Praying to Mary

Hi there, Ed,
You still think that God is finnished with the nation of Israel? That the gifts and calling of God are revockable? That our sin is greater than God's call? You still need to answer, who is Paul speaking about in Romans 11:28.

As for prayng to "saints", the Bible is full of great prayers. Not ONE of them includes a prayer to the dead. Daniel didnt pray to Moses, and no NT person prayed to Stephen (who was killed early on). Jesus did NOT teach, "when you pray, pray 'Moses and Abraham, help me'"

Take care, Colin

 

yes and in Matt 22 Christ calls the dead saints "the DEAD" - as in "(Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob)". He apparently forgot to use the approved RC term "the Alive in Christ" as did Paul when he calls them the "Dead in Christ" 1Thess 4:16.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Colin --

I simply don't know what to do beyond what I have shown you. I showed you a verse from St. Paul which shows that the title "Israel" can have double meaning and you refuse to accept this.

Yes, God is finished with the nation of the JEWS which WAS Israel. He is now dealing with the "new nation" which is the Church. Matthew 21: 33 - 46 shows this transfer of status, and so clear was the teaching that the ordinarily obtuse Pharisees even knew:

Mt 21:45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.

Note the whole parable. The husbandmen (National Israel aka the JEWS) were to be thrown out of the vineyard for malfesance on duty, especially that of crucifying the Owner's Son. And a "new nation" would come in.

Now....let's look at the "new nation":

1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

St. Peter is NOT talking to the Jews here, but to converts to the new religion, that of Yeshua Who claimed to be the Messias of the Jews.

Now note the parallel language:

Ex 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

This is the same language God used when He made covenant with the Jews to be His Israel, His people. You think this parallelism is some kind of ACCIDENT!!??

C'mon!!! You're smarter than that!! Stop letting your emotionalism and subjective view of the Jews cripple your intelligence!!!

Brother Ed

 

The One True church of the OT (with the Forever promises of Isaiah 58) was the Hebrew Nation Church of Israel sovereignly established by God.

And according to Romans 11 - they fell.

Now the RCC has decided that Mary is sinnless like Christ, Co-Redemptrix along with Christ, All-Powerful, Queen of Heaven, Mother of God, to be prayed to, to accomplish our salvation ...

hmmm. I don't think the Jewish nation 'one true church started at Sinai' went quite that far - even with Moses.

In Christ,

Bob

[ December 27, 2002, 07:06 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

<b>"Now the RCC has decided that Mary is sinless like Christ, </b>
"Hail (Mary) full of grace, the Lord is with you." Luke 1:28
Luke 1:42 "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."

<b>Co-Redemptrix along with Christ</b>
I don't belief this is defined yet.

<b>All-Powerful</b>
Where is that taught????

<b>Queen of Heaven, </b>
the mother of the King is the Queen mother...
Is 21

Mother of God,
Luke 1:43 "how does this happen to me, that the <b>mother of my Lord </b> should come to me?"

<b> to be prayed to </b>
already addressed in other posts. James 5:16

<b>to accomplish our salvation ...</b>
where is this taught?

 

Worship in its purest form

[ December 28, 2002, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

[b"Now the RCC has decided that Mary is sinless like Christ, [/b]

None of that says "sinnless" and there are others in scriptures identifying those said to be "blessed" that are not considered "sinless".

(Peter comes to mind - Matt 16)

In Christ,

Bob

[ December 28, 2002, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

Okay Bob, you made your point. There is, without doubt, the tendency to go overboard with the flowery statements regarding the Blessed Virgin. People in love do that, you know?

And we do love our Mother, for She brought our Savior into the world by Her cooperation with the divine plan.

But there is a little gem in here which you seem to have missed:

Mary is all powerful with her divine Son who grants all graces to mankind through her" - Pope Benedict XV, Fausto Appetente Die

Do you notice the construct of that sentence. It is indeed Her divine Son who grants all graces. It is not Mary Herself. She is a vessel of those graces.

