Mary Co-Redemptrix ... Pope says No and I am confused

[TULIPed]

One of the things I’m concerned about is how little filial love we have toward Mary.

This brings up an interesting question I’ve had. Consider the following passage from Luke 14:25:

“ 25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

Now we know that Jesus isn’t speaking literally here - we’re commanded to honor our father and mother in the commandments; Jesus tells us the second great commandment is to love others (including our family) as ourselves; etc., etc. He’s speaking relativistically - our love for our parents should pale relative to our love for Him.

How do Catholics interpose their love for Mary into this equation? Thanks - I’ll hang up and listen.

 

[patricius79]

Mary was, in virtue of the merits of Christ and in order to be a worthy mother for Him, preserved from Original Sin and all personal sin.

So although Mary is nothing in comparison with her Son, who is God, she can never be an obstacle to union with her Son.

Rather, the more we have true devotion to Mary–who is innocent and holy far beyond all the rest of creation-- the more fervent will be our worship of Jesus Christ and the whole Trinity.

In other words, it is our sinfulness which obstructs our union with Christ. And Mary, being immaculate, intercedes for us with Christ, and keeps us close to Him.

Vatican II said:

"66. Placed by the grace of God, as God’s Mother, next to her Son, and exalted above all angels and men, Mary intervened in the mysteries of Christ and is justly honored by a special cult in the Church. Clearly from earliest times the Blessed Virgin is honored under the title of Mother of God, under whose protection the faithful took refuge in all their dangers and necessities.(21*) Hence after the Synod of Ephesus the cult of the people of God toward Mary wonderfully increased in veneration and love, in invocation and imitation, according to her own prophetic words: “All generations shall call me blessed, because He that is mighty hath done great things to me”.(301) This cult, as it always existed, although it is altogether singular, differs essentially from the cult of adoration which is offered to the Incarnate Word, as well to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and it is most favorable to it. The various forms of piety toward the Mother of God, which the Church within the limits of sound and orthodox doctrine, according to the conditions of time and place, and the nature and ingenuity of the faithful has approved, bring it about that while the Mother is honored, the Son, through whom all things have their being (302) and in whom it has pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell,(303) is rightly known, loved and glorified and that all His commands are observed."

 

[pnewton]

Though I’m not sure the term “Co’-Redemptrix” should be used in a dogmatic definition, I also wonder if many of those who strongly oppose this title also disagree with what the ordinary Magisterium already teaches about our Blessed Mother.

Where I am, there is also the danger of not understanding the Church’s Christology, and elevating Mary to the role of goddess. For me, this term could be seen as confirmation of that idolatry. After all, the guy who inflates Tom Brady’s footballs is not called co-MVP, even though the difference between them is finite, if huge. I just don’t see such a term useful, less it detracts from the deity of Christ, and his absolute sovereignty. There is no other precedent for its use with such a huge gap in roles.

 

[commenter]

How do Catholics interpose their love for Mary into this equation? Thanks - I’ll hang up and listen.

How do you know Catholics love Mary more than other Christians? If so, how do Protestants interpose their lack of love into this equation?

Since your prior posts presuppose Sola Scriptura, you need to justify that first before drawing on Scripture.

 

[patricius79]

Where I am, there is also the danger of not understanding the Church’s Christology, and elevating Mary to the role of goddess. For me, this term could be seen as confirmation of that idolatry.

People can certainly misperceive things. Many Catholic doctrines–and many scriptures–are misunderstood by very many. This has to do with many things, including the imperfection of human language.

You may be right that this title is not the best option for a dogmatic definition.

But I think the failures of ecumenism, conversion, and evangelization have much more to do with poor Marian devotion, given that–as the ordinary Magisterium teaches–all graces are given through her, our Mediatrix.

 

[EvangelistVictor]

Pope Francis again amazes me directing the church to look at Christ alone for salvation. He is definitely my hero spiritual leader!

 

[TULIPed]

There is no other precedent for its use with such a huge gap in roles.

And this is precisely the challenge we Protestants have with the Catholic understanding of Mary’s role. I understand the concept (and Biblical underpinnings) of intercessory prayer. The concept of asking members of the Church Triumphant to pray for me is, while culturally…unsettling, not out of the realm of possibility. The primacy of Mary’s effect with regard to intercessory prayer is logical. Ultimately, I - along with many other Protestants - respect and believe Catholics when they say that Mary is a - very important - way to Christ. She always points to Christ. I get this - in my head.

For many of us though - especially those of us raised from the cradle as Protestants - I think we get hung up on the gap between Christ and all else. How can there be a gap - a wide gap - between Christ and Mary in terms of supremacy, and yet Mary still be really, critically important to my salvation?

