The Virgin Mary

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But Mary’s IC and sinlessness is said to be part of “oral tradition.” That which is said to be not written but “orally” handed down from the Apostles.By definition “oral” tradition is rooted in Apostolic teaching. Just as the written, N.T. Scriptures are.No. The challenge I’ve put fourth in all of my posts on this thread is for proof that any Apostle taught the IC conception or the sinlessness of Mary. No one has met that challenge yet - including you.
Your “challenge” is of course a logical nonsense, impossible to answer on your terms - in that you demand a written form for an oral tradition!

The fact is that all the direct Apostolic writings and statements irrefutably known to the early Church were assembled in the New testament. Being an Apostolic writing, or Apostolically verified gospel were the criteria for inclusion in the New testament. Therefore, by definition, no more direct quotes are available - and you should know this.

Your second logical failure is to assume that if no surviving writing of an Apostle states Doctrine X, then Doctrine X was not taught by an Apostle! The fallacy here is to assume…

A) That the Apostles EVER wrote down a complete encyclopaedia of doctrine and worship. The Apostolic writings are specific letters to respond to certain specific controversies that arose in the early churches.
B) That everything the Apostles taught ended up in their surviving letters. We only actually have letters from a minority of the Apostles - so presumably the others taught nothing of note? I don’t think so. Nor were anything like all their teachings in their letters. Presumably if the Gospels had not survived, you would be denying an awful lot of other Christian teachings as “not having been taught by a named apostle?”
C) You also naively assume that what few documents survived through the systematic persecutions of the Roman era are all there ever were.
What “tradition” of yours gives us the name (or names) of the Apostle through which Jesus disclosed (through the Paracletos) this otherwise impossible knowledge regarding Mary and her mother and father? So far I’ve only been quoted other men’s opinions, and you yourself dodged the challenge.
Tradition is not listed with Apostle X taught Y. Tradition is the complete systematic belief of the Church as passed down from the Apostles. If these things were held without dispute in the early Church by those who learnt at the feet of the apostles, these things are the teachings endorsed by the original Church. There are plenty of disputed teachings that were considered novel and widely disputed. The sinlessness of Mary is not one of them.
 
Why would ANY apostle have to have explicitly taught the I.C. in order for it to be the true understanding of the Scriptures?
Doctrine develops over time.
Everyone in the early church believed that Mary was holy and immaculate. It’s in all the patristic writings that address the subject of Mary. What is NOT clearly stated in the early writings is specifically that Mary was immaculate from the moment of her conception. But so what?
We only have two options,
either she WAS immaculate from her conception,
or,
she was NOT, and became immaculate sometime after conception by God’s Grace, which the Orthodox Churches generally believe.
Well, the Catholic Church examined and debated this issue for centuries, we all acknowledge that,
and the duly appointed magisterial authority of the Church finally concluded that the correct understanding is that Mary was immaculate from her very conception. What’s the big deal?
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+
 
“Then we don’t care to answer your charges”

It was not originally intended as “charges” but as an answer to a question I was asked.

I told you why I think Mary’s position is over-stated in the Catholic Church. You disagree that these “praises” are over the top so
I think it best we just end the dialogue.
Especially since we have no way of knowing where any of this stuff comes from. You have them in notes that you took several years ago - notes from what? A lecture you attended? A book you were reading? Your three pages of imaginary dialogue in a creative writing exercise? We have no way of knowing, and you can’t remember - so, we don’t even know if any Catholic ever actually said any of these things, nevermind in what context he might have said them.

By the way, I do have a copy of Mary’s Psalter, and although it goes “over the top” in many respects, there is nothing at all like what you have quoted, in it. 🤷
 
Jm,

The notes are from research I did a couple years ago according to claims a Catholic was making about the Virgin Mary. There are from several sources. Most if not all were verified by me thru Catholic sources such as the Catholic Encyclopedia. Another source was a Website that contained writings from several church fathers. I also contacted a Bishop to ask for verification on some quotes that I could not find elsewhere.

Please state which quote I did not give any reference for, and I will try to find the reference ASAP. I thought all the quotes stated the person and writing. Also I will try to find a Website that has writings of church fathers to make it easier for you to look them up.
 
