Some questions about Mary

[rom323]

Where in the Catechism is the second part of the Commandment remitted? It certainly is in my copy…
Again, you are attacking the Church without base!

Show that Exodus 20:4 is listed AS A COMMANDMENT in the Catechism!

These accusations are not fair. Now you are claiming statues are all about money? Since when does the Church itself sell statues? It would be individual craftsmen and companies that make money off statues, not the Church. Actually, God did not condemn all images, only idols of pagan gods and any images that were worshipped. We do not worship images of Christ and the saints. They are a way to focus on God. We are physical creatures. We are not angels. God gave us five senses, and it is most natural to worship with all of our senses. Jesus came as a man. Scripture says He is the “image” of the Invisible God. Therefore, how can it be wrong to have images of the Image of God!?

Read Ex. 20 :4 and Deut. 4:15-19

He was a man, so we could have painted his portrait if we lived at the time. If the United States has a statue of Thomas Jefferson, how much more the heros of faith? Hebrews 12:1 says we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. In fact, even though God condemned images of pagan gods and other creatures for worship, he COMMANDED sacred images to be made for the temple and other uses. Consider the following:
Exodus 25:18-22; 26:1,31 Images of the Cherbium are to be made.
Num. 21:8-9 - An image of a bronze serpent is to be made through which God would heal the people.
I Kings 6:23-36; 7:27-39; 8:6-67 - sacred images of Cherbium were to be engraved in the temple. It is only the worship of images as gods that is condemned, not the use of sacred images in and of themselves. God could not be depicted in any image, of course, but that is because God is invisible; Christ, however, is the IMAGE of the Inivisible God. (Col. 1:15).

Do we bow down to statues of Jefferson or ask favors of him?
Actually using images in a religious context is condemned in Scripture.

In Christ,
Tyler

(See scripturecatholic.com/sacramentals.html)

 

[rom323]

mtr01:

The problem is, rom, the word isn’t caritow (charitoo) per se. The word is kecharitomene (κεχαριτωμενη ). In fact, the Angelic Salutation is the only time that word appears in the Bible.

Furthermore, you are wrong about the viableness of “full of grace” as a translation. The only question that modern Protestant scholars have is to whether to the active/passive sense of the translation is conveyed. That is, whether Mary is “full of grace” that she bestows (on Jesus) or is “full of grace” that she received from God. Since the Catholic Church has always taught the latter, there is no problem.

However, there are many reasons why “highly favored daughter” is a butchered translation, starting with the fact that “daughter” is not the direct address, and nowhere appears in the Greek. Furthermore, do you know how many times charitoo (the root of kecharitomene) is translated as “favor”, and how many as “grace”? Try 5 to 120, respectively. No, the weight of evidence argues against “highly favored daughter”.

If you want a good look at the issues of translating “kecharitomene”, look here.

As of yet no one has told me how Genesis 3:15 reads in the Douay-Rheims bible?

 

[Genesis315]

As of yet no one has told me how Genesis 3:15 reads in the Douay-Rheims bible?

Haha. I’ll take this one!!! I think you are referring to the “she shall crush.” The Latin Vulgate had “ipsa” I believe. With “He” or “she” it has been interpreted the same way. It has always been interpreted that she achieves victory through her seed. Both relay this same truth. Have you ever read how the Immaculate Conception is forshadowed in this verse (in either translation)? It’s pretty cool.

 

[rom323]

Robert in SD:

Dear rom323;

Your premise is based upon several faulty assumptions.

First, Catholic teaching does not agree with your unsupported conclusion that the dead are “sleeping in the grave.” To the contrary, Catholics acknowledge Christ’s victory over death as a complete victory, such that those who have departed this world in God’s grace are truly alive and enjoying the many blessings of Heaven. Catholics also believe in the community of saints (again, there seems to be a disconnect arising from our different understanding of the word “saint”) that encompasses not only the faithful here on Earth, but the faithful who now reside in the presence of God. Those who the Church recognizes as being in the presence of God we English speaking Catholics refer to commonly as the “saints” because of their holiness. We believe those who are in Heaven and in the presence of God can receive requests for prayer from fellow christians because they, like those of us still living on Earth, are part of the body of Christ. The members of the body of Christ continue to work together and are connected in a real spiritual sense. When Paul speaks of the body of Christ he does not exclude those who have already passed on. Neither do Catholics. To the extent you suggest the dead are sleeping in the grave, and unable to participate as members of the body of Christ you are denying Christ’s victory over death. Do you really believe that part of the body of Christ is “asleep?” That is grave error indeed - IMHO.

