The Importance of Mary in Catholicism

[Calvin_95]

Here is another example of Mary’s special role as spiritual mother to all people (John, not being a part of her immediate family, is now her son, and she his mother).

As a side note, this is another indicator of Mary’s perpetual virginity, as even today, in the Middle East, a familial son or daughter, would have the full responsibility to care for the widow/mother.

John 19:26

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,”

John 19:27

and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

 

[Calvin_95]

I don’t understand the argument “without Mary no Jesus”…Without Mary’s mother, no Jesus. Without Mary’s mother’s mother, no Jesus. without David, no Jesus. Without Abraham, no Jesus. etc finite regress?

also, to say that Jesus did not exist before Mary bore him is disingenuous at best…or perhaps your definition of existence is just completely different than theologians/philosophers…

Quit using logic and rational and reason already.

 

[Calvin_95]

Yah, I think this is an oversimplification and putting God in a box.
**John 8:58 “Before Abraham was, I am”. **
I don’t think that was the intent of the argument and it certainly isn’t Catholic theology. Try to give the poster the benefit of the doubt. In any case it’s silly to speculate what it would be like without her. The point is she said a profound and incontrovertible “yes” to God. I think we all agree that that is, was, and ever shall be … a good thing.

Actually; don’t you put God in a box called a tabernacle made with human hands?
**Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum.

Q: After the consecration, the Eucharistic minister proceeds to the tabernacle to obtain the consecrated Hosts needed to feed the faithful. He or she opens the door, then genuflects in adoration, and retrieves the container(s) of hosts and leaves the door open, exposing the presence of Jesus {**ROME, 17 FEB. 2004 (ZENIT).}

---

Hebrews 9:11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.

 

[Calvin_95]

+JMJ+

Catholic Faith is the totality of Revelation, moondweller. If a Catholic willingly and knowingly removes the Church’s infallible recognition of Mary’s role in our salvation from his/her Faith, then he/she has rejected Faith.

If the Catholic Church willingly and knowingly removes its recognition of Mary’s role in our salvation from its professions of faith, then it has deviated from Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the proclamations of its Magisterium, and thus it ceases to be the Catholic Church, for it has rejected Truth which it should be defending and proclaiming.

Note the term I used: recognition. No Catholic is required to foster a special relationship with the Blessed Virgin. Each, however, is required, according to his/her capability, to recognize the role of Mary in our salvation as proclaimed by the Catholic Church through Scripture, Tradition, and the teachings of the Magisterium.

God bless.

Never met a Catholic that did not exhult Mary more than Jesus; havn’t seen it on this thread except by one who seems to be Catholc by name only and some of you have made that clearly known.

 

[Calvin_95]

Thanks to all for teaching MD and I all about your beliefs as Mary being essential to redemption and her necessity concerning salvation. I do not share that sentiment because; well you know why. No need to elaborate.

Thanks again and may God bless you in ways only He can.

JC

 

[Corki]

Why don’t you just answer the question. Is there a Catholic faith without Mary? I didn’t ask if Jesus would have been born without Mary, nor challenge the fact that she bore Him, but, “is there a Catholic faith without Mary?” Now before you answer, think about the question. All I’ve gotten so far is just a bunch of defense answers…

You have been given the direct answer many times. There** is **no Christianity without Mary. The Catholic faith is wholy included in Christianity. Ergo, no Catholicism without Mary.

 

[paul_c]

(Edited to remove quote of deleted post)
Calvin,
The Bible is a subset of Catholic Tradition. It is a Catholic teaching and litrurgical tool put together by the authority of the Catholic Church. Even the most secular history books will state this because it is the undeniable truth. When it was compiled, there were three criteria for books to be included: they had to be apostolic, recognized by the whole Church and consistent with Catholic Teaching. To try to co-opt the bible and turn it against the Church is a fool’s errand. The bible isn’t an authority, That authority is the Church. The Bible is a teaching tool.

