There's Something About Mary....

[Della]

Originally Posted by Della:

When a Catholic thanks Mary he does not think he is “leaving God out of it.” He understands perfectly that Mary helped him through the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God. Your understanding is what is faulty here, not the Catholic’s, dear friend, simply because the Catholic knows what he means, while you do not know what he means.

Originally Posted by SingingBeauty:

This would by why I said that I did not know his heart… I was just saying what it said to ME and outsider… The thing that still puzzles me is that when he gave his public ‘Thank You’ why was it addressed to Mary and not God? Mary, from what you have told me, just passed along a prayer with him but she didn’t actually heal him. That would be like me thanking my friend who prayed for me for healing me when it actually was God. It’s puzzling to me to say the least.*-

My point is that just because you or another outsider thinks this or that is what Catholics mean when they practice certain devotions, use certain expressions, or declare various beliefs that you don’t understand doesn’t at all make them what you think they are or want to believe they are. What they are is exactly what Catholics say they are not what you think they are. What puzzles US is that you keep insisting we call things what YOU want to or how you perceive them instead of what we know they are. Catholics simply are NOT worshiping Mary by giving her credit for healing the pope, ala RyanL’s excellent post.

 

[bookgirl]

It’s possible too, to have a personal relationship with Mary. We don’t just see her as this statue. I talk to her just like I talk to my own mother (well, hopefully not always ). All she wants to do is bring her Son to everyone. All she wants to do is bring whoever she can to her son. Along with all this, if she really is our mother, and I believe she is, then she also loves us, with her own personal love, like a mother loves her child. I can feel how much she loves me. Sometimes I like to imagine myself just laying my head on her shoulder, and letting her comfort me. And if you say that it shouldn’t be her doing these things, but God, then no one else should be able to do these things for you either. The only things that God does for us that others don’t are create us, and save us. Mary is seen as actively taking part in that salvation b/c Jesus came through her physically, without her He would not be human. She is not seen as saving us. She’s helping save, but so are you when you evangelize someone. She’s taking part in the saving, but she’s not the saver. She is seen as loving us, giving us strength, comforting us, sharing her wisdom, answering our prayer TO PRAY FOR US by praying for us, all she is known to do is bring us closer and closer to God. Why wouldn’t anyone want that, why wouldn’t anyone want to thank her for that? She’s my mother, and I love her so very much, and she loves me, and I’m not giving that up. Why wouldn’t people want her? It just makes me sad.

 

[deb1]

Della:

Here is Mary Ann Collins personal story as told by her: seekgod.ca/collins.htm. It is sad, truly sad! She became disillusioned over priests preaching against the reliability of the Bible and accepting the higher criticism. I note that she never seemed to understand that the preaching or teaching of priests does not equal Catholic truth. Plus, she got into a Protestant church that, like many others before her, grabbed her interest with lively music and fellowship and lots of Bible study. Only she really knows how much she truly understood of Catholic teaching before she came under the influence of people like James McCarthy. Apparently though, she has swallowed his version of Catholic teaching whole and without question. I rather doubt she would care to learn that his credentials are suspect, his “research” biased and unprofessional, poor woman.

I read your link but there still doesn’t seem to be enough detail. There is no way to check if her story is true or false. For all we know she could be a he! I realize that she claims to have left off details for security reasons but something about her web site sets off my alarm bells.

 

[LSK]

Singinbeauty:

But according to what I have read, on the site I gave and others, the pope did not thank God for healing him, he thanked Mary and left God out of it. At least on the surface… I do not claim to know his heart…

How do you know what the Pope did and did not do? You must not bear false witness…for to give thanks for an act that Mary did, i.e. turn away the bullet so that it did not fatally kill wound him, he is giving thanks to the Master who gives her the power to do His bidding. All Catholics know this, and do not feel it is necessary to explain that when we thank Mary, we are thanking her for doing God’s Will.

 

[gardenswithkids]

I can’t claim any knowledge if the original article Singinbeauty sited is accurate or not, but I want to comment on an excellant point Della made.

Della:

When Catholics talk about what Mary did for them without mentioning God, they are merely talking in a cultural shorthand which Catholics understand and outsiders may not.

To make a comparison, I’ve seen pro-life buttons attached to Mother’s Day corsages that say “Thanks Mom for Life.” Now, any Christian giving that to his mother would ultimately know that his life came from God, but that God gave him life through his mother.

God gave us His only son Jesus, through the womb of Mary. Jesus could have taken on human flesh in some other way, but He chose to come to us through Mary. Catholics believe that God can give us good things–like Jesus-- through Mary. We recognize (without always saying) that ultimately all comes from God.

 

[deb1]

HEre is another site about Mary Collins.

speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=33&idsub=134&id=1799

 

[Todd_Easton]

Singinbeauty:

But according to what I have read, on the site I gave and others, the pope did not thank God for healing him, he thanked Mary and left God out of it. At least on the surface… I do not claim to know his heart…

The pope, all the bishops, and all the priests of the Catholic Church are obliged or “earnestly invited” to celebrate the Eucharist daily. The Eucharist, as its name, which is derived from the Greek Eucharistia or gratitude, indicates, is a public prayer of thanksgiving to God for all of his gifts and favors. Pope John Paul II, ordained as a Catholic priest in 1946, therefore, publicly thanked God every day for nearly 60 years.

The typical Preface prayer in the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins:
Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks and praise through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

[Singinbeauty]

LSK:

How do you know what the Pope did and did not do? You must not bear false witness…

Wow, how many people just shot into saying that I could not have known what he was thinking and then QUOTED me and RESPONDED without actually READING what I wrote? I SAID that I did not know his heart so I was just commenting how it appeared to me, an outsider, on the SURFACE. PLEASE, read my whole post before you attack me.

