friend. Do you not say, “pray for me?” Are you not asking them for their intercessory support before God? Are you not, in effect, asking them to ask God to help you? It is the same concept with Mary. Mary prays with us and for us. Just as perhaps your mother was your advocate before your father (Mom, can you ask Dad if I can have the keys to the car this evening, or, mom, can you ask Dad if I can go to the school outing?), Mary is our advocate.

When Jesus gave Mary to St. John, the Lord, in effect, gave her to us as well. It is very sad that you would refuse such a generous gift from the Savior.

It seems that Protestants are so eager to claim that they accept every word in Scripture, but, they are quick to excise what they consider problematic.

 

[adam_in_ohio]

If I fell in a deep hole and some one came and got to out. I would have been saved by deliverance. But if you were walking and some one stoped right before you fell into that hole you would have been saved by preservation. How better could Jesus have honored his mother than by protecting her from sin?

 

[surgei]

If I fell in a deep hole and some one came and got to out. I would have been saved by deliverance. But if you were walking and some one stoped right before you fell into that hole you would have been saved by preservation. How better could Jesus have honored his mother than by protecting her from sin?

But this teaching if foreign to the fathers of the Church. Christ himself declared it to be untrue in a vision he granted to St Catherine of Siena. She is a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church. Did Christ lie to her and let Mary tell the truth at lourdes? Or did the popes error in declaring her visions not in contradiction to the church? Somewhere they errored and it was a vision of demons they put their seal of aproval on. If they put their seal of aproval on one demonic vision how can they be seen to have the ability to discern truth in any other area.
I hope you understand these are just logical points here. This is not uncharity. But Charity proclaiming truth.

 

[epostle]

God and sin cannot coexist. It is totally, utterly, and absolutely impossible. God cannot incarnate His very own being with a sinful human. God became man, he did not transplant himself into Mary’s womb. Mary gave birth to a Person, and Jesus got his perfect humanity from His perfect mother. If not, then God is not perfect.

Jesus is 100% human, and 100% God. Jesus is not 200%, he is 100% a Person. If Mary was a sinner, then God can coexist with sin, making God a potential monster, and Jesus becomes 49% God, and 51% human, and not really a Person but a confusing kind of Half’n’half. This, in a way, is the Nestorian heresy that pagued the Church in the early 4rth century, and continues to this very day with most evangelicals, though they won’t admit it. But they do when they claim that Mary gave birth only to the human part.

 

[Protestant101]

Hello porthos11 and Hail Mary

Thanks for sharing your opinions in response to my request. I find your conclusions from Scripture to be quite arbitrary though, and I will look forward to coming back son when I have a little more time to discuss your conclusions above.

I was hoping to get official Catholic teachings for your scriptural conclusions above. Can you by any chance show me exactly where in Catholic teachings that what you say in your last posts is true? After all; if i tell anyone what Catholics believe on this point, I can’t just say “one of them told me;” I have to have references to back it up. I know that you gave me some scriptural references, but I would really like to see all this in official Catholic writings somewhere.

 

[surgei]

God and sin cannot coexist. It is totally, utterly, and absolutely impossible. God cannot incarnate His very own being with a sinful human. God became man, he did not transplant himself into Mary’s womb. Mary gave birth to a Person, and Jesus got his perfect humanity from His perfect mother. If not, then God is not perfect.

Jesus is 100% human, and 100% God. Jesus is not 200%, he is 100% a Person. If Mary was a sinner, then God can coexist with sin, making God a potential monster, and Jesus becomes 49% God, and 51% human, and not really a Person but a confusing kind of Half’n’half. This, in a way, is the Nestorian heresy that pagued the Church in the early 4rth century, and continues to this very day with most evangelicals, though they won’t admit it. But they do when they claim that Mary gave birth only to the human part.