And you clearly didn’t pay attention to what I wrote. I told you that Mary helps us to reach her son, through her prayers and her example. She does not stand between us and God, she helps us find him. Yours is indeed a narrow road, if you won’t accept that help. More narrow than it needs to be.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

1. What is Catholicism without Mary? 2. IOW, is there a Catholic faith without Mary?

1. Catholicism without Mary is taking a doctrine out of the Church. It would be parallel to Catholicism without Heaven, Catholicism without Hell, Catholicism without the Eucharist, Catholicism without Catholics.
2. No.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Then Jesus cannot be God; since God always existed. Bad theology.

Calvin,
You are right that that is bad theology. It certaintly is. BUT, it is quite pointless that you even mention it because nobody is claiming that God did not always exist. God exists eternally but Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, bore Him and brought Him (Jesus) temporally into this world. There is a vast ocean of differences between eternal and temporal. You would be very wrong to say that this is not true. I am not even talking about Mary as Mother of God or anything. Right now, the only claim I am making (correctly so) is that Mary brought Jesus into our temporal world. Perhaps, we can start from here and you and others can at least understand what we believe instead of making your own ideas of our beliefs.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Never met a Catholic that did not exhult Mary more than Jesus; havn’t seen it on this thread except by one who seems to be Catholc by name only and some of you have made that clearly known.

Wrong wrong wrong.

That is like saying a musician likes the instrument more than he likes music because he/she always talks about the instrument.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

(Edited to remove quote of deleted post)

None of us Catholics ‘exhult’ (sic) Mary more than Jesus.

At MOST you could say that in your personal opinion it ‘appears’ to you that, based on your own truncated understanding, you FEEL that SOME Catholics pay more ‘attention’ to Mary. . .because they actually have to take the trouble to respond to somebody who tries to say (contrary to all CHRISTIAN teaching over the last 2000 years) that she was sinful or a cipher.

Your own “Calvin” respected her as the Mother of God (which is more, it seems, than some latter-day Protestants do.)

It says something that there are such reasonable and respectful Protestants. And it makes the ones who are neither reasonable or respectful stand out the more–and THOSE are the ones who make it necessary that Christ (and His mother) be defended with TRUTH.

**I am sorry not only that you have been poisoned with inaccurate information about the Catholic Church and her teachings, but also that you have chosen (after being given correct information) to keep on ‘injecting’ the poison into yourself and in trying to pass it on to others. **

 

[paul_c]

(Edited to remove quote of deleted post)

Calvin, You clearly have a distorted view of Catholicism. It is after all, the Church founded by Jesus on the rock of St. Peter. It is All about Jesus. When we follow Mary and the Saints, we are following them TO Jesus. Have you ever been to a Catholic Mass (or seen one on EWTN? It consists of 4 parts:

• The introductory rights, which puts us in the right frame of mind through praise and confession.
• The Liturgy of the Word, which includes readings from the old testament, a psalm, a new testament reading and a gospel reading, followed by a homily where the priest explains the readings, and then the Apostles Creed, where we reiterate what we beleive
• The liturgy of the Eucharist, where we partake of Jesus body and blood, gaining the graces associate with that
• The concluding rights, where we are sent forth to serve the Lord and each other.

It is ALL about Jesus.

 

[Corki]

No matter which way you look at it, we (Catholics) do deviate (one way or another) from the main point (Jesus) and find all sorts of other alternatives… The thing that bothers me the most is the amount of times at mass or any other religious gathering, when a Saint, or Mary is mentioned (or thought of) comparing to the amount of times that Jesus is.

I understand the importance of Mary and all others who were chosen by God for their specific duties throughout time, but we need to understand that Jesus is our living God (See Holy Spirit). All others are below God - so I don’t understand why we do not act accordingly.

Do we not understand the He is the way?

Ok, this post has been bothering me for a few days. So today, after Mass, I picked up the missalette and started counting. In the Liturgy of the Word, Mary is mentioned twice. Jesus, Lord or God the Father was mentioned (today) over 40 times! And that’s only the first half of Mass. No other Saint was mentioned until the homily when Father mentioned a Saint in terms of her having a particular devotion to Jesus.

So what, exactly, is your point?

