Why is it wrong to love Mary, the Mother of God?

[Cinette]

I think you do not know the Protestant religion as a whole very well. Some of us it is taboo to question our leaders while with most it IS NOT and believe me as a bishop I see plenty of it.

*No instead of questioning your leaders, you just leave and plant another church, yet another denomination!

*

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Thank you, padrej, that was a well thought out response.

I haven’t read all of the posts yet. I think there is a lot to be said for both sides.

Many of us ‘oldsters’ have been whammed over the last 40 years with some very, very bad teachings and experiences and we wish to spare people from 40 years of having to ‘deal’ with the incredible messes that we did. Thank God that there are so many good and faithful priests, thank God that there is now so much available information (back in 1970 when I started high school I used a manual typewriter with carbon paper to write my essays, and one was limited for research to the town public library, often open for only short periods, and ‘limited’ in materials as well). Thank God that there are so many people who actually want to ‘know’ and who ‘care’. . .and yes, I include Fr.J as well as those who question him.

But ‘in all things charity’ is likewise needed. And so I will say thank you from your friend, the crusty old bat --the GIRL crusty old bat–, and God bless.

 

[John7]

Where is it written in the Bible that you cannot love Mary?

I had issues with Mary when I was becoming Catholic, this is the verse that gave me the most problems:
Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Now, I mostly understand that in the Bible one of the ways to hate is to love less. I can still love Mary but only when I subordinate that love to the love for Jesus.

But I still have problems with the language, I mean, doesn’t my greater love for Jesus tell me that with respect to Jesus I hate Mary??? With respect to Jesus (and the Father and Holy Spirit) my less love for Mary causes me to hate her??? Shouldn’t I tell Jesus, “Jesus have I loved but Mary I have hated”??? (kind of like Ro 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.).

I tend not to think about it too much anymore and that seems to help…

 

[benidict]

I think you do not know the Protestant religion as a whole very well. Some of us it is taboo to question our leaders while with most it IS NOT and believe me as a bishop I see plenty of it.

i have seen this in protestant churches, and it sometimes leads to outright rebellion on the part of the laity. if my Priest is wrong, i will leave it to another Priest, or a Bishop to confront him. its really not my place as a layperson to be doing so. that would be like a small child standing up to his earthly father. not a pretty picture. those with kids know what im talking about. Peace

 

[Padrej]

*No instead of questioning your leaders, you just leave and plant another church, yet another denomination!

*

Boy that was said with GREAT love and charity
You are picking out the worst behavior of Protestants and making it be the rule for all; the very same thing that I get called to the carpet on when posting about leaving the Conversion process.
The sad thing is most who leave a protestant church do not question the pastor but never darken the door of ANY church.

 

[Padrej]

*As I see it this is a forum where one can participate anonymously so we can point out error without offending because “Fr John” is not exposed in anyway. What Benedictus was doing was pointing out errors of Fr John. Just because he is a priest doesn’t make him infallible but when he misrepresents the Church it is our duty to say “Hey wait a minute there” So you are wrong to say that Fr John was “attacked”. The truth must be preserved and Fr John, if he is indeed a priest, knows that very well. What he said was wrong.

"personal attack? slander? Oh Padrej you are not really thinking. You are not analysing the situation here.

I ask you a question : How does the exchange between Fr John and other lay Catholics on the thread constitute a personal attack or even damage his reputation? We are all anonymous here.

Let me tell you I don’t care who the person is but if he does not teach the truth the right thing to do is to point it out…charitably …and there is no need to go “underground”.

Cinette*

First of all we are supposed to be speaking of Mary. The “attacks” on Fr John have been such that they have questioned his validity as a priest, rather than say, “this does not sound like it lines up with the way I learned it could you explain?” Fr John apologizes and things seemed to die down but then someone brings up the SAME STUFF OVER AND OVER. He also posts things which are in the faith section of this forum and from what I read of the link they say much of the same as he did just in a different order. It makes one think that if the Catholic faith is not explained ABCD but rather BACD that it must be wrong.

Can you also explain what you mean by “go underground?”

 

[FrJohnB]

Being the crusty old bat of nearly 54 that I am, I sat through, in the 1990s, many a sermon on the ‘miracle of sharing’ that Jesus ‘supervised’ through getting the people to ‘share what they had’ (of COURSE He couldn’t possibly have made 5 loaves and 2 fish feed 5000 people, that would have been so out of character for a simple humble man ya know?)

Now when that gospel comes around, usually the first thing our priests do is say, "I know you’re all waiting to hear about the miracle of how Jesus softened the hearts of people and got them to ‘share’ their food. Well, you’re going to have a long wait because that never happened. What really happened was a total miracle where Jesus took 5 loaves and 2 fish and was able to feed an entire crowd with just that–just as He today can feed the world with His body and blood. It was a foreshadowing. Now, that other story was a popular kind of idea that went well with society’s ‘cocooning’ of the 1990s, a kind of ‘we-the-community-will-share’ idea that went so far out of focus in thinking of Jesus as the "man who gives good example’ that it IGNORED the fact that Jesus is not just ‘the man’ but GOD.’

Why do I bring this up? To show that nice, good, average Catholic priests are like the rest of us. They bring in their ‘point of view’. As my pastor says (often), One must always remember that Jesus is God and man. And any time that we focus more on one OR the other, we will veer into heresy. Teaching about Jesus and neglecting any ‘miraculous’ deeds or teachings (as dear old TJ did) is focusing only on the MAN and not the GOD. . .and veers into heresy. Teaching about Jesus and focusing only the miraculous, like the many atheists who sneer, “So He died on the cross, big deal, He KNEW He was gonna come to life again, He’s not really like us at all” are focusing on the GOD and neglecting the MAN and obviously veering into heresy.

