Mary Never Truly Died

[Dan_Defender]

Tradition holds that she lived an earthly life of 72 years.

Not to start an argument but I believe 62 years is more likely. I read somewhere because people did not live that long back then and because according to Tradition the Apostles were present at her death so must have happened before the martyrdom of James the Greater in AD 44. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

Had she simply died a natural death, without being assumed into heaven, there would be a grave to mark her burial place. It is no such place of pilgrimage.

Actually there is a tomb…

Tomb of the Virgin Mary - Wikipedia

 

[DebCWil]

I pray the Franciscan Crown on Saturdays, which adds 2 Hail Marys at the end to mark the traditional 72 years Mary is believed to have lived.

 

[Cathoholic]

TheMarriedKnight . . . .

I have a person I know that really has a hard time respecting catholism. He claims that we worship Mary even though I told him already we don’t.

Make sure this guy knows Jesus is true God AND true man.

If he knows that, Gary Michuta in his book on the Blessed Virgin Mary talks about the veneration we DO give the Blessed Virgin Mary.

And the worship we REFUSE to give to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Ask him if he thinks that is OK to refuse to “worship” Jesus the same way we refuse to worship Mary.

What do you call people who REFUSE to worship Jesus as God?

Arians. Jehovah’s Witnesses. Unitarians. Whatever.

But you don’t call them Christians.

Point out to him, if he thinks mere veneration is worship, then he admits to Arians (etc.) “worshiping” Jesus. It is a subtle denial of the Divinity of Jesus if he holds to this.

Make sure he knows you know . . . IF . . if he thinks that way (jumbling up worship and veneration) . . . then it is HIM that may NOT be a Christian.

(This will bother his conscience you implying he may be less than Christian to meditate on this. And he MAY BE less than Christian. This is not mere rhetorical devices.)

God bless.

Cathoholic

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Mary-Gary-Michuta/dp/0998839922

There are many books about the Blessed Virgin Mary on the market. This book is different. It is written for non-Catholic Christians to show how Catholic Marian doctrine is rooted in the Bible and the writings of the early Church fathers.

 

[Francis]

to all

All

truth",

:walking_man: Yet to reach! but not yet

 

[thistle]

I have a person I know that really has a hard time respecting catholism. He claims that we worship Mary even though I told him already we don’t. He claims that Mary death in Bible wasn’t how we Catholics believe it to be. How did Mary die in the Bible?

There is nothing in the Bible about Mary’s death. Get the person who told you that to point out in the Bible where it says Mary died. Remember it is not up to us to refute baseless claims. The burden is on the person making the claim to come up with something concrete that we can discuss.

 

[dougp]

Zmysticat:
CCC 86 says that Magisterium is the “servant” of scripture. That’s the word choice of the catechist(s), so I use it. My response is that I always choose the master over a servant.
Further: It is said elsewhere by the Church that tradition and scripture have equal weight in doctrines and such. I don’t doubt the Church believes this, but I see Magisterium and tradition weighing much more in the balances of teaching than scripture.

I never saw “sola scriptura” until I read it on various RCC-oriented sites. Commonly - in my experience, remember - it would show up when I persisted in using a scripture as a response to a topic, almost always from a Catholic Bible*. My typical correspondent would say, ‘Well, I can see you’re sola scriptura. We of course have the benefit of 2000 years of tradition, Doctors and Fathers, and Magisterium.’
That I choose to see as pejorative. Not toward me but to the doctrine I’m alleged to hold.
There may well be Protestant groups that use SS; I haven’t met any.

I’m having trouble following specific posts here on my smartphone. I hope I’ve replied adequately to your comments. Which I did read, even if Dumb and Dumber didn’t.

• That means, as you know, having a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur.

 

[dougp]

One scripture that shows otherwise is Rom 6:23, “for the wage paid by sin is death”.
Unless you’re proposing that those two men were sinless, they both died long ago.
The ‘taking up’ of Elijah in particular is often misunderstood by those who don’t uncover the whole story. He went into the heavens, that is in the air and out of sight. But two scriptures show his life and his prophetic service were not over. John wrote much later that “no one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven” (John 3:13), and Elijah later served as prophet to King Jehoram of Judah. 2Chr 21:12.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Jesus ascended into Heaven under his own power. Mary was assumed into Heaven by God at the end of her life. Mary had no power to do so on her own, it was a special privilege. The language carefully makes this distinction.

Isn’t this splitting hairs?

Jesus couldn’t have ascended into heaven either if his Father hadn’t given him the power.

 

[thistle]

Jesus couldn’t have ascended into heaven either if his Father hadn’t given him the power.

Jesus IS God!! He ascended under his own power.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Jesus ascended into Heaven under his own power. Mary was assumed into Heaven by God at the end of her life. Mary had no power to do so on her own, it was a special privilege. The language carefully makes this distinction.

Isn’t this splitting hairs?

Jesus couldn’t have ascended into heaven either if his Father hadn’t given him the power.

Jesus is God.

