Tis_Bearself
Patron
I don’t mean to be rude, but if you’re going to find reasons to dismiss everybody in the Bible (dozens of people beyond the three examples I cited) who didn’t do God’s will, or didn’t say Yes to God right away, then we’re not really going to get anywhere with this discussion.
Though it is acceptable for Catholics to believe that the Jonah narrative and some other OT narratives are fictional, they were still written under divine inspiration and the humans in them behave in ways consistent with human nature. There are plenty of real life examples of people “running away from God” daily, and that is what the Bible narrative is getting at. It makes no difference whether there was a real guy named Jonah who was eaten by a whale, etc. The point is that people often try to avoid the call of God. I have heard and read priests and members of religious orders speak about how God called them to a vocation and they did not want that or plan on that and spent months or years trying to get away before accepting God’s call.
If you don’t like Jonah then you can look at his parallel in the New Testament, the rich young man whom Jesus called to follow him, who went away sadly because he didn’t want to give up his possessions. Mary could have also gone away sadly because she didn’t want this scary role from God that she didn’t totally understand. Or she could at least have said, “Please give me some time to think about it.” Again - she did none of these things.
With that, I’m muting the thread now as I feel I have contributed all I can, and it’s also been my experience that if someone wants to have a bias against Mary or put her down, it is difficult to impossible to logically convince them otherwise. I will instead pray that the Holy Spirit opens your mind so you understand about Mary.
God bless
Though it is acceptable for Catholics to believe that the Jonah narrative and some other OT narratives are fictional, they were still written under divine inspiration and the humans in them behave in ways consistent with human nature. There are plenty of real life examples of people “running away from God” daily, and that is what the Bible narrative is getting at. It makes no difference whether there was a real guy named Jonah who was eaten by a whale, etc. The point is that people often try to avoid the call of God. I have heard and read priests and members of religious orders speak about how God called them to a vocation and they did not want that or plan on that and spent months or years trying to get away before accepting God’s call.
If you don’t like Jonah then you can look at his parallel in the New Testament, the rich young man whom Jesus called to follow him, who went away sadly because he didn’t want to give up his possessions. Mary could have also gone away sadly because she didn’t want this scary role from God that she didn’t totally understand. Or she could at least have said, “Please give me some time to think about it.” Again - she did none of these things.
With that, I’m muting the thread now as I feel I have contributed all I can, and it’s also been my experience that if someone wants to have a bias against Mary or put her down, it is difficult to impossible to logically convince them otherwise. I will instead pray that the Holy Spirit opens your mind so you understand about Mary.
God bless
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