Jm,

The notes are from research I did a couple years ago according to claims a Catholic was making about the Virgin Mary. There are from several sources. Most if not all were verified by me thru Catholic sources such as the Catholic Encyclopedia. Another source was a Website that contained writings from several church fathers. I also contacted a Bishop to ask for verification on some quotes that I could not find elsewhere.

Please state which quote I did not give any reference for, and I will try to find the reference ASAP. I thought all the quotes stated the person and writing. Also I will try to find a Website that has writings of church fathers to make it easier for you to look them up.
No, none of your quotes contained any sources at all - I didn’t see any links to the Catholic Encyclopedia. The name and Diocese of the Bishop who verified your findings would also be nice to have, so that we can contact him and find out what he was thinking of, at the time.
 
jm,
I went back to see if I rteally gave no references and have to ask why you don’t consider Ecclus. xxiv., 5 a reference?
 
jm,
I went back to see if I rteally gave no references and have to ask why you don’t consider Ecclus. xxiv., 5 a reference?
I don’t even know what that is. How about spelling out the whole name of the thing, and providing a link to it?
 
But Mary’s IC and sinlessness is said to be part of “oral tradition.”

Apophasis, who said that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was handed down by “oral” tradition? Are you confusing “oral” with “apostolic”? Apostolic would apply to the ordained successors of the apostles as well: the popes and college of bishops. Or did someone on this thread erroneously say “oral” tradition? We know things by Sacred Tradition, which includes the “oral” teachings of the apostles eventually put in writing. Only Luke clearly alluded to the Immaculate Conception. Perhaps somebody meant this fact. But the Magisterium of the Catholic Church authoritatively made this Marian truth ‘explicit’. This dogma is included in the Deposit of Faith: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Just as the written, N.T. Scriptures are.No. The challenge I’ve put fourth in all of my posts on this thread is for proof that any Apostle taught the IC conception or the sinlessness of Mary. No one has met that challenge yet - including you. You simply went off on another tangent (like the rest on this thread).

Apophasis, of all the New Testament apostles who have implicitly “revealed” or taught what has become the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is Luke. It is possible that he himself had no clear understanding of what he was writing about, for there was no concept of original sin held in Judaism at the time. But he was compelled by his divine co-author to write the verse we find in his Gospel, 1:28: “Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with you.” It is also possible that Luke intuited by divine grace that Mary was sinless, just as Peter had intuited the divinity of Christ by the grace of God. In any event, the Greek word ‘kecharitomene’ translated as “full of grace” is perfect passive participle; so we are speaking in the past tense, not present or future tense. The grace Mary is acknowledged of possessing does not ‘directly’ allude to a child she will bear in the near future; nor does this grace originate in the present upon the announcement of this child made by the angel Gabriel. Mary was in a state of sanctifying grace from the moment of her conception on account of the child she would bear (Future Conditional: Cf. Luke 1:30-31). The Word was to become flesh and sinless, and to be just like us but without sin, having been “born of a woman, born under the law” (Cf. Gal 4:4), He could not have inherited the stain of original sin. This would be unbecoming of the New Adam. The more you Protestants remove Mary from the entire picture, the more God becomes less a man, and the more we have a less chance of being redeemed! And so Luke “teaches” us that Mary was conceived without original sin. The other apostles of the New Testament texts do not mention the Annunciation as Luke has, for the significance of this passage was not revealed to them at the time they wrote their gospels or epistles. They were guided to write about other things concerning God’s plan. Still they may have known about it, or perhaps God decided that only Luke would know or write about this implicit truth. Paul never mentions the story of the Virgin Birth in his epistles, but I’m sure he knew about it and believed in it. Let us not suggest that because he abstained from mentioning the Virgin Birth that this supernatural event did not occur. Nonetheless, Luke 1:28 refers to the spiritual state of Mary. This verse implicitly reveals her Immaculate Conception. I trust I have met your challenge. If I recall, I wrote above that I would.

