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estesbob
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So Mary was just some random womb that God decided to park his son in for 9 months and then feed him for 30 or so years until he got around to his true mission-founding the Bible?
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Reformed1
Guest
So your answer is to believe:
a.) the assumption of Mary
b.) immaculate conception of Mary
c.) queenship of Mary
d.) that she is the dispenser of graces
e.) that she is a co-mediator
I could go on but your post presents one extreme view of Mary that, unfortunately, probably does exist, but it probably only exists because of the catholic church’s unhealthy obsession with all things Marian.
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Mannyfit75
Guest
It’s not extreme. CC teachings does not elevate her as the way we do with God. Assumption of Mary isn’t against Scripture. Do you think assumption is against Scripture, when we see Elijah assumed into heaven, and the two witness assumed into heaven?
Mary is immaculate because she is to have a son, who is God. If you recall, the Ark of the Covenant holds God’s Word. Anything who touch it dies. Mary was preserved from sin by God because God see to it that his Son is sinless, he must therefore have mother, who is sinless.
Mary’s Queenship is from Revelation 12. The woman clothed with sun, with a crown with twelve stars on her head. This women represents Mary since this woman gave birth to King of Kings, who is Jesus.
Mary is full of grace when Gabriel visit her. She is not the source of grace. God is. The CC does not teach that.
Mary as Co-mediator is not officially proclaim by the CC, but through Christ, we are co workers in Christ. We share in Christ suffer just as Paul said.
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onenow1
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Tantum_ergo
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Just as the word “prayer” has been narrowed by some (not all) Protestants, the word “co-mediator” (or in, co-anything) has likewise been narrowed.
Prayer is a request; some Protestants have narrowed it to mean ‘request to God alone.’
“Co” as originally used meant one who ‘assisted’ one; was subordinate to one. Some Protestants have narrowed it to mean ‘equal to’ one.
Mary is a co-mediator with Christ in that she was the means through which He came into the world. Her “cooperation” was essential to His coming.
Christ is the ‘only’ mediator to God in the sense that only His death and resurrection have given us salvation. The only Name by which we are saved.
But we are all of us ‘mediators’ for one another in our loving prayers to God. We are to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” We are to preach the gospel to the world. We are ‘co-mediators’ in that we choose to cooperate with Christ. But we certainly wouldn’t claim that we directly have earned salvation–merely that we open our hearts to accept the gift Christ gave us.
Just as Mary opened her heart to accept the gift God gave her–His Only Begotten Son.
Prayer is a request; some Protestants have narrowed it to mean ‘request to God alone.’
“Co” as originally used meant one who ‘assisted’ one; was subordinate to one. Some Protestants have narrowed it to mean ‘equal to’ one.
Mary is a co-mediator with Christ in that she was the means through which He came into the world. Her “cooperation” was essential to His coming.
Christ is the ‘only’ mediator to God in the sense that only His death and resurrection have given us salvation. The only Name by which we are saved.
But we are all of us ‘mediators’ for one another in our loving prayers to God. We are to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” We are to preach the gospel to the world. We are ‘co-mediators’ in that we choose to cooperate with Christ. But we certainly wouldn’t claim that we directly have earned salvation–merely that we open our hearts to accept the gift Christ gave us.
Just as Mary opened her heart to accept the gift God gave her–His Only Begotten Son.
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estesbob
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Actually the opposite is true-in their zeal to reject all things Catholic Protestants pitched out 1,500 years of teachings and traditions concrening Mary. They ignore clear Sciprtural support for her Immaculate Conception, Perpetual Virginity and her Assumption. Rather than venerate her they obsess over how to tear her down-parsing every converstion Jesus had with her to show us he didnt think she was anything special at all.
There is more Scriptural support for the Marian Doctrines than there are for the False Doctirnes of Sola Sciptura and Sola Fidelis that Proestants hold so dear
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Reformed1
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1.) Please provide your clear scriptural support for the assumption.
2.) You still seem stuck in the false dichotomy mode…one either dismisses Mary althogether or joins the catholic church in all it’s various traditions honoring Mary. Many which have a pedigree that can’t be trace back earlier than several centuries after the apostles.
3.) You are also coming very close to slander with your charge that protestants tear Mary down.
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Mannyfit75
Guest
Gen. 5:24, Heb. 11:5 - Enoch was bodily assumed into heaven without dying. Would God do any less for Mary the Ark of the New Covenant?
2 Kings 2:11-12; 1 Mac 2:58 - Elijah was assumed into heaven in fiery chariot. Jesus would not do any less for His Blessed Mother.
Psalm 132:8 - Arise, O Lord, and go to thy resting place, thou and the Ark (Mary) of thy might. Both Jesus and Mary were taken up to their eternal resting place in heaven.
2 Cor. 12:2 - Paul speaks of a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven. Mary was also brought up into heaven by God.
Matt. 27:52-53 - when Jesus died and rose, the bodies of the saints were raised. Nothing in Scripture precludes Mary’s assumption into heaven.