 

[lil_flower_luv]

Keep in mind, those critical of the Blessed Mother’s role, that no matter what, "[we] can never love her more than Jesus did.” (Saint Maximilian Kolbe)

That includes: devotion, respect, admiration, honor. . .

Think about it.
God bless.+

 

[pablope]

I got my info from an OFFICIAL vat approved site; and they say veneration is what it is worship, but that just grinds you for some reason. It is not what I see and know that counts. My opinion means nothing; God’s means everything.

Then what does God say about Mary? Are saying then that your opinions expressed here are not yours but God’s?

 

[EricFilmer]

I got my info from an OFFICIAL vat approved site; and they say veneration is what it is worship, but that just grinds you for some reason. It is not what I see and know that counts.

What “grinds me” is the fact that you keep stating this without providing an actual quote and a link to back it up. If you want to prove your accusation that Catholics teach that honoring Mary equals worship then back it up with something other than an expectation of me simply taking your word for it. Until then, as far as I am concerned, you misread this information, are taking it out of context, or were hallucinating at the time.

Actually; I used both Catholic and non-Catholic sites. EWTN, Catholic.org, NewAdvent, Catholic Encyclopedia, Baltimore Catechism, Ludwig Ott, Vatican site to name most of them.

I’m still not seeing an actual quote here with a link to back it up.

(Continued in my next post)

 

[EricFilmer]

(Continued…)

Here is the problem 1) she is a creature and no more important than me or Joseph or Paul or Peter, we are all chosen of God and God shows no partiality and His love is perfect to all He has chosen, but that would mean you have to know Him and to know Him is to understand and to love Him for who He actually is…

Is this supposed to be a rebuttal of my position? I was not discussing the importance of Mary, I was discussing the fact that she is the mother of Jesus, the head of the Church. The mother of the head is likewise the mother of the body (the Church).

Even if all people are equally important in the eyes of God, children are still commanded by God to honor their mothers. So you argument against the importance of Mary really does nothing to refute my position. All Christians are called to honor Mary as their mother.

1. What about Mary’s mother, Mary’s grand mother, great grand mother, great great grand mother; you see taking it to the nth degree we come back to Adam and Eve, which brings us straight to God as the Creator of all creatures. Are all these mother’s of God?

How about sticking with what I presented and not going off in another direction. I was not talking about Mary’s mother, or grandmother, or great grandmother, or Adam and Eve. I was talking about Jesus’ mother.
Do the gospels call Mary the mother of Jesus? Yes.
Does the Bible say that Jesus the head of the Church? Yes.
Does the Bible say that we are the body of the Church? Yes.
As I said before, the mother of the head is likewise the mother of the body.
Nowhere in your post did you actually address or refute the logic behind this reasoning.

No! God is not a creature and therefore has no mother in the sense you seem to think of it.

Well, let us all be clear as to the term “mother” in the sense that “I seem to think it.”

1. A woman is pregnant with a child.
2. The woman gives birth to that child.
3. The woman nurtures and cares for the child.

Are you honestly saying that this was not an aspect of the relationship between Jesus and Mary? Even though Jesus pre-existed Mary in terms of his divine nature, the fact remains that he received his human nature from Mary. Scripture says that Jesus was like us in all ways except for sin. That means he received his human nature the same way we all do: from our mothers.

Mary is Jesus’ mother, and the union between Jesus and Christians makes her our mother as well. And the Ten Commandments call us to honor our mother, not ignore her. Jesus gave Mary perfect honor, in the sense of the honor that children are supposed to give their parents. To say otherwise is to say that Jesus did not perfectly obey the 10 Commandments. Therefore, seeing as the head of the Church gave Mary perfect honor, the body of the Church is challenged to give Mary the best honor that we can.

(Continued in my next post)

 

[Dymphna82]

I agree that this is all poison. It pains me to hear Mary and Catholics being spoken of as being idolaters. I was a pagan idolater. I did not come to Catholicism to worship a new set of idols. I came to Catholicism to worship Christ, our Lord, and God and the Holy Spirit, in the One True Church of God. The church that has existed from the beginning. The tradition that, unlike pagan and Protestant traditions, is held to a structured standard, where they don’t have a dozen or so denominations because human beings disagree with each other. If I wanted a religion born from someone’s ego, I would have never came back to Christ.