You fail to see that the Scriptures clearly condemn any attempt to contact the dead! Death breaks our lines of communication. Read Luke 16: 19-31.

Second, you make the assumption that a person can somehow unwittingly or accidentally engage in an act of worship. That is just silly. Worship requires a conscious and informed decision on the part of the worshipper. So, to suggest that a person can accidentally worship Mary is as ridiculous as suggesting that one can accidentally commit any other sort of intentional act.

No I agree that the worship of Mary and the other Saints is intentional!

Many of the prayers to Mary and the Saints are silent therefore you must believe that Mary can read the minds of her petitioners,

Third, you insist that prayer equals worship. By that logic you would never be able to file a civil complaint in the state of California, because at the end of every such pleading is a “prayer for relief.” By your reasoning every complaint on file with the court is an accidental act of worship unwittingly directed to a created being - a superior court judge. Prayer means a request. In the context of prayers to saints, they are requests to pray to God on the prayer-maker’s behalf. The prayer to the saint - whether it be Mary or St. Joseph or some other saint, is NOT per se an act of worship notwithstanding what you or some other protestant may believe.

It is absurd to equate a petition to a court to asking Saints to grant favors. Prayer is an act of worship and is to be directed to God alone!

Fourth, you conclude that I and other Catholics put our trust in the saints instead of Christ. Again, you are creating a false dichotomy. The saints are present within the body of Christ and they are present solely because of Christ’s work. Catholics do put our trust in Christ and in no other mediator because it is through Christ and Christ alone that we are redeemed. But asking our fellow members of this Body of Christ - who are now in Heaven - to pray with and for us takes nothing away from that total giving of ourselves to Christ our redeemer.

Why then is Mary called Mediatrix and Co-Redemer?

At this point, I’m going to stop responding to your posts because it is clear to me that you are either unwilling or unable to acknowledge the Catholic understanding of prayers to Mary and the other saints. But, I meant what I said earlier - I do hope you find the truth.

Have you ever attended a May Crowning? If that isn’t blantant idolatry then nothing is!

Peace and Charity,

 

[mercygate]

rom323:
Exodus 20:4 from *The Catechism of the Catholic Church: *

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.

The traditional Catholic numbering of the Commandments is the same as the Orthodox and Lutheran numbering. The content remains identical with what Protestants generally use. I believe there are actually 14 “commandments” in this list – which the Jews (and we) conflate to make the perfect number, 10.

The concept we seem to be missing here is the prohibition of making an image"for yourself" – i.e., make a god “for yourself.” The idea of the image AS a god was the problem rather than images per se. This is affirmed by the fact that God almost immediately then commands the making of images for the ark of the covenant and for the mercy seat.

Others have pointed out that with the Incarnation, the image of God acquired a human face. What had been “unimage-able” becomes matter, and via the Incarnation matter becomes, in a particular and living way, crucial to the experience of the holy.

 

[rom323]

maryj:

hello rom323, Scripture teaches us that Mary is “Mother of God”

Luke 1:43: Elizabeth calls Mary"mother of my Lord." In the New Testament, “Lord” refers ONLY TO GOD.

Mathew 1:23: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel,” (which means…God with us)".

Early church fathers confirm Mary’s divine maternity
St. Ignatius of Antioch “For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan…” Letter to the Ephisian 18,2:

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (180-199) “The Virgin Mary, being obedient to His word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would bear God.” Against Heresies,5,19,1; Jurgens, vol. 1,#256a.