1 Thess. 4:17 - we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we shall always be with the Lord.
Rev. 12:1 - we see Mary, the “woman,” clothed with the sun. While in Rev. 6:9 we only see the souls of the martyrs in heaven, in Rev. 12:1 we see Mary, both body and soul.
2 Thess. 2:15 - Paul instructs us to hold fast to oral (not just written) tradition. Apostolic tradition says Mary was assumed into heaven. While claiming the bones of the saints was a common practice during these times (and would have been especially important to obtain Mary’s bones as she was the Mother of God), Mary’s bones were never claimed. This is because they were not available. Mary was taken up body and soul into heaven.
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estesbob
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In addition Genesis 3:19 shows that corruption of the Body and death the results of Original sin. Since God would not place his Son in a unpurified tabernacle Mary was without original sin and would therefore no have to suffer either of these…
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estesbob
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We already had one Prostestant in this thread call Mary the Work of Satan. You sladner Mary when you refuse to acknowledge her greatness.
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Randy_Carson
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You’re kidding! What about the scriptures that say that “all generations will call [Mary] blessed”? Is this Protestant forgetting that?
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rr1213
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What you have posted is very logical, very reasonable and no doubt correct. I have no problem with honoring Mary. The IC, the Assumption, ever-Virgin, those are different issues.
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Mannyfit75
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nor does those brings Mary above her son, Jesus. What joy do you think it is for Jesus to have his Mother be with him in His Kingdom? For she granted Jesus a body. She gave God a body when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, and she became the Mother of Jesus.
Mary is ever virgin because God will it. He know she would be the mother of Jesus, the Messiah. I don’t think God would defile his Son by giving her a mother who is full of sin.
Read this article:
catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/general/cathmary.htm#Virgin
“Mary the Virgin is found to be obedient, saying: ‘Behold, O Lord, your handmaid; be it done to me according to your word’. Eve, however, was disobedient; and when yet a virgin, she did not obey. Just as she, who was still a virgin although she had Adam for a husband… having become disobedient, was made the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race; so also Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race… Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith.”
St. Ephrem of Edessa (+373 A.D.) : “…the rod of Aaron that budded, truly have you appeared as a stem whose flower is your true Son, our Christ, my God and my Maker; you did bear according to the flesh God and the Word, did preserve your virginity before His birth, did remain a virgin after His birth, and we have been reconciled to God by Christ your Son.”
St. Gregory of Nazianz “Letter to Cledonius the Priest” 382 A D
“If anyone does not agree that Holy Mary is the Mother of God, he is at odds with the Godhead. If anyone asserts that Christ passed through the Virgin as thought a channel, and was not shaped in her both divinely and humanly, divinely because without man and humanly because in accord with the law of gestation, he is likewise godless.”
St. Gregory of Nazianz “Letter to Cledonius the Priest” 382 A D
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (+386 A.D.) : “Of Him Who is God and Man are you the Mother, Virgin before (His) birth, Virgin in birth, and Virgin after birth.”
St. Jerome (+420 A.D.), Contra Helvidius, i: “Suppose that the Brethren of the Lord were Joseph’s sons by another wife. But we understand the Brethren of the Lord to be not the sons of Joseph, but cousins of the Savior, the sons of Mary, his mother’s sister.”
St. Jerome, Against Helvidius, "I must call upon the Holy Spirit to express His meaning by my mouth and defend the virginity of the Blessed Mary. I must call upon the Lord Jesus to guard the sacred lodging of the womb in which He abode for ten months from all suspicion of sexual intercourse. And I must also entreat God the Father to show that the mother of His Son, who was a mother before she was a bride, continued a Virgin after her son was born. We have no desire to career over the fields of eloquence, we do not resort to the snares of the logicians or the thickets of Aristotle. We shall adduce the actual words of Scripture. Let him be refuted by the same proofs which he employed against us, so that he may see that it was possible for him to read what is written, and yet to be unable to discern the established conclusion of a sound faith.?
St. Augustine of Hippo (+430 A.D.), De Annunt. Dom. iii: “It is written (Ezekiel 44, 2): ‘This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it. Because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it…’ What means this closed gate in the house of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that ‘no man shall pass through it,’ save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this - ‘The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it,’ except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of Angels shall be born of her? And what means this - ‘It shall be shut for evermore,’ but that Mary is a Virgin before His birth, a Virgin in His birth, and a Virgin after His birth.”
St. John Chrysostom (+407 A.D.), Opus Imperf. in Matt., Hom. 1 (?): “Joseph did not know her, until she gave birth, being unaware of her dignity: but after she had given birth, then did he know her (by way of acquaintance). Because by reason of her child she surpassed the whole world in beauty and dignity: Since she alone in the narrow abode of her womb received him whom the world cannot contain.”
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Karianne
Guest
Wait a minute! Who is doing that? Here’s the thing about Mary, Christ gave her to us as our spiritual mother, also she is the mother of Christ and it makes sense to love and respect the mother of our friends so why not Our Lord?
Explaining to you why Catholics love Mary is impossible, however take heart when I assure you that no one worships her, no Catholics in good standing that is.