 

[EricFilmer]

(Continued)

You do not need to convince me that you worship statues, relics, Mary and dead saints; I’m convinced, but that means nothing, nothing.

So, what convinced you of that? Once again I challenge you to offer a credible Catholic source for such a notion.

I would be concerned about how God sees it though.

Then why don’t you tell us how he sees it? After all, you seem to consider yourself some kind of prophet designated by God to criticize how other Christians worship and instruct them on how they are supposed to be doing things.

Everything is not in Scripture; but all that God chose to reveal to the Christian is

The Bible does not say this.
By definition, that makes your statement an extra-biblical teaching.
So it is ok for you to have your own extra-biblical teachings, but not Catholics, huh?

to all others man has added to the Word of God, which God warned about doing in at least 2 places and maybe even a third.

1. The false doctrine of Sola Scriptura is “adding to the Word of God”. After all, it is found neither in the Bible nor is it derived from Sacred Tradition.
2. The term “Word of God” encompasses both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. And this is what was understood among Christians for 1500 years before certain Protestants came along and decided that “Word of God” specifically means “the Bible.”

So again it matters not what I think; I always concern myself about what my Father thinks.

Obviously what you think matters greatly, at least as far as you are concerned. After all, you seem to think that your opinion equals reality. It is your opinion that Catholics worship Mary and statues, and therefore that must be a fact. It is your opinion that God has revealed everything Christians need to know in the Bible, and therefore that must be a fact.

My opinion means nothing; God’s means everything.

Looking over your various posts, it seems that you are convinced that your opinion equal’s God’s own. So what is the basis of your belief in the infallibility of your opinion?

I choose the biblical authority.

More specifically, you choose Bible authority alone. As I said in a past post, this is Sola Scriptura. So do you actually have a biblical defense of Sola Scriptura? So far all you’ve done is made a reference to Psalm 119, and I demonstrated that it didn’t do the job. So if you expect Catholics to prove our doctrines with the Bible alone, then use the Bible to prove that we ought to.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

1. You do not need to convince me that you worship statues, relics, Mary and dead saints; I’m convinced, but that means nothing, nothing. I would be concerned about how God sees it though.
2. Everything is not in Scripture; but all that God chose to reveal to the Christian is; to all others man has added to the Word of God, which God warned about doing in at least 2 places and maybe even a third. So again it matters not what I think; I always concern myself about what my Father thinks.
3. Tha is not a “news-flash” and is expected.
4. So now Calvin has some weight? Huummm; what did he call the pope and the entire system? hummm Like all men he was not perfect, but I assure you no man except for Jesus was perfect.
5. Who is “Jean Calvin” anyway?

1. Protestants have their worship services with music. They use their ears to help in their worship but when it comes to Catholics using all the senses and the nature God gave us, you call it idolatry. I smell hypocrisy. We do not worship Mary, statues, relics, “dead” saints (whatever that is)… Those just help us in our path to salvation. I apologize for being able to see the big picture. I am not concerned about how God sees it as because He knows I worship Him and only Him. I am concerned, however, that I am a terrible sinner and Hell seems to be staring me in the face. Seriously, stop judging us. I do that to myself enough. I do not need another sinner to be doing it to me. Just because we name our churches Saint Joseph’s, Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Saint Paul or whatever does not mean we worship them. It is just asking that person to help us. What is a dead saint anyway? Are you saying the people in Heaven are dead?
2. Man has sure added to the Word of God, as well as taken away from it. The Catholic Church has done neither of those.
3. Sarcasm is good only when it proves something. That proved nothing. Nullified.
4. You forgot Mary. Perhaps, you can tell me where it is Mary sinned in the Bible.
5. Are you really doing this? What are “dead saints” anyway? Explain that one.

You have yet to refute ANYTHING I have ever said. You and Moondweller. I challenge you both to do it.