TuAutem, your post blends nicely into Te Deum’s post, so…
TuAutem has done a very good job in answering for me, which I appreciate (we Marians need to stick together! Fist-bump!)
Lovely factionalism!
First, I am disturbed by your dismissive attitude regarding the Tradition of the Church embodied by the saints and popes. We’re not Protestants. Scripture is not our only authority. In fact the Church is our authority. Scripture is what the Church says it is. So you should not have to have everything laid out for you in the Scriptures. It’s a dogma binding on all Catholics to believe in the Immaculate Conception but the Immaculate Conception isn’t detailed in Scripture is it?
Indeed; you’d think that if God deigned to add Elijah’s assumption into Heaven via chariot, He might have had the Assumption, too. Either these lapses show that the events in the Virgin’s life before, between, and after the Nativity, Presentation, Finding in the Temple, Crucifixion, and Ascension are not as important as we think, or there is more to belief than just what’s in Scripture. Having reluctantly entered into Catholicism (because it seemed “more true” than other faiths), I am at a crossroads with this entire thread and your posts. Thank you for at least clarifying the issue!
God does not change, He has already ordained to come to us from the Blessed Virgin’s hands once in the Incarnation, he equally desires to come to us from the Blessed Virgin’s hands even now.
Says who? Simple question, but meant with total seriousness. Exactly which Popes, ‘traditions’, and declarations say that without a devotion to Mary, we’re hell-bound and cast aside? If it’s so crucial, why does our Lord not tell us, in Matthew 25, that we who did not “come to Me through My Mother” are going to Hell? We are to feed the hungry, give drink to the sick, take in strangers, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, have faith in God, be baptised, and attend to the holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist. All these things are one in the same, revolving in a great circle of eternal righteousness.
The fact is that everything the Church says is an interpretation of, or based on, or justified by a quote from the Holy Scriptures. As much as you’d like to say the Bible is just one writing of the Church, the Church itself bases every last little thing it says on those Books. Scriptures are not to be dismissed; though they are not to be crowned as the height of everything, they are rather high up there.
You people, you speak going “going to Christ directly” and avoiding the “stepping-stone of Mary”. How can you not see? The direct path to Jesus Christ is Our Blessed Mother Mary! The path you have taken is winding and full of brambles because you have refused the patronage of a Mother whom Christ Himself delivered to you. How can you offer so much disrespect towards Our Queen? To speak of her in such terms as to tear from her bosom the Blessed Child Jesus?
“We people” are Catholics, and proud to be in the Church that has the only true priesthood, Sacrifice, sacraments, divine justice, prophecy, sainthood, and guiding light of Christ our Lord. We are not split apart from you, as ones from Apollo, Cephas, Paul, or Christ.
The only path our Lord describes as “full of brambles” is the path of Mark 4:18-19, in which those seeds who hear the Word and yet give in to the deceits, riches, and temptations of the world. The Word is Christ, not Mary; we come to Christ THROUGH CHRIST, who leads us to the Father. Where did this notion come from that we must go to Mary first in order to get to Christ, in order to get to the Father? He said that He is with us 'till the end of the Age, and always there when two or more of us gather. He’s RIGHT HERE, on C.A.F., as we pray for and with one another. It is right and just to honour Mary, but to say that we don’t get to Christ perfectly without her is… well, I’ll just be plain: blasphemous!
I say one Hail Mary every day, and sing one in Chant with the Franciscans every Sunday. This is enough for me, and I respect her
immensely. I don’t need to call her the one and only gate to Christ, nor be filled with thoughts that total consecration to her is somehow required for salvation. You may not say it, but how can I interpret your posts any differently? Your dedication to her is fanatical and out of proportion, I think… that, or my devotion is radically lame, and just as out of proportion!
Without Our Lady’s intercession, I really do not have very much hope for those who turn away from her.
Lack hope, then; meanwhile, in Christ we all have Faith, Hope, and Charity. By Baptism, they are infused, and by Confession they are restored once lost. We are to “confess our sins to one another”, so I do use the Confiteor proudly, because Mary deserves to hear my sins as much as any other saint, so she may pray for me. It’s not as minimalist as you think, this mindset!
The claims get “curiouser and curiouser”, so I don’t wonder that it might lead up to such a saying!
You’ll come up with some reference from a saint or pope and trump my entire objection in three seconds. Of course, our Lord never explicitly or implicitly said anything in His Holy Gospel that even comes close to this. All He ever talks about is the individual man justified by God, faith, inner moral reformation, righteousness, justice, and, above all else, humility.
!