I think Pope Benedict got it about right.

When a king rules, his queen rules with him, but she does not issue edicts on her own, and especially does not issue edicts which oppose the will of the king.

That is the way Heaven operates. Always, and in all things, EVERYONE is in submission to the King of Glory, even the Blessed Virgin Queen. But in turn, since there is hierarchy, She is the Queen of Angels and the Mother of the Saints.

Brother Ed

 

"All power is given to Thee [Mary] in heaven and on earth that at the command of Mary all obey, even God." - Alphonsus de Liguori, Roman Catholic Cardinal and "saint", from his book The Glories of Mary

 

When praying to the dead such as Mary and the saints who have died - the RC position - defense - always "starts out" in the form "well wouldn't YOU ask fellow Christians to pray for you"?

But then as we have seen here - the co-redemptrix, queen of heaven, all power, worship in the form of "Gathering before you throne - and praising you at YOUR altars"... etc leaks out to the public and suddenly all bets are off.

The mask is removed and we see it for the VERY differnt thing that it is - from simply asking a fellow Christian to pray for you.

And in this case it exceeds even the Hindu and Budhist practices of also praying to the dead - since they do not feel the need to ascribe such laurels to their ancestors or spiritual leaders in all cases. They are perfectly willing to use the SAMe candles, incense and wrote prayer methods to pray to those who have died and yet not exault their worship of them quite to the level we see above.

How in the world could any form of Christianity ever have evolved to that point?

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob,

You are perpetuating a lie. In reality, that sentence does not exist in the book. Rather, that sentence is constructed from several sentences, some of which are seperated by entire paragraphs. The only proper way to write the sentence is with the use of [ . . .] to seperate the actual breaks, which you have not done, because no doubt, you copied it from an anti-Catholic website and not the actual book.

I hope that you're proud of your actions.

Grant

EDIT: Here is the way the actual sentence is structured:

#4   Mary is given the power of Christ.  "All power is given to thee in Heaven and on earth, so that at the command of Mary all obey even God . . . and thus . . . God has placed the whole Church . . . under the dominion of Mary" (pp. 180-181).

More butchering of citations: the first sentence ends after "earth," the words "so that" are added and not in St. Alphonsus' text, then one has to skip over about half a page to get to the next clause. As always, one must examine the context of such an extraordinary statement to determine exactly what the author is trying to communicate. And so we shall do so, since Len has not been so kind as to provide the context:

. . . although Mary, now in heaven, can no longer command her Son, nevertheless her prayers are always the prayers of a Mother, and consequently most powerful to obtain whatever she asks . . . "For thy protection is omnipotent, O Mary," says Cosmas of Jerusalem . . . Richard of St. Laurence; . . . " . . . a mother is made omnipotent by an omnipotent son." . . . Since the Mother, then, should have the same power as the Son, rightly has Jesus, who is omnipotent, made Mary also omnipotent; though, of course, it is always true that where the Son is omnipotent by nature, the Mother is only so by grace . . . Mary, then, is called omnipotent in the sense in which it can be understood of a creature who is incapable of a divine attribute. She is omnipotent, because by her prayers she obtains whatever she wills. (pp. 180-182)

Nor is the notion of creatures being granted a measure, great or small, of God's "power" foreign to the biblical outlook:

. . . that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (1 Corinthians 12:9)

. . . we shall live with him by the power of God. (1 Corinthians 13:4)

. . . by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)

that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5)

. . . my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus. (1 Corinthians 5:4)

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, (Ephesians 3:20)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. (Ephesians 6:10; cf. Ps 68:35)

who by God's power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:5)

He who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, I will give him power over the nations. (Revelation 2:26)

For more refutations of abuses of this book:
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ54.HTM

[ December 29, 2002, 12:13 AM: Message edited by: GraceSaves ]

 

None of that says "sinnless" and there are others in scriptures identifying those said to be "blessed" that are not considered "sinless".

(Peter