Apophasis, in the verse you cite, (Jn 14:26) Jesus is speaking of the things he had already said alluding to his ‘future’ death and Resurrection. It concerns the past: "He (the Paraclete) will remind you of everything I ‘told’ you.’ I have a subsequent passage from John in mind, which refers to a time after the death and Resurrection of Jesus, and which indicates a continuation in time in the life of the Church established by by our Lord. Divine revelation does not cease to unfold with only what is explicitly contained in the written Word. Isaiah spoke of the suffering Servant, but he had Israel in mind. The prophets addressed both present and future generations.The Paraclete makes known in time what is to come: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to ‘all’ truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you things that ‘are coming’ ( not that will come: Future, but after Pentecost: the Present Continuous)” (Jn 16:12-13). These things include our Marian doctrines. 👍
Sorry, but I haven’t figured out how to separate quotes. Please see above. I’ll get back to you on the sinlessness of Mary and her redemption free from original sin.

Pax vobiscum
Good Fella :cool:
 
jm,

Read the second paragraph. That is where you will find the quote about Mary being the first born of all creation.

If I gave an inaccurate reference it is probably because this is how I found it the first time and was actually looking for something else. Thus I mistakenly put the reference to what I was searching for as a reference to this. Either way my reference took you to the quote mentioned in my post.
 
As I have been looking thru my post to correct any careless errors, I noticed I’ve been called a liar. (Of course it was said in a much nicer way than that)

So, I took a moment to google the psalters of Mary. Here is a link:

intratext.com/ixt/ENG0026/

Click on chapter 148 and you will see I told the truth.
 
jm,

Read the second paragraph. That is where you will find the quote about Mary being the first born of all creation.
Ah. Now I see the confusion.

It is because the Universe was created for Mary.

Not that she was actually created first, but that she was God’s first thought, and it was His love for her (even though she didn’t yet exist - she was still only a thought in His mind) that inspired Him to create everything that exists, and then, when the time was right, to create her, and to give her the privilege of being His mother when He became a man.
 
jm,

So it’s all about Mary?
It’s all about Jesus and Mary - their relationship and their perfect love for one another. 🙂

Mary is the prototype of the Church. As members of the Church, we enter into Mary’s experience of Christ, and make it our own - her relationship with Christ is the standard by which we measure our own relationship with Christ. (When Mary accepted Christ into her heart, He became physically present to her, in her womb. Obviously, our experience will never be quite that concrete, but if our experience doesn’t change our lives to the same degree that it changed Mary’s life, then we have to look at that, and find out how to enter more deeply into the experience.)
 
greetings my brothers and sisters in Christ. i’ve missed alot. Ginger2, I hope you are blessed and doing well today. nice to see your still dialoging with all these wonderful intelligent christians in here. i was wondering tho, if catholics have an extreme devotion to Mary and are worshiping her or close to it. What do you think a more natural and honoring type of relationship would look like? and do you have this type of relationship with the mother of Jesus? or his siblings (us christian folk)?
 
theweeper,

You ask a question that is not easily answered in a format such as this.

Have you ever considered which Biblical person you would most like to be like? (other than Jesus) I expect many Catholic women would say the Virgin Mary.

I once prayed to be like someone in the Bible - it was Job.

1:8. And the Lord said to him: Hast thou considered my servant, Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil?

Even when Job had nothing but suffering and everyone had turned on him, he remained faithful, praising God.

My relationship is with God thru Christ Jesus. For he is the one who has reconciled me to the Father.

God has bee extremely good to me. I thank Him for the good and the bad, for He uses all things to work together toward His good and perfect will.

All the glory and praise belongs to Him. Mary was a good and faithful servant. She is not co-redeemer, nor does she assist Jesus in destroying evil.

A better way to honor her would be to stop sharing credit with her for what God accomplishes.

I have, or so I am told, a give of prayer. I do not let people give me credit for things working out the way I ask. I am only doing what God has asked of me - praying and believing - it is God who does the work.

I really don’t believe Mary would be happy about all the praise and credit some Catholics give her.
 
I could start a new forum if you like. Or your could just give me a quick summary
What do you think a more natural and honoring type of relationship with Mary would look like?
You seem to have given Job a place of high honor and rightly so he is a great person to emulate especially if you connect with the type of situations he found himself in. but what place of honor is proper for Mary? And what practical applications does this have if you do not plan to emulate her or if you don’t connect with her like you did Job?
And do you have this type of relationship with the mother of Jesus? (Y/n)
Or his siblings (us Christian folk)? (Y/n)
you must for some have said you have the gift of prayer. Have you ever prayed to any saints?
 
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