 

[Vico]

Mary’s death isn’t in the Bible…neither is her birth. It is Tradition in the East that she did indeed die (her Dormition) and was assumed 3 days later. It’s hard to argue things like that with a “bible-based” evangelical Christian (at least that’s what it sounds like this guy is). We (Catholics and Orthodox) believe in Oral Tradition as well as written (Bible).

Also in the west, according to Saint Pope John Paul II:

Some theologians have in fact maintained that the Blessed Virgin did not die and and was immediately raised from earthly life to heavenly glory. However, this opinion was unknown until the 17th century, whereas a common tradition actually exists which sees Mary’s death as her entry into heavenly glory.

The New Testament provides no information on the circumstances of Mary’s death. This silence leads one to suppose that it happened naturally, with no detail particularly worthy of mention. If this were not the case, how could the information about it have remained hidden from her contemporaries and not have been passed down to us in some way?

As to the cause of Mary’s death, the opinions that wish to exclude her from death by natural causes seem groundless.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/1997/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_25061997.html

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

Not to mention there are no relics of her anywhere…our priest elaborated on that during his homily this past Dormition. That also makes for a good case of her assumption following her dormition.

 

[Wesrock]

Not to mention there are no relics of her anywhere…our priest elaborated on that during his homily this past Dormition. That also makes for a good case of her assumption following her dormition.

This actually is a very curious point, and perhaps great evidence for the antiquity of the tradition.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Note: Split into two due to length.

CCC 86 says that Magisterium is the “servant” of scripture. That’s the word choice of the catechist(s), so I use it.

Except it doesn’t use the word “Scripture”. It uses the phrase “Word of God”:

“Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.”

And as already noted, CCC 85 before it makes clear that “Word of God” refers to both Scripture and Tradition. You can read both of them here.

My response is that I always choose the master over a servant.
Further: It is said elsewhere by the Church that tradition and scripture have equal weight in doctrines and such. I don’t doubt the Church believes this, but I see Magisterium and tradition weighing much more in the balances of teaching than scripture.

You’re missing the point entirely. Appeals to Church and Tradition are not meant to diminish Scripture, nor does the viewing of Scripture as the Church’s “master” mean that we can bypass the Church. St. Vincent of Lerins probably put it best when he said:

Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

You can get the full context here under Paragraph 5. Basically, we go the Church because we believe that the Church’s dogmatic teachings are infallible.

And criticism of a Scripture-only approach is, again, not meant to lessen the value of Scripture. It is a pushback against the diminishing, if not total ignorance, of Tradition and Magisterium in Protestantism.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Not toward me but to the doctrine I’m alleged to hold.
There may well be Protestant groups that use SS; I haven’t met any.

Sola Scriptura is pretty traditional Protestant teaching, to the point that most of modern-day Protestantism is affected by it, even if they don’t call their teaching Sola Scriptura. At its most basic, Sola Scriptura is, as Protestants traditionally understand*, the belief that Scripture is alone is God’s infallible Word given to humans. Practically, this leads to a lot of different practices, but the using of Scripture as if it were the only source of truth is a pretty common approach. Some more traditionally-minded Protestants like conservative Lutherans and Presbyterians might take issue with using it as the only rather than final authority, hence the phrase “Solo Scriptura”, but I don’t feel like delving into that here.

Catholics, in response, often use “Sola Scriptura” as a reference to how the doctrine is generally understood or to describe the doctrine using its traditional name. The intent is to make sure everyone is on the right page.

* Note: I’m using “traditionally understand” to refer to those Protestants who hold relatively closely to the teachings of Luther and/or Calvin, since they were the ones who really gave us Sola Scriptura.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Jesus is God.

On that bais, the argument is an even worse case of hair splitting.

Mary was raised into heaven by God.

Jesus was raised into heaven by himself, and He is God, therefore He was raised into heaven by God.

Therefore both of them were raised into heaven by God.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Jesus is God.

On that bais, the argument is an even worse case of hair splitting.

Mary was raised into heaven by God.

Jesus was raised into heaven by himself, and He is God, therefore He was raised into heaven by God.

Therefore both of them were raised into heaven by God.

In the case of Jesus it was under his own power and activity, in Mary’s case it was someone acting on her.

 

[Vico]

…
There may well be Protestant groups that use SS; I haven’t met any.
…

The sola scriptura (sufficiency of scripture) is from Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli (Swiss Reformed Church). Also, Southern Baptists embrace sola sciptura.

 

[dougp]

Got it. But, as old as I am I don’t go back to the Reformation.
The SS guys I run into are of the modern type, Bible-Belters. (Many of them think that the KJV was handed down from heaven in 1611.)

To clarify, I try not to use the word “literal” or its ilk. Slippery slope and all that.

Let’s take two examples, one now and one later if you’re still interested.
A prophecy of David, at Ps 37:29:
NJB, “but the upright shall have the land for their own, where they shall live forever.”
NAB, “The just shall possess the land and dwell in it forever.”

Several words are different, so we’re in a bind if we believe in a ‘every word literal Bible’ But most literate people would agree they convey the same thought, so God has taught us something. In fact, I’ve seen Bibles that say “earth” rather than “land”; still the same. Do you agree?