 

[allhers]

LSK:

When I was dying of alcoholism, I was convinced in my very sick head and heart that God did not want anything to do with me. I cried out to the Blessed Virgin, asking for help. My obsession to drink was lifted, and I walked into the rooms of AA and have stayed sober since May 4, 1992.

I do not worship Mary. The Holy Trinity is my Higher Power. But I credit Mary for saving my life, in much the same way as I credit the prayers of my earthly, birth mother for saving my life, for without them I would not have found sobriety and not found my way back to the Holy Mother Church.

JPII was devoted to his Lord and Savior’s mother, for he was following Jesus’ instructions and the Traditions of His Bride, the Church by doing so…often times, the child will call to the mother, but that does not mean it loves the Father less./QUOTE]

Awww, God bless your heart!! I totally agree with you. I highlighted above that last part in order to give this message about our dear Blessed Mother.
When I was little, I totally was taken with my Father, he was my knight in shining armour, my life, my own personal giant, he could do no wrong in my little eyes, he did nothing but love me, and take care of me and totally make me happy. My mother was my joy. I loved her with an unending love. She knew how to do just about anything, even how to make me feel better when I was sick or hurt. So, normally, I would run to my Father for just about anything, however, when I was sick or hurt, I would run right past him and into my mother’s waiting arms.
I loved them both, just as I adore God, I run to His/my mother sometimes, but I don’t adore her, I just need her maternal touch, and I know she will always go to Jesus first.
John Paul II loved her too, as most of us Catholic’s do, we know that she will always take our prayers to God the Father, through Jesus and with the intercession of the Holy Spirit. You can trust Jesus’ Mother. Afterall, God choose her, she must have been the most loving person He ever made.

…and singin beauty, as someone told you above, the Pope daily prays Mass, always thanks God and …we Praise God in His angels and in His Saints. Thanking our dear Blessed Mother publicly was just an example for us. I thank her a lot myself, she is awesome. Why not ask her to help you understand? I will say a prayer tonight for you that she will help you understand.

 

[Church_Militant]

My friends…ALL of you.

I have been talking with SinginBeauty for a while now and most of you know me. I can spot an a/C a long way off.

She is not one of them.

She may not understand all that we say and may be confused because the faith that she practices with all her heart does not have that same sense of the great cloud of witnesses that we Catholics know and cherish, but from personal discussions with her, I have discovered someone who very dearly loves Our Lord & wishes to share with us a fellowship as the Holy Spirit guides her as she learns about us and our most holy faith.

Will this precious soul convert? God knows. That is not for us to bother with and is the work of the Holy Spirit…not me or any of us. Our function is to help her get a good understanding of our Catholic teachings and show her the light of Christ shining within us. THAT wins souls faster and more effectively than all the hard core apologetics in the world…because the person is drawn to the image of Our Lord within us. That beautiful, miraculously powerful Eucharistic presence of Our Lord that draws each of deeper into Him every time we experience it.

So…maybe we need to cut ths lil sister of our a break.
I know for a fact that John Paul II would.

Pax vobiscum,

 

[Tonks40]

Maybe I’m not understanding this thread, but did Singingbeauty ever explain why this particular writing struck her in any way?

I thought it was common notion amongst Catholics that the reason why Pope Paul II made his trip to Fatima to give thanks to the Virgin Mother was that it had something to do with one of the secrets of Fatima. The attempted assassination on our Holy Father was done on the date of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima…it was through Her intercession that his life was spared. After he recovered, he went to Fatima to give thanks, and embedded the bullet that was taken from his abdomen to a statue of her in the shrine. I also recall something to do with the consecration of Russia to the Blessed Mother…

In any case, this isn’t an issue of the JPII putting giving all credit to Mary, but thanking her for her continued powerful intercession to our Lord for the good of mankind. I really doubt that the Holy Father would ever take his eyes away from the Sacrificial Lamb - Jesus Christ.

 

[Zooey]

Just a couple of things that struck me as I read this thread…

1. I have read that John Paul 2’s own mother died when he was very young, & he always saw Mary as a second ‘mom’, the only mother he had for most of his life. So we have to read whatever he may have said through that filter.
2. We have to be very careful dealing with anything written by “Mary Ann Collins”. This is not the 1st time I have heard her name, & she is both very anti-Catholic, and also she has been guilty of fictionalizing her stories before this.
   In fact, as the one link says, (& again, I have seen this type of info on her before, from other sources), there is really no proof that there is a Mary Ann Collins; she has no real info on herself out there, & what she does say, changes drastically from one telling to the next. (Example: She has been a convert to the Catholic church who then left again; she has been a lifelong Catholic who finally left after a lifetime in the church…Well, which is it?? )

Now, Singingbeauty has no reason to know this kind of stuff; it is when you hang around here a good while and love to:nerd: do research on the web like a little Appalachian Irish girl not 500 miles from where I am sitting…], that you discover that she is like a willowwisp, that no one can track down who or what she is, that you begin to see that she is not a trustworthy source, at least not in my book…

3.This is just off the top of my head, & it goes back to my 1st point, but if you were around me when I was badly hurt or very sick, you might be excused for thinking that I worship my Daddy, who died when I was very little. Because I invariably want him with me the 1st thing, even before I get to the hospital, I am usually asking for him, talking to him. (Yes, people have thought I was out of my mind, when they know when he died).
So, I think that all these things kinda come together, & I realize that the late pope was a human being, speaking not as the pope but as an ordinary person when he said what he did. (However he said it, whatever he meant by it). And it doesn’t bother me…But I can see how someone might wonder about it.
OK, that’s my 2 cents worth…