Why not ask Mary and the Saints for prayers?

[GaryTaylor]

So if it is in truthmagazine then it must be true.

Right. more like if there’s any propaganda which can be used lets go with it. I think should someone want an objective view its out here with “Mary through the Centuries” for example. Its a very good non Catholic perspective.

But your right the quick search which yields papers written as mentioned is a very misleading path. That’s a badly researched paper with an agenda which but again places the Church’s holy scripture before the Church. then badly researched the Church Fathers. For example why wasn’t St Irenaeus mentioned. Well I would assume he didn’t serve the intended agenda.

You bought up a good point yesterday though. Dispensationalist theology is really an issue with Christianity in that it persecutes the apostolic church’s. Marion worship, Saints, prayer to the dead and so forth. This radical view of Christianity, one has to wonder how this affects the already skeptical protestants subjected to learned behavior.

 

[aidanbradypop]

Right. more like if there’s any propaganda which can be used lets go with it. I think should someone want an objective view its out here with “Mary through the Centuries” for example. Its a very good non Catholic perspective.

But your right the quick search which yields papers written as mentioned is a very misleading path. That’s a badly researched paper with an agenda which but again places the Church’s holy scripture before the Church. then badly researched the Church Fathers. For example why wasn’t St Irenaeus mentioned. Well I would assume he didn’t serve the intended agenda.

You bought up a good point yesterday though. Dispensationalist theology is really an issue with Christianity in that it persecutes the apostolic church’s. Marion worship, Saints, prayer to the dead and so forth. This radical view of Christianity, one has to wonder how this affects the already skeptical protestants subjected to learned behavior.

Propaganda can only effect your viewpoint if you did not have a clear viewpoint to start with.

 

[aidanbradypop]

Nah. It is another perspective on the issue of the curious worship of Mary. The article is somewhat biased but there are enough facts to check.

What I did find of new interest in that article was the mention that Christ was not only conceived outside of marriage but was born illegitimate. This is interesting as a fulfillment of a ‘type and shadow’ of the apocryphal texts where Sophia birthed Yaldabaoth illegitimately, self-conceived, (Time began with the error?) Had never noticed it before that Joseph and Mary weren’t married until after Jesus’ birth. The other ‘supernatural conceptions’ took place within marriages.

Looks like where error once came through the birth canal, now Perfection came through to ‘over-ride/over-write’ the Error. May be wrongly mixing accounts but it reminds me of Pandora and Hope being left inside the jar (womb?). Christ was that Hope, dislodged from the rim of the jar by the Holy Spirit and fertilized an egg? Wild, eh? heh-heh

Jeanne,

As a former Gnostic priest , I can tell you that the comparison you presented would be an unfair one. Sophia and Yaldabaoth are in no way compared to Mary and Christ in Gnosticism. Those texts were written many years after the events to try and describe things that people could not simply accept on faith. They needed reasons for this or that.

 

[aidanbradypop]

"Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is that fruit of your womb, Jesus

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Amen."

So there is the Hail Mary. Lets look at what Scripture states and we can find that this prayer is as much based on Scripture as the “Our Father”

Luke 1:28 And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!”

Luke 1:34 “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy,
the Son of God.

So if we believe that Christ is fully God, then that gives credit to the “Mother of God” and I assume we can all agree that Mary was indeed Holy. If I temple and a land can be considered Holy, would not the womb that carried God also be Holy?

Luke 1:41-43 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

So with these verses we see Elizabeth proclaiming exactly what is said in the Hail Mary and also gives another example as Mary being the Mother of God.

“pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death” is something we ALL should do for one another!

 

[rinnie]

“Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.”

I know it’s poetic enrichment, but this particular prayer is not for me.

Thats okay. You do not have to ask the Blessed Mother of Jesus to pray for you.

But what amazes me is how people have no problem asking sinners to pray for them, but then reject a Saint to do so.

 

[rinnie]

The Gospel of Judas?

The same Judas that betrayed Jesus and gave into the devil!

 

[peace2u2]

Our friends here on earth can talk back. Saints in heaven do not communicate directly with us usually. So no, I do not accept your view that saints in heaven are much like encounters with earthly friends.

Well you state the word “usually” so I’m assuming that you do agree that anything is possible with God and if God wants to communicate with us who live on earth thru one of His Saints that live in Heaven this is not difficult for God for His Word says in Luke 1:37 “For nothing is impossible with God.”

Therefore, it does happen. Maybe you can’t accept this form of prayer because you have never practiced it nor believe it.

Here’s another testimony of God speaking to us by communicating thru those who are alive in Heaven with us on earth:

A few years back when my 9 year old brother was dying of a rare form of cancer that was strangling his lungs and heart, 2 weeks before his scheduled surgery where the doctors were going to try and remove some of the cancer and give him some comfort, my mother had a dream that a nun that she knew when my mother was a young girl around the age of 12 was rocking in a rocking chair and she was weeping. My mother knew from that dream that God was communicating to her thru this nun, Sister Vincent Joseph, that my brother would not survive this surgery…

…and he didn’t. Jesus and His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary walked my brother home to heaven in the wee hours of the morning after the unsuccessful surgery.