This is why I ask for where Mary fits in the puzzle of Luke 14. I’m still trying to figure out how to make Christ exponentially more important to me than my own actual family. And now I’ve got to fit Mary into the continuum somewhere? All of a sudden our rather simple spaghetti org chart just got more complicated

Just trying to give you guys a peek into the way we think about things. I respect the way you guys look at this. I also know that you’re all very comfortable with this concept. We appreciate your grace as we Protestants ponder your theology in the hopes of fostering better understanding and love between us.

 

[patricius79]

For many of us though - especially those of us raised from the cradle as Protestants - I think we get hung up on the gap between Christ and all else. How can there be a gap - a wide gap - between Christ and Mary in terms of supremacy, and yet Mary still be really, critically important to my salvation?

I think that part of the difficulty for both Catholics and Protestants is our difficulty in understanding the Infinite Nature of God.

If we really understood that, we would have less trouble with the idea that God’s Mother far surpasses all other creatures, and that, after God and under God, we cannot even imagine a greater holiness.

Yes, despite being the exalted Mother of God, the humble handmaid, Mary, is nothing compared to God; and so is the Cross, and the Apostles and evangelists, and so are all the Sacred Scriptures that have been written and copied and printed… Yet God used them for salvation.

 

[TULIPed]

I think that part of the difficulty for both Catholics and Protestants is our difficulty in understanding the Infinite Nature of God.

You ain’t kidding friend. Well said.

 

[patricius79]

Thanks, TULIPed. I appreciate your cordiality.

I think we all need to remember that even in our ordinary lives we must accept many things we don’t understand fully in order to really live.

This is even more true with supernatural matters, where our fallen tendency toward rationalism–or the idea that we need to fully grasp something in order to accept it–can creep in.

Here is a passage from an encyclical by St. John Paul II:

"To believe means “to abandon oneself” to the truth of the word of the living God, knowing and humbly recognizing “how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways” (Rom. 11:33). Mary, who by the eternal will of the Most High stands, one may say, at the very center of those “inscrutable ways” and “unsearchable judgments” of God, conforms herself to them in the dim light of faith, accepting fully and with a ready heart everything that is decreed in the divine plan.
http://www.vatican.va/content/john-.../hf_jp-ii_enc_25031987_redemptoris-mater.html

 

[pnewton]

Just trying to give you guys a peek into the way we think about things.

Sounds good to me, though I do not need this insight personally, as I was a Baptist minister, SBC trained. I get it. Understand that in the Mass, we see the highest point of our faith, and there is nothing but passing mention of Mary and all the saints. It is the Christ crucified that we put on our altar. And, despite the elevate position of Marian devotion, it remains a private devotion, which is why I don’t agree that Marian devotion can be “poor” in those who see do not have that affluence of devotion. Some people are drawn to a more direct contact with the savior in the Eucharist, and in our prayer life. After all, this is the end to all Mary does anyway. It is interesting that converts to Catholicism often vary wildly over their Marian devotion. That should be understandable and accepted without judgement.

 

[TULIPed]

Sounds good to me, though I do not need this insight personally, as I was a Baptist minister, SBC trained. I get it.

Look at this, a Calvinist having a civil discussion with a former Armenian Catholic. All we need is a bar and Rabbi and we’ve got the makings for a great joke.

 

[patricius79]

Devotion to Mary is public (liturgical) too. For example, we just celebrated a number of Marian solemnities, including Christmas, the Holy Family, and Mary, the Holy Mother of God

While each person’s devotion to Mary is very personal, every person who knows the truth about his mother owes her filial love and honor.

Vatican II wrote:

1. Wherefore this Holy Synod, in expounding the doctrine on the Church, in which the divine Redeemer works salvation, intends to describe with diligence both the role of the Blessed Virgin in the mystery of the Incarnate Word and the Mystical Body, and the duties of redeemed mankind toward the Mother of God, who is mother of Christ and mother of men, particularly of the faithful.

 

[patricius79]

Understand that in the Mass, we see the highest point of our faith, and there is nothing but passing mention of Mary and all the saints. It is the Christ crucified that we put on our altar.

The Sacrifice of the Mass is our participation in the Sacrifice of the Cross, in which Mary played a central role, by Christ’s grace.

Catholics are happily obligated to give their assent to all that Christ teaches us through the ordinary (and extraordinary) Magisterium.

