Yes I have. I have also met many Roman Catholics who seem obsessed with Mary, but not enraptured by Jesus. What I do not think is biblical is the notion that, if you love Mary, you love Jesus. Loving Mary is loving Mary.
JMJ + OBT
And I have met Evangelicals whose mouths are full of, even overflowing with, Scripture and lengthy spontaneous prayers chock-full of the Holy Name, yet who by their attitudes and actions reveal that their hearts are filled with little love for God and neighbor.
I don’t say that with any ill feelings towards Evangelicals, just to make the point that it’s possible to let all sorts of things distract us from Jesus, even things or people which according to His designs and purposes should draw us closer to Him. That we can mess up otherwise good things seems to be one of the basic realities of human persons struggling with the effects of Original Sin.
Thanks for the testimony and the links. I shall check them out. However, I am now getting more familiar, thanks to Catholic Answers, with the arguments from Scripture and the ECFs for Marian beliefs. I personally don’t find them very convincing, but respect that for many RCs, these are absolutely critical to being a good Christian.
Let me put it a bit differently. Mary is in Heaven right now – alive in her own resurrected and glorified body: beating heart, breathing lungs, thinking brain, seeing eyes – at the side of her son, the Risen Jesus. She is the closest human person to Jesus
right now, and no human person will ever be closer to Him in the order of Grace. Together with those souls who departed this life in God’s friendship (the Saints) and the good angels, she never stops praying for those of us who haven’t made it to Heaven yet.
So the question is, how should a Christian relate to that reality? Is it just an abstract idea that we can ponder with our intellect? Or is it something that we can and should make a part of our lives on Earth, by embracing that reality in our private prayers, personal attitude, public worship, artwork, etc.?
*O Jesus, living in Mary,
Come and live in Thy servants,
In the spirit of Thy holiness,
In the fullness of Thy might,
In the truth of Thy virtues,
In the perfection of Thy ways,
In the communion of Thy mysteries.
Subdue every hostile power
In Thy spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.
–St. Louis de Montfort*
This is an interesting question: does God really want me to pray to Mary? Do I need to pray to Mary to be a good Christian? Because, if this is so, than the apostles and most Early Church Fathers (at least during the 1st and 2nd centuries) were not good Christians or at least not complete. Would you say this of Clement, Barnabas and Ignatius, that they weren’t good Christians?
You might want to read about the
Sub tuum prayer which has been found in liturgical manuscripts dating to A.D. 250. And if it’s in such manuscripts dealing with the public worship of the early Christians, that means it didn’t just pop out of thin air in the 3rd Century – no, it must go farther back, at least back to the late 2nd Century in one form or another.
We fly to thy patronage,
O holy Mother of God;
despise not our petitions
in our necessities,
but deliver us always
from all dangers,
O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Amen.
Remember that popular Christian awareness and understanding of spiritual realities, like the Communion of Saints and the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, has deepened over time. So much so that Pope Paul VI could write:
We are convinced without any doubt that devotion to Our Lady is essentially joined with devotion to Christ, that it assures a firmness of conviction to faith in Him and in His Church, a vital adherence to Him and to His Church which, without devotion to Mary, would be impoverished and compromised.
May Our Lord bless you and keep you, JesusforMadrid.
In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
IC XC NIKA*
. Forget the fact that the Catechism itself actually cites tons of scripture
and is not about making false prophecy but a reasoned explanation of our faith Using scripture and Sacred Tradition, which can be shown in scripture.
.
Why don’t you approach your Pastor in your parish and ask if you can start some kind of group? I would first find out if anyone would like to join you before approaching the Pastor of your Parish.
They are very reverant and the priests give good homilies. You can watch on the internet if you don’t have cable or a dish that has EWTN.
Someone here said that Scott Hahn teaches the Holy Spirit is feminine? Yikes! That is NOT true.
It’s really true!
