Marian Worship

[I_Leatherman]

for me I think:

How can they pray to and through Mary… they risk doing someing seriously and blasphemously wrong here… I may be right

or else…maybe they are right, but why not just pray straight to God through the sole mediator Jesus… just to be safe… even though I may be wrong

It’s just such an alien concept and I find it hard to honour a human to such a degree without feeling as if i cross some palpable line and guilt… I feel as if i’d be treading on dangerous ground

… though having said all of this I don’t have the prejudices against the Catholic church that brought me to learn more about it.

S

But they do pray straight to God.

The household of Heaven hears your prayers through the power of God.

A prayer directed to His Mother and our Mother is a prayer to God.

 

[Abira]

But they do pray straight to God.

The household of Heaven hears your prayers through the power of God.

A prayer directed to His Mother and our Mother is a prayer to God.

then why not just cut the language and pray straight to God? your prayers will be the same regardless… and I feel that this is a mjor sticking point for all protestants, it could be almost removed so easily. I don’t understand what you get out of it that you don’t get by praying straight to God.

Take care, S

 

[Brendan]

then why not just cut the language and pray straight to God? your prayers will be the same regardless… and I feel that this is a mjor sticking point for all protestants, it could be almost removed so easily. I don’t understand what you get out of it that you don’t get by praying straight to God.

Take care, S

Because the Holy Spirit, through James, said that we should pray for one another.

That would include those in Heaven, as no one is Heaven is exempt from God’s Commands.

To stop asking them to pray for us would be to violate a Command given by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Abira]

I think i still have issues with this. I can’t even begin to understad the dizzying heights of Marian devotions when I have basic problems regarding praying to the dead ( know that’s a problematic term but you know what I mean)

I’ve never seen or heard or witnessed anything vaguely like this in my whole life as a protestant!

S

 

[water]

I wish we all could understand clearly how exactly God connect those in Heaven to those on earth.

Well, we are still on earth seeing thing through a glass. This is where faith comes in. If everything is so obvious, what faith is worth for?

 

[Abira]

I wish we all could understand clearly how exactly God connect those in Heaven to those on earth.

Well, we are still on earth seeing thing through a glass. This is where faith comes in. If everything is so obvious, what faith is worth for?

yeah this worries me sometimes… I can’t remember exactly but:

for those without faith, no answers are possible
for those with faith, no answers are necessary

I really hope I can feel at ease with these things one day but worry that after every answer I have ten questions!

S

 

[Lazerlike42]

then why not just cut the language and pray straight to God? your prayers will be the same regardless… and I feel that this is a mjor sticking point for all protestants, it could be almost removed so easily. I don’t understand what you get out of it that you don’t get by praying straight to God.

Take care, S

I understand your concerns. This is something that I have heard many times.

What we do know is that the Bible commands us to pray for one another, and it would seem odd to assume that this command ceases with our passing on, especially since we do know that the saints in Heaven are praying. We also know that the saints in Heaven know about what is taking place on earth. If they know this and yet will not pray for us, or reject our requests for prayers, this would seem incredibly un-Christian of a thing to do.

Asking a saints intercession is, as has been pointed out, no different from my asking your intercession. I can approach the throne of grace with confidence and yet also ask others to do the same for me, can’t I? Christ did on several occasions state the benefits of having two or more gather in His name, or make a request, didn’t He? When I ask a saint in Heaven to pray for me, it’s no different from asking you or any other Christian here on earth to do so. I could go straight to God, but I want that person to go straight to God for me, too. I’m not going around God by asking someone else to pray for me, I’m just getting, well for lack of a better term, more requests in. I am bringing two or three together to ask for something, which Christ highly commends.

Asking the intercession of the saints is like asking the saint to walk with you before God, and to ask God to help you along with you. God created us to love Him and to love one another, and in this moment of prayer both of those desires are fulfilled in the utmost beauty. There, before Him, stand two people whom put their trust solely in Him, loving Him completely so as to approach Him for His blessing, and at the same time so living out His example of love that two poor children of God, two souls who have never met, love one another so much as to approach Him together, one giving of her own time before the glorious face of God but for the sake of the other. How can not the very sight of them humbly approaching bring God Himself to tears?