Here is Pope Saint Pius X in an encyclical:

When the supreme hour of the Son came, beside the Cross of Jesus there stood Mary His Mother, not merely occupied in contemplating the cruel spectacle, but rejoicing that her Only Son was offered for the salvation of mankind, and so entirely participating in His Passion, that if it had been possible she would have gladly borne all the torments that her Son bore. And from this community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary she merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world and Dispensatrix of all the gifts that Our Savior purchased for us by His Death and by His Blood.
http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-...x_enc_02021904_ad-diem-illum-laetissimum.html

 

[pnewton]

Okay, a priest, a rabbi, and a preacher walked into a bar. You would think at least one of them would have ducked.

 

[pnewton]

Catholics are happily obligated to give their assent to all that Christ teaches us through the ordinary (and extraordinary) Magisterium

Not really. There need be no emotion or happiness. Dogma requires an assent of faith. Period. Doctrine requires assent, but there is no problem with that assent and understanding taking a lifetime to work through, as long as assent. That is why heresy requires obstinance. Look at all that do not agree with Pope Francis’s teaching on the death penalty.

Unless you are saying that one is giving their assent that it is Church teaching. That would be true. One of the doctrines of the Church is the primacy of conscience. Conscience must be well-formed, but this is the very process of which I speak.

In any case, no Marian devotion is required, outside of the Holy Days of Obligation, though I know of no Catholic that does not at least pray the rosary.

 

[HarryStotle]

patricius79:

One of the things I’m concerned about is how little filial love we have toward Mary.

This brings up an interesting question I’ve had. Consider the following passage from Luke 14:25:

“ 25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

Now we know that Jesus isn’t speaking literally here - we’re commanded to honor our father and mother in the commandments; Jesus tells us the second great commandment is to love others (including our family) as ourselves; etc., etc. He’s speaking relativistically - our love for our parents should pale relative to our love for Him.

How do Catholics interpose their love for Mary into this equation? Thanks - I’ll hang up and listen.

How do you explain how John the Baptist could be both greatest and less than the least?

“I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Luke 7:28)

Perhaps the answer to your query is that human love of fathers, mothers, spouses, or children is, in comparison to the love we will have in the Kingdom, like hate.

Now, the repercussions of this are interesting. If human love is, relatively speaking selfishly motivated and not for the eternal good of the one loved, then relatively speaking it is like “hate” because it is egoistic and not aimed at their objective and true eternal good.

My suspicion is that Jesus is using “hate” as a euphemism for detachment from human ego-centric ties. Not that we hate others, literally, but that love in the kingdom makes earthly love seem more like hate than full-bodied eternal love.

So when Peter, humanly speaking, protested after Jesus announced his suffering and death, Jesus said “Get behind me Satan!” Seems harsh calling ole Peter “Satan,” but that would be another example of the relative difference between earthly existence and the Kingdom.

Hello? Hello? It appears that you did hang up.

 

[patricius79]

We don’t have to have certain emotions at certain times. Religious assent of mind and will–our sincere adherence to what the ordinary Magisterium teaches–is an extension of the assent of faith. We don’t have to understand fully what the Magisterium teaches, but we are required to sincerely adhere to it anyway.

A Catholic should not deliberately pit their conscience against what Christ teaches through the Magisterium, whether the issue is moral–such as contraception–or a matter of faith, such as the Church’s teachings about our Blessed Mother.

The only exception, as I understand it, would be if a Pope taught something–and I’m referring to the ordinary magisterium–which one knows to be definitely in contradiction to previous Magisterial teaching; or, of course, in contradiction to dogma.

As far as what is required, it would hardly make sense to have love for our Mother (or the other saints) during the Mass and then be sent out from the Mass and ignore her. If we love God we will love those which God loves. God loves His daughter more than we can understand, and she is our mother.

Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.
Lumen gentium

 

[pnewton]

A Catholic should not deliberately pit their conscience against what Christ teaches through the Magisterium, whether the issue is moral–such as contraception–or a matter of faith, such as the Church’s teachings about our Blessed Mother.

I was not referring to anything deliberate. I have no idea what adhere means in your context. We cannot believe what we do not believe by force of will.

 

[HarryStotle]

patricius79:

A Catholic should not deliberately pit their conscience against what Christ teaches through the Magisterium, whether the issue is moral–such as contraception–or a matter of faith, such as the Church’s teachings about our Blessed Mother.

I was not referring to anything deliberate. I have no idea what adhere means in your context. We cannot believe what we do not believe by force of will.

So would self-doubt about the things you currently believe be impossible, i.e., cannot be done?

What of questioning what you sincerely believe to the point of looking deeply into the question regardless of what you believe, just to impartially check your belief? Cannot be done?

Wouldn’t it take an act of will to do so rather than merely accede — according to a kind of intellectual inertia — to what is currently believed? Wouldn’t that be healthy regarding one’s cherished beliefs, intellectually speaking?