 

[peace2u2]

Thats okay. You do not have to ask the Blessed Mother of Jesus to pray for you.

But what amazes me is how people have no problem asking sinners to pray for them, but then reject a Saint to do so.

Exactly. God’s Word says in Psalm 66:18, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me”, it sounds like my prayers will not be answered. Yet, what a beautiful gesture that God allows for us to pray thru His Saints in Heaven because we are unworthy. More prayers have been answered thru intercessory prayers of Saints in Heaven than I can even count.

 

[StillCatholic]

Right…so you rely on someone/something other than official church teachings?

Here is their first mistaken asumption of fact:

Here is the papal declaration and read it for yourself…I strongly suggest.

ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12MUNIF.HTM

Selected quotes:

1. Various testimonies, indications and signs of this common belief of the Church are evident from remote times down through the course of the centuries; and this same belief becomes more clearly manifest from day to day.
2. This belief of the sacred pastors and of Christ’s faithful is universally manifested still more splendidly by the fact that, since ancient times, there have been both in the East and in the West solemn liturgical offices commemorating this privilege. The holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church have never failed to draw enlightenment from this fact since, as everyone knows, the sacred liturgy, “because it is the profession, subject to the supreme teaching authority within the Church, of heavenly truths, can supply proofs and testimonies of no small value for deciding a particular point of Christian doctrine.”[10]
3. What is here indicated in that sobriety characteristic of the Roman liturgy is presented more clearly and completely in other ancient liturgical books. To take one as an example, the Gallican sacramentary designates this privilege of Mary’s as “an ineffable mystery all the more worthy of praise as the Virgin’s Assumption is something unique among men.” And, in the Byzantine liturgy, not only is the Virgin Mary’s bodily Assumption connected time and time again with the dignity of the Mother of God, but also with the other privileges, and in particular with the virginal motherhood granted her by a singular decree of God’s Providence. “God, the King of the universe, has granted you favors that surpass nature. As he kept you a virgin in childbirth, thus he has kept your body incorrupt in the tomb and has glorified it by his divine act of transferring it from the tomb.”[12]

Thank you for posting that link! I’ve been told there was an official document but could not seem to find it. Bless you! :extrahappy:

 

[Isaiah45_9]

Nah. It is another perspective on the issue of the curious worship of Mary. The article is somewhat biased but there are enough facts to check.

What I did find of new interest in that article was the mention that Christ was not only conceived outside of marriage but was born illegitimate. This is interesting as a fulfillment of a ‘type and shadow’ of the apocryphal texts where Sophia birthed Yaldabaoth illegitimately, self-conceived, (Time began with the error?) Had never noticed it before that Joseph and Mary weren’t married until after Jesus’ birth. The other ‘supernatural conceptions’ took place within marriages.

Looks like where error once came through the birth canal, now Perfection came through to ‘over-ride/over-write’ the Error. May be wrongly mixing accounts but it reminds me of Pandora and Hope being left inside the jar (womb?). Christ was that Hope, dislodged from the rim of the jar by the Holy Spirit and fertilized an egg? Wild, eh? heh-heh

Except that in order to be illegitimate it would have needed to have been carried outside the authority to do so. In this case, the Creator of the Universe asked first for Mary’s consent and then he did what only Him can do: Create! But this time through the Holy Spirit and not from the earth. Death through Eve and Life through Mary.

 

[EIF5A]

Thats okay. You do not have to ask the Blessed Mother of Jesus to pray for you.

But what amazes me is how people have no problem asking sinners to pray for them, but then reject a Saint to do so.

Again, my hesitation is not asking saints for intercessory prayers. It’s the seeming elevation of Mary to almost a goddess-like status. Lest a zealous Catholic take offense, I say “seeming” because if the prayers (e.g., The Rosary) are taken at literal value without understanding proper context, Mary can be mistaken for being “our life”, not Jesus. If I prays that and believe that Mary is “our life”, then that makes me hesitant.

 

[berk60]

When I ask my mom why she prays to Mary she says she is not praying to Mary but only asking her to intercede for her. Is this true because I see in the Catholic catechism it seems to state that you pray to Mary.

CCC par. 2675, “Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries…”

 

[aidanbradypop]

Again, my hesitation is not asking saints for intercessory prayers. It’s the seeming elevation of Mary to almost a goddess-like status. Lest a zealous Catholic take offense, I say “seeming” because if the prayers (e.g., The Rosary) are taken at literal value without understanding proper context, Mary can be mistaken for being “our life”, not Jesus. If I prays that and believe that Mary is “our life”, then that makes me hesitant.