 

[I_Leatherman]

then why not just cut the language and pray straight to God? your prayers will be the same regardless… and I feel that this is a mjor sticking point for all protestants, it could be almost removed so easily. I don’t understand what you get out of it that you don’t get by praying straight to God.

Take care, S

If its all the same to you whats the problem?

I am not a self-sufficient individual. I am not a stand-alone unit. My challenge is to be part of His living body as we have life only because we live in Him. Heaven by definition is that place where we live in Him in such perfection that our will is His Will and His Will is our will. And as such a prayer to God is known to His household of angels and saints and a prayer to a member of His household in heaven is known to Him also. And this meets the Apostles saying, as Brendan said; that we should pray one for another.
‘In that day you shall know, that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.’

‘Now therefore pray for us, for thou art a holy woman, and one fearing God.’

That last one sounds like the end of the Hail Mary.

 

[Abira]

ok, so Catholics choose to ask Mary 99 times out of a hundred because Jesus already knows her and she’s the closest possible link to him?

It’s just the sheer volume of Mary focus’ that scares me

thanks for your post, it made some sense to me

S

 

[Lazerlike42]

ok, so Catholics choose to ask Mary 99 times out of a hundred because Jesus already knows her and she’s the closest possible link to him?

It’s just the sheer volume of Mary focus’ that scares me

thanks for your post, it made some sense to me

S

One thing that might help you to understand this a bit is this thought. When a Catholic honors Mary for her Immaculate Conception or asks her intercession any of the other things involved with her, they really are honoring God, because it could have been any woman that God did this to. He chose to do this to Mary, but it could well have been Elizabeth, Mary Magdalen, or anyone else that He prepared the way He did. When the Church honors her, it is in a very real sense honoring what God did to her, not just her, because in and of herself, she would have been just an ordinary woman.

 

[water]

One thing that might help you to understand this a bit is this thought. When a Catholic honors Mary for her Immaculate Conception or asks her intercession any of the other things involved with her, they really are honoring God, because it could have been any woman that God did this to. He chose to do this to Mary, but it could well have been Elizabeth, Mary Magdalen, or anyone else that He prepared the way He did. When the Church honors her, it is in a very real sense honoring what God did to her, not just her, because in and of herself, she would have been just an ordinary woman.

adding to that,

To truly pray the Rosary is to live its mysteries, to be conformed to the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The purpose is to let our lives become transformed by the Gospel. As with all prayer, for the Rosary to be effective, we must allow it to fill us with divine love so we can pour out that love to others. It must penetrate our actions.

source: nscn.org/article.asp?iArticleID=28

 

[Abira]

One thing that might help you to understand this a bit is this thought. When a Catholic honors Mary for her Immaculate Conception or asks her intercession any of the other things involved with her, they really are honoring God, because it could have been any woman that God did this to. He chose to do this to Mary, but it could well have been Elizabeth, Mary Magdalen, or anyone else that He prepared the way He did. When the Church honors her, it is in a very real sense honoring what God did to her, not just her, because in and of herself, she would have been just an ordinary woman.

yeah this is what confuses me… i see her as someone who was just lucky lol. no praise can be attributed to her, only what is done to her… not that i would ever disrespect her… just that i wold never attribute anything directly to her in the same way i would God… or even another saint who was not perfect… it’s hardly as if Mary had the option of sinning lol

although i understand that she had free will to say ‘no’

S

 

[Lazerlike42]

yeah this is what confuses me… i see her as someone who was just lucky lol. no praise can be attributed to her, only what is done to her… not that i would ever disrespect her… just that i wold never attribute anything directly to her in the same way i would God… or even another saint who was not perfect… it’s hardly as if Mary had the option of sinning lol

although i understand that she had free will to say ‘no’

S

Right. Catholics don’t attribute anything to Mary, as if it came from her. We attribute everything to God. The reason that we honor her is because of the difference in our views of justification. In Protestant understanding, a person is made just merely by God declaring the person just because of Christ’s sacrifice. In Catholic understanding, God actually makes a person truly just by infusing His own divine life into them at justification, so that a justified person literally has the very life of God within them. This is what we understand when Peter says we are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and what it means to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and why St. Paul says that it is no longer he who lives but Christ that lives within him (Galatians 2:20).