This assumes two things. Either, Mary herself comited a sin only heretics accept this; or Your view of sin is askew because Augustine had a bad press boy. That is Augustin invented the doctrine of origonal sin after reading a bad translation of the NT and the Immaculate conception follows and you fall for this ploy hook line and sinker. The former is taken by the protestants. The latter by the Catholics.
If your logic is true in the first half then God cannot sustain the world in that to do so he must sustain the sinners. If he sustains them then he must be where they are. If he is where they are he is where sin is and your argument is defeated. Mary could have been born without the predestination that the Immaculate conception supposes and still been able to give birth to Christ in the protestant sense of the word.
Looking to the Immaculate Conception draws attention away from the Immaculate Life of Mary. That is Mary did not need to be born without ancestral sin, the Orthodox perspective of Adam’s sin as we receive it, and still cooperate at all times with the will of God so as to never sin. In this way she serves as a model to all of us as Christians.

 

[Pious_Mat]

Some reading on Our Blessed Mother:

catholic.com/library/Mary_Mother_of_God.asp
catholic.com/library/Immaculate_Conception_and_Assum.asp
catholic.com/library/Mary_Full_of_Grace.asp
catholic.com/library/Mary_Ever_Virgin.asp

And Surgei:

You must be confused. St. Catherine if Sienna would never denounce devotion to Our Lady and her Immaculate Conception, since she herself had a great Marian devotion, had numerous visions of Our Lady, and wrote quite a few prayers to her.

Also, read the above links, and tell me that the Church Fathers in any way “contradicted” the idea of the Immaculate Conception.

 

[Protestant101]

The Church does not dispute your assertation regarding Jesus. However, God uses the smallest of instruments to perform His greatest works. Mary is God’s opus magnum, His greatest work. The angel Gabriel greets Mary with the words, “Hail, full of grace.” No other human being is referred to in those terms in the Bible.

Well; when “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord;” (Gen.6:8), he did not get less than Mary, he found the same grace that everyone does when they accept the Lord into their hearts and lives. Different people do not get different amounts. Everyone gets the same. For God has placed in everyone “THE measure of faith.” (Rom.12:3)

Furthermore, Mary, herself, predicted that “all generations will call me blessed”. If you hold that Sacred Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, then, you need to accept this scriptural passage as well.

From one end of the Bible to the next, many people are refered to as “blessed.”

It seems that Protestants are so eager to claim that they accept every word in Scripture, but, they are quick to excise what they consider problematic.

What have we “excised?” You cliche’ denouncement of Protestants lacks facts, but relies upon personal interpretation. Your Biblical explanations here are simple “eisegesis” as opposed to “exegesis.” I see this time and time again with Catholics AND Protestants. It would be nice to see a more balanced position on what all Scripture says to us about Mary being “blessed,” because this in no way refers to any preminence on the blessed person’s part.

 

[surgei]

Hello porthos11 and Hail Mary

Thanks for sharing your opinions in response to my request. I find your conclusions from Scripture to be quite arbitrary though, and I will look forward to coming back son when I have a little more time to discuss your conclusions above.

I was hoping to get official Catholic teachings for your scriptural conclusions above. Can you by any chance show me exactly where in Catholic teachings that what you say in your last posts is true? After all; if i tell anyone what Catholics believe on this point, I can’t just say “one of them told me;” I have to have references to back it up. I know that you gave me some scriptural references, but I would really like to see all this in official Catholic writings somewhere.

Protestant your Seventh Day Adventist. Why would anyone listen to how you slant what the Catholic Church teaches?
By the way, I grew up not far from Batle Creek Michigan. Do you know why I mention this?

 

[po18guy]

If Mary was supposed to be so highly venerated, why was it not addressed more clearly by Jesus in the Gospel or in other parts of the New Testament?

Joyful_1

Quite simply because the bible was never intended to be the sole rule of faith. Much of Christian error comes from relying on merely one part of the Gospel. Remember that the Gospel is commonly, and incorrectly, referred to as scripture. The Gospel is the totality of the good news that was spread by the teaching of Christ, followed by the Apostles, using oral tradition.
Live teaching was the best, as Christ chose it. He corrected errors when they arose among the student disciples. Reliance on “dead” scripture alone, with no teaching authority, leads to division and error. The proof abounds, both in the early years of the church, and is especially evident today.