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Eden
Guest
Yes, but there is nothing anti-Catholic in Revelation. I sought out the anti-Catholic meaning behind the quote and I found it. Do you have an “anti-Catholic quote a day” calendar? It seems you have a new one every day.
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boppaid
Guest
I have a question, though, about Mary. Why does the Catholic Church that Mary was a virgin AFTER Jesus was born too? Why would that be necessary? What makes them think that?
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Eden
Guest
Yes, she remained Ever-Virgin. This is in the Bible. Look at the meaning of these passages:
Ezek. 44:2 - Ezekiel prophesies that no man shall pass through the gate by which the Lord entered the world. This is a prophecy of Mary’s perpetual virginity. Mary remained a virgin before, during and after the birth of Jesus.
Mark 6:3 - Jesus was always referred to as “the” son of Mary, not “a” son of Mary. Also “brothers” could have theoretically been Joseph’s children from a former marriage that was dissolved by death. However, it is most likely, perhaps most certainly, that Joseph was a virgin, just as were Jesus and Mary. As such, they embodied the true Holy Family, fully consecrated to God.
Many more quotes about her perpetual virginity here:
scripturecatholic.com/blessed_virgin_mary.html#tradition-III
These articles may be useful:
catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0512sbs.asp
catholic.com/library/mary_ever_virgin.asp
catholic.com/thisrock/1998/9812frs.asp
“Mary, Full of Grace”
“The Fathers of the Church taught that Mary received a number of distinctive blessings in order to make her a more fitting mother for Christ and the prototypical Christian (follower of Christ). These blessings included her role as the New Eve (corresponding to Christ’s role as the New Adam), her Immaculate Conception, her spiritual motherhood of all Christians, and her Assumption into heaven. These gifts were given to her by God’s grace. She did not earn them, but she possessed them nonetheless.”
catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0309frs.asp
“The friends of Christ do not tolerate hearing that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin” *Basil, Homily In Sanctum Christi generationem, 5 (ante A.D. 379). *
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Eden
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From the CA Article "Was Mary a Perpetual Virgin?"
**OBJECTOR: **I still don’t see why the Church requires Catholics to believe that Mary remained a virgin instead of allowing them to have their own opinions. Does it really matter if Mary had other children?
**CATHOLIC: **Actually, it does matter. Every doctrine about Mary tells us something about Christ or something about ourselves or the Church. Mary’s perpetual virginity demonstrates her purity of heart and total love for God. In 388, St. Ambrose of Milan wrote that Mary’s virginity was “so great an example of material virtue” because it demonstrated her total devotion to Jesus. In Mary, we see an example of the purity our own hearts must have in total dedication to God. Her virginity also tells us something about the Church, which, like Mary, is both mother to the faithful and “pure bride to her one husband” (2 Cor. 11:2).
catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0512sbs.asp
**OBJECTOR: **I still don’t see why the Church requires Catholics to believe that Mary remained a virgin instead of allowing them to have their own opinions. Does it really matter if Mary had other children?
**CATHOLIC: **Actually, it does matter. Every doctrine about Mary tells us something about Christ or something about ourselves or the Church. Mary’s perpetual virginity demonstrates her purity of heart and total love for God. In 388, St. Ambrose of Milan wrote that Mary’s virginity was “so great an example of material virtue” because it demonstrated her total devotion to Jesus. In Mary, we see an example of the purity our own hearts must have in total dedication to God. Her virginity also tells us something about the Church, which, like Mary, is both mother to the faithful and “pure bride to her one husband” (2 Cor. 11:2).
catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0512sbs.asp
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Reformed1
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Manny,
I don’t disagree that God could have assumed Mary into heaven nor do I think it inconsistent with God that He would have done such a thing.
My issue is that from my point of view, there is no reason to believe that Mary was assumed into heaven.
2Thess 2:15 can be does contain the word tradition in it but do you think the Thessolonians, or however you spell their name, were aware of this belief?
To the best of my knowledge, there is no record of any belief in the assumption until around the year 400. I may have this confused with another Marian belief but nonetheless, I am pretty sure that this belief developed several centuries after the apostles.
By the way, I apologize again for being rude in the other thread.
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boppaid
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Thank you for answering me! I still have some questions regarding some of the information y ou gave me.
Everything I’m reading seems to indicate that if Mary had sex she wouldn’t be fit to be Christ’s mother. Why? Is there anything wrong with relations with a spouse? I just don’t understand.
Why is having sex passing through the gate? I mean, the “gate” I am assuming is supposed to be Mary’s womb, right? Not to be graphic, but when a man has sex with a woman, he does not “pass through” her. Now, if he went all the way deep into her womb where the Christ-child was, then I would believe this scripture to prove her perpetual virginity. But I would never have thought sex with a woman meant the same thing as “passing through” her. I know I must be missing something here. What is it?
Everything I’m reading seems to indicate that if Mary had sex she wouldn’t be fit to be Christ’s mother. Why? Is there anything wrong with relations with a spouse? I just don’t understand.
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