Protestant Reformers insist that Mary is the Mother of God…
Martin Luther: " In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such good things were given her that no one can grasp them…Not only was Mary the mother of Him who is born(in Bethlehem) but of Him who, before the world, was eternally born of the Father,from a mother in time and at the same time man and God." Weimer, The works of Luther, English translation by Pelikan, Concordia, St Louis, vol. 7, page 572

and there you have it…
I shall be a defender of Mary.

It is NOT POSSIBLE for Mary to be “the Mother of God.” God has no mother and is without beginning or end. Jesus is one person with two natures, one human, one divine. Mary was “the mother” of His humanity not His deity! Mary could not be the mother of her Creator, that’s absurd!

 

[rom323]

Genesis315:

Haha. I’ll take this one!!! I think you are referring to the “she shall crush.” The Latin Vulgate had “ipsa” I believe. With “He” or “she” it has been interpreted the same way. It has always been interpreted that she achieves victory through her seed. Both relay this same truth. Have you ever read how the Immaculate Conception is forshadowed in this verse (in either translation)? It’s pretty cool.

Christ crushed Satan at the cross, not Mary! She achived no victory nor did she add anything towards our salvation! Jesus did it all!

 

[Genesis315]

rom323:

It is NOT POSSIBLE for Mary to be “the Mother of God.” God has no mother and is without beginning or end. Jesus is one person with two natures, one human, one divine. Mary was “the mother” of His humanity not His deity! Mary could not be the mother of her Creator, that’s absurd!

Actually, that’s heresy called Nestorianism. It said that Jesus’ divine and human natures could be separated. This is not so.

It really is just a simple syllogism:
Mary is the mother of Jesus
Jesus is God
Mary is the mother of God.

To prove this conclusion wrong, you will have to attack one of the two premises. So you can either say Jesus is not God (Arianism) or you can say Mary was not His mother (no heresy has come up with this one. you can if you want. We’ll call it rom323ism.)

 

[Tom]

rom323:

It is NOT POSSIBLE for Mary to be “the Mother of God.” God has no mother and is without beginning or end. Jesus is one person with two natures, one human, one divine. Mary was “the mother” of His humanity not His deity! Mary could not be the mother of her Creator, that’s absurd!

So, you’re saying Scripture is wrong where Elizabeth calls Mary the mother of God? Well, either Scripture is wrong or rom323 is wrong, I’ll trust Scripture, thank you very much.

 

[rom323]

Genesis315:

Haha. I’ll take this one!!! I think you are referring to the “she shall crush.” The Latin Vulgate had “ipsa” I believe. With “He” or “she” it has been interpreted the same way. It has always been interpreted that she achieves victory through her seed. Both relay this same truth. Have you ever read how the Immaculate Conception is forshadowed in this verse (in either translation)? It’s pretty cool.

*“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.”
*
Do you actually believe that by saying prayers TO Mary the world can be conquered? This doesn’t leave much credit for Jesus!

 

[Genesis315]

rom323:

Christ crushed Satan at the cross, not Mary! She achived no victory nor did she add anything towards our salvation! Jesus did it all!

Jesus conquered sin and Christians are on the victorious side. Say Pedro Maritinez (a Met these days) throws a perfect game with all pop ups to the pitcher on the first pitch. He also hits a homerun for the only hit and only run of the game. Did Kaz Matsui, who struck out everytime, do add anything towards this victory? Nope. Is he victorious? Yep.

Remember too, Mary did a little better than strike out every time. Her fiat was very important. I don’t see the problem with saying she was victorious through or because of her seed.

 

[rom323]

Genesis315:

Actually, that’s heresy called Nestorianism. It said that Jesus’ divine and human natures could be separated. This is not so.

It really is just a simple syllogism:
Mary is the mother of Jesus
Jesus is God
Mary is the mother of God.

Let’s look at another syllogism:
God is a Trinity
Mary is the mother of God
Mary is the mother of the Trinity

Or how about:
God the Father subsists within the Trinity
Mary is the mother of the Trinity
Mary is the mother of God the Father

To prove this conclusion wrong, you will have to attack one of the two premises. So you can either say Jesus is not God (Arianism) or you can say Mary was not His mother (no heresy has come up with this one. you can if you want. We’ll call it rom323ism.)