Mary’s soul purpose is to bring us closer to her son. The Rosary is straight from Scripture as I stated with verses in an above post.

She is “our life” because Eve brought death into the world and by Mary saying yes and giving birth to our WONDERFUL LORD JESUS (I wanted it big lol) she brought life back into the world via CHRIST.

I do not see how non Catholics can believe that Catholics place the Blessed Mother on a “goddess-like” platform. Her only mission is to bring us closer to Christ. Nothing more and nothing less. If any Catholic places her above Christ, then I will pray and pray and pray and pray for them.

 

[aidanbradypop]

When I ask my mom why she prays to Mary she says she is not praying to Mary but only asking her to intercede for her. Is this true because I see in the Catholic catechism it seems to state that you pray to Mary.

CCC par. 2675, “Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries…”

Am I not allowed to speak with my grandfather in Heaven? Is that praying to my grandfather?

 

[berk60]

Am I not allowed to speak with my grandfather in Heaven? Is that praying to my grandfather?

I would say that’s praying to your grandfather.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

When I ask my mom why she prays to Mary she says she is not praying to Mary but only asking her to intercede for her. Is this true because I see in the Catholic catechism it seems to state that you pray to Mary.

CCC par. 2675, “Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries…”

And the rest of CCC 2675 reads: " In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first “magnifies” the Lord for the “great things” he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused."

And the chapters after 2675 read:

2676 This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria:

Hail Mary [or Rejoice, Mary]: the greeting of the angel Gabriel opens this prayer. It is God himself who, through his angel as intermediary, greets Mary. Our prayer dares to take up this greeting to Mary with the regard God had for the lowliness of his humble servant and to exult in the joy he finds in her.30

Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angel’s greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. "Rejoice . . . O Daughter of Jerusalem . . . the Lord your God is in your midst."31 Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is "the dwelling of God . . . with men."32 Full of grace, Mary is wholly given over to him who has come to dwell in her and whom she is about to give to the world.

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. After the angel’s greeting, we make Elizabeth’s greeting our own. “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary "blessed."33 "Blessed is she who believed. . . . "34 Mary is “blessed among women” because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord’s word. Abraham. because of his faith, became a blessing for all the nations of the earth.35 Mary, because of her faith, became the mother of believers, through whom all nations of the earth receive him who is God’s own blessing: Jesus, the “fruit of thy womb.”

2677 Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, "And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"36 Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: "Let it be to me according to your word."37 By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: “Thy will be done.”

Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the “Mother of Mercy,” the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender “the hour of our death” wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son’s death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing38 to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise.

2678 Medieval piety in the West developed the prayer of the rosary as a popular substitute for the Liturgy of the Hours. In the East, the litany called the Akathistos and the Paraclesis remained closer to the choral office in the Byzantine churches, while the Armenian, Coptic, and Syriac traditions preferred popular hymns and songs to the Mother of God. But in the Ave Maria, the theotokia, the hymns of St. Ephrem or St. Gregory of Narek, the tradition of prayer is basically the same.

2679 Mary is the perfect Orans (pray-er), a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple we welcome Jesus’ mother into our homes,39 for she has become the mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her. The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope.40

IN BRIEF

2680 Prayer is primarily addressed to the Father; it can also be directed toward Jesus, particularly by the invocation of his holy name: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.”

2681 “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). The Church invites us to invoke the Holy Spirit as the interior Teacher of Christian prayer.

2682 Because of Mary’s singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her.

Context is king in all matters. We must look at the entire context in order to understand the text.

 

[aidanbradypop]

I would say that’s praying to your grandfather.

So if you ask me to pray for you…is that praying to me?

 

[campeador]

What I did find of new interest in that article was the mention that Christ was not only conceived outside of marriage but was born illegitimate…

Matthew 1:19

Because Joseph her husband was
a righteous man and did not want
to expose her to public disgrace, he
had in mind to divorce her quietly.

That this verse refers to Joseph as Mary’s husband does not conflict or mean a change in circumstances from Matthew 1:18, where he is merely her betrothed. The betrothal of the period was a formal arrangement and the couple can reasonably be considered husband and wife while betrothed. wiki source

 

[berk60]

So if you ask me to pray for you…is that praying to me?

When two people on the planet earth communicate it’s call talking. I get your point. So why does the Catholic catechism call it praying to Mary?

2675 Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their** prayer to the holy Mother of God**, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first “magnifies” the Lord for the “great things” he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings29 the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused.

 

[aidanbradypop]

When two people on the planet earth communicate it’s call talking. I get your point. So why does the Catholic catechism call it praying to Mary?

2675 Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their** prayer to the holy Mother of God**, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first “magnifies” the Lord for the “great things” he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings29 the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused.

You have to distinguish between a prayer as a form of worship and a prayer as a form of asking for prayer. Make sense? When we pray to God, which Catholics can do…hehehe…that is much different then asking Mary to pray for us.