Thus, we can, while recognizing that it all comes from God as its source, as complete Grace, nevertheless honor the good that is in a person.

 

[Abira]

Right. Catholics don’t attribute anything to Mary, as if it came from her. We attribute everything to God. The reason that we honor her is because of the difference in our views of justification. In Protestant understanding, a person is made just merely by God declaring the person just because of Christ’s sacrifice. In Catholic understanding, God actually makes a person truly just by infusing His own divine life into them at justification, so that a justified person literally has the very life of God within them. This is what we understand when Peter says we are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and what it means to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and why St. Paul says that it is no longer he who lives but Christ that lives within him (Galatians 2:20).

Thus, we can, while recognizing that it all comes from God as its source, as complete Grace, nevertheless honor the good that is in a person.

what do you mean by the event of justification? I’ve never herd of this.

Protestants use the term: ie. this person ‘has God in them’ but it’s more a phrase to show that God lives in them; their lives

S

 

[I_Leatherman]

It’s just the sheer volume of Mary focus’ that scares me

In Catholicism the greatest prayer is the Mass. It is the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice for us on calvary.
It is said every day in every place on earth. There is nothing greater you can offer to God than that which He offered Himself.
Prayers to the Saints ‘by volume’ cannot compare to the Catholic Mass. They form a smaller but important part of the communion of saints.

…I believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church
The communion of saints…

 

[Abira]

In Catholicism the greatest prayer is the Mass. It is the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice for us on calvary.
It is said every day in every place on earth. There is nothing greater you can offer to God than that which He offered Himself.
Prayers to the Saints ‘by volume’ cannot compare to the Catholic Mass. They form a smaller but important part of the communion of saints.

…I believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church
The communion of saints…

ok.

I was almost imagining a comparison…

erm… a fireplace with a candle in it…
and a fireplace with a blazing fire in it.

In both cases the mass woulld be the central focal point… but my fear is that all of the ‘surroundings’ are in danger of detracting… and making the focal point seem smaller… not by design, but by accident.

But you’re saying that a thousand of these things would still not compare with one mass?

do you think that people realise this in practical terms, or just in terms of teaching? I think that it migt confuse some well meaning people and they may confuse their practices maybe. I feel as if: if it’s hard for me to distinguish then it may cause others to make mistakes in their own heart and put Mary in a place not meant for her by teh church.

S

 

[Lazerlike42]

what do you mean by the event of justification? I’ve never herd of this.

Protestants use the term: ie. this person ‘has God in them’ but it’s more a phrase to show that God lives in them; their lives

S

Do you mean you have never heard of justification?

Justification is when a person is made right with God - its the Biblical language. The Bible talks about two different things: salvation and justification. Justification is a part of salvation - in other words, being justified is a part of being saved - but the Bible speaks about them differently.

Protestants think as if the two are the same things. They speak of being saved as if it is a one time thing because they see justification - getting right with God - as a one time, irreversible thing.

Am I hitting the mark here, with what you didn’t understand? Please if I’m not, clarify your question, and if I am, ask more!

 

[I_Leatherman]

In both cases the mass woulld be the central focal point… but my fear is that all of the ‘surroundings’ are in danger of detracting… and making the focal point seem smaller… not by design, but by accident.

Place yourself in a room of a house 2000 years ago.
Jesus Christ rest by the fire, a woman sits at His feet another is busy setting a table. More of His adapted household attend Him.
Can you ignore them and remove Jesus Christ from His friends.
He said the woman at His feet made the better choice. God is a people person. ‘What you do to the least of His you do to Him’.
You would not ignore your friends on earth, why banish from your thoughts and prayers His friends in Heaven.

 

[Abira]

Do you mean you have never heard of justification?

Yeah, I’ve only ever heard of this using the one term: saved.

Why is it that Protestants tend to use the one umberella term and you have two?

 

[Abira]

You would not ignore your friends on earth, why banish from your thoughts and prayers His friends in Heaven.

I wouldn’t banish them from my thoughts…though I often do… well usually do…

but ideally I would not focus on them either, but I’ll think about your point.

S