To call Mary the mother of God and not the mother of man is heresy! To focus on Christ’s divinity and ignore His humanity is heresy. Jesus is BOTH God and Man!

 

[Genesis315]

“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.”

Do you actually believe that by saying prayers TO Mary the world can be conquered? This doesn’t leave much credit for Jesus!

Sure, having a devotion to Mary is good. Actually, the Rosary also contains the Our Father, the O My Jesus, and the Glory be. It concludes with:

O God, whose only begotten Son, through His life, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, grant, we beseech Thee, that by meditating upon these mysteries of the most holy rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Plus, 18 of the 20 mysteries are purely about Jesus. Seems there’s more than enough room for Him. We also pray it in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You should be glad people prayed the Rosary. You’d be a Muslim if not. When the Turks were going invade Europe and the Chritian navy was overmatched, the Pope urged all Christians to pray the Rosary. Guess what happened? We won! That was the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

 

[rom323]

Tom:

So, you’re saying Scripture is wrong where Elizabeth calls Mary the mother of God? Well, either Scripture is wrong or rom323 is wrong, I’ll trust Scripture, thank you very much.

Please don’t change the Scriptures in a feble attempt to make a point! Elizabeth calls Mary “the mother of my Lord” not the mother of God!

 

[rom323]

Tom:

So, you’re saying Scripture is wrong where Elizabeth calls Mary the mother of God? Well, either Scripture is wrong or rom323 is wrong, I’ll trust Scripture, thank you very much.

I guess you missed this:

Let’s look at another syllogism:
God is a Trinity
Mary is the mother of God
Mary is the mother of the Trinity

Or how about:
God the Father subsists within the Trinity
Mary is the mother of the Trinity
Mary is the mother of God the Father
Refute this using LOGIC!

 

[Genesis315]

rom323:

To call Mary the mother of God and not the mother of man is heresy! To focus on Christ’s divinity and ignore His humanity. Jesus is BOTH God and Man!

Right, He is both God and man. It’s the old hypostatic union. Well, we say Jesus is God. Would you say He is the Trinity? He is one of the person’s of the Trinity, but He is still God. He is divine yet a diffent person than God the Father. If you say God became man, do you mean the Trinity became man? A mother is one who gives birth and raises a child. Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is God. I really don’t see the problem. God became man in the normal way, live birth. Live birth necessitates a mother. Mary was His mother. No one is claiming Mary existed before God.

 

[rom323]

Genesis315:

Sure, having a devotion to Mary is good. Actually, the Rosary also contains the Our Father, the O My Jesus, and the Glory be. It concludes with:

O God, whose only begotten Son, through His life, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, grant, we beseech Thee, that by meditating upon these mysteries of the most holy rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Plus, 18 of the 20 mysteries are purely about Jesus. Seems there’s more than enough room for Him. We also pray it in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You should be glad people prayed the Rosary. You’d be a Muslim if not. When the Turks were going invade Europe and the Chritian navy was overmatched, the Pope urged all Christians to pray the Rosary. Guess what happened? We won! That was the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

You believe that vain repetitions prevented me from becoming a Muslin? How sad that you have such little faith in God and so much in Mary!

 

[Genesis315]

rom323:

Please don’t change the Scriptures in a feble attempt to make a point! Elizabeth calls Mary “the mother of my Lord” not the mother of God!

It’s the same word that the Jews referred to God with. LORD.

 

[Genesis315]

rom323:

You believe that vain repetitions prevented me from becoming a Muslin? How sad that you have such little faith in God and so much in Mary!

Oh, they’re definitely not vain. My point was to show that praying the Rosary helps in conquest, at least in not being conquered. God works though many people. He chooses to work through Mary sometimes. What’s the problem?

(ps: you need to stop the vain repetitions of the exclamation point )

 

[Genesis315]

rom323:

You believe that vain repetitions prevented me from becoming a Muslin? How sad that you have such little faith in God and so much in Mary!

The promises and lessons learned from the myseries are Christological. The effecaciousness of praying the Rosary comes primarily from that. We simply ask Mary to pray for us (to Jesus) and to help us to see Him. I think that’s a good thing.