So Fr. J in speaking of Mary might be working from absolutely good and authentic teachings but ‘veering’ into a point of view that focuses a little too much in ‘one’ way and thus throws the teachings off and is in error.

Because so much of the ‘base’ of the teachings is true, it is harder to see the error. I mean, in the story of the loaves and fishes, we can see that the whole thing is ‘right there’. There is the crowd, there is Jesus, there He is breaking the food, and there the people are, well fed.

It is not explictly stated, "and to each man of the 5000 Jesus gave a piece from the very same loaf and/or fish’. And knowing that people might have some dried food ‘tucked away’ (as was common for us ‘bright’ people in the 1990s) and being inclined to try to make people ‘work together’, some bright boys theorized the ‘sharing’, probably first as a simple, “Yes, Jesus gave everybody just enough to satisfy, and then along with that people probably shared out some stuff and that’s why we got ‘leftovers’. . .” and then of course, the ‘anti-miracle’ crowd probably thought, “Hey, that would work with OUR program too, yay” and the "horizontal community worshippers’ were like, "Well of COURSE because after all it’s all about being FED and being “Church”. . .

Ah, the 90s. How we ever got out of the 20th century. . . .

So we don’t want to have the same problems with skewed theories about MARY as we did with the great ‘miracle of sharing’ that is STILL causing repercussions today.

And so we’ll do a Barney Fife and ‘nip it in the bud’ when possible!!!

Thank you for your charitable words.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Thank you for your charitable words.

You’re welcome, Father. Well, I hope they were charitable. They certainly weren’t meant to be uncharitable.

As a priest, you are a great blessing to us all. That goes without saying. And obviously you have had far more opportunity to study than I have had. Not to mention the fact that I’m sure you have by no means come close to giving a complete discussion on the topic of Mary, and also, of course, it is very easy for people to ‘read’ something and to think it means something that the person did not intend it to mean. So welcome and I hope you continue to post and that, “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

 

[FrJohnB]

Funny I am an Anglican bishop running a diocese and a pastor of a church and yet I can still find some time to blog. I wonder how many of the priests in the “Ask the apologist” section of this forum would DARE be questioned with such when they answer questions of the faithful.

Thank you Padre
For the information of the viewers of this thread I post usually in the early morning or late at night (for me). There is not a soul in my parish that lacks because I blog here. I agree with you on the Ask the apologist part. I wonder how many of those who questioned the amount of time I spent on this thread thought about that point. I would love to see these same comments shot in the direction of the “ask the apologist” section of how much time THEY have.

 

[FrJohnB]

You’re welcome, Father. Well, I hope they were charitable. They certainly weren’t meant to be uncharitable.

As a priest, you are a great blessing to us all. That goes without saying. And obviously you have had far more opportunity to study than I have had. Not to mention the fact that I’m sure you have by no means come close to giving a complete discussion on the topic of Mary, and also, of course, it is very easy for people to ‘read’ something and to think it means something that the person did not intend it to mean. So welcome and I hope you continue to post and that, “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

I will continue to post on the forum, I only wish person who keep questioning me would have just taken my apology at face value instead of beating this into the ground so that the thread has gone WAY off course.
I pray you keep posting as well as I get blessed by reading your posts.

 

[prodigalson12]

I was getting uneasy with the dialog goign on here, something smelled very fishy, and took a look at FrJohnB’s, other posts, and guess what, we have a protestant posing as a priest folks.

Pulled an exert form another thread, where him and his Protestant friend Padrej working in tangent upon, pushing their agenda:

Default Re: Protestants: Sinner’s Prayer-What must it say and does it assure Salvation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by brb3 View Post
From Catholics, and from Scriptures. Both deny OSAS
I too will have to agree with Padrej that I have NEVER known a Catholic to view salvation as a more than one time event. It almost seems like you are trying to push Protestantism on us Catholics under the guise of being Roman Catholic. I could be wrong, but it has happened before on this forum.

Look up his profile and follow his posts, you’ll see what I mean here. I absolutely do not believe he’s a priest at all, and I wonder what TOS has to say about pretending to be one…Clearly there is an agenda to be pushing the protestant understanding on us, and coming from someone calling themselves a priest is a rather new tactic to me.

Shame on you two!!!

 

[KathleenGee]

After the media was going full blast about all the rot in the Catholic Church…it went to the extent that some thought the American media was working very hard to destroy the Catholic Church…and yet we had the greatest attendance during Easter, and the highest number of converts on the national level.

What made me suspicious as well is that seminarians are becoming stronger and looking with greater anticipation to their ordination so they can work at rebuilding our church. American priests, and especially those ordained in the 80’s and beyond are very strong in the clarity and teachings of our beliefs.

Finally, there is the perception that Western women, particularly English speaking women are considered of low sexual moral standards who care nothing about their virginity.

How our culture needs clear teachings about Mary to help our women restore their dignity in God!

FrJohnB, you are still a mystery to me…but I don’t intend to personally hurt or offend you…

 

[KathleenGee]

And ProdigalSon12, there is the thread on Protestants using CAF to proselytize Catholics. Dominicans are dedicated to orthodoxy.

There were Muslims here in the past posing as one person, the person would go on and on and people would participate in answering about our faith. Then the topic would come to a close. Then the Muslim would bring up the topic again saying he doesn’t understand…it went on for about 3 times when people started to realize there were more than 1 to possibly 3 or 4…and the time spent by people of good will…

The sheep know their shepherd…

 

[Michael_Francis]

Failing charity and off topic.
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