Nothing wrong with kissing a statue. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is worshipping the statue.
Ummm…I just attended an Orthodox Church and there was statues there and a lot of kissing going on.
I am sure you would agree…
Well, it is the Roman Church that propagated all those dogmas and approved all those apparitions. The Eastern Catholic Churches were never involved in them.Why do you call the Catholic Church the Roman Church? Why not call it the Catholic Church? I am surprised to hear you say the following: “Roman Church has either tip-toed the line of fully crossed it between veneration and worship.”
Completely false!!!I thought you had a better grasp of catholic doctrine…
I’m trying to make people realize this. Because a lot of people try to advance that idea that Mary needed to be sinless because Christ cannot have flesh that is less than perfect. But that is not the teaching of the Church Fathers. Christ’s flesh is perfect because He himself sanctified it and perfected it. When he touches sin and death, sin and death is defeated, not the other way around.
There is a difference between saying that as an honorific, and saying that in the literal sense. In the Orthodox Church (and Byzantine Catholics do this too), we sing of the Theotokos as “more honorable than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim,” but this does not mean that she is a perfect purely spiritual being as well. It is a figure of speech, and it is used a lot in Scripture as well as Patristic writing.
Well, depends what we are talking about. Her as a woman, or her as a person. As a woman she is the same as all women, her as a human she is the same as all humans. Her as a person, certainly there are things of her that are unique, there is in all of us. And of course she has that singular privilege to bear God in her womb. But that doesn’t mean as a woman, as a human, she is different from everyone else. That is what the IC implies, because Original Sin supposedly deals with human nature (our fallen state).
My point was that IC implies a predestination that Mary has to be absolutely the Theotokos because she was already granted such a privilege at her conception, so that means that God has already “programmed” her to irresistibly comply to become the Theotokos. I mean, what if she was immaculately conceived and then said “no”?
That is not what the approved apparitions say.
There is nothing in approved revelations that are contrary to the Catholic faith or morals. Terrific article here by Cardlinal Ratzinger on Fatima.. His commentary on public and private revelation is particularly insightful for anyone not understanding the difference between the two.
I agree with you that this is easily refutable.
Regardless when the privilege was granted., it was granted. predestination is absolute, God didn’t wing it as He went along. That’s the “other” story.
You sound surprised that I would imply that. Interesting.
Not necessarily. This unique event may have come with the angel, as it were. The reality of my point is that God’s will is fulfilled in this way, regardless of the timing, which is not revealed to us in scripture.
Yes, my point being, you may be the only one in agreement thus far whom knows what they are in agreement with, aside from the Catholic’s here, that is interesting to me.
May have come as I mentioned Jon, point being which would you venture to say is most fitting since “all” the Church’s have spoke on it and arrived at various conclusions, which is indicative as you mention with the Visitation, also as EO Bishop Ware states the IC for the EO occurred at the Incarnation, Thus “three” perceptions alone here, which all admit there are also the others I mentioned.
lol. We Lutherans tend to be a strange lot, eh?
ISTM that all three are fitting, and I wonder aloud here if these three understandings are not necessarily Church dividing, not necessarily chaotic. Perhaps there ought to be room for personal piety here, if indeed all three fulfill the plan God had for the Blessed Virgin and the Incarnation.
This is my favorite aspect of Lutherans
These comments are disconnected from the basic ideas of original sin and the IC in the CC. This should help.
What is, she said no even after the angels in heaven recognized her at the Entrance into the temple? What is she changed her mind after the Annunciation? Really?I didn’t say the angel did it. I said this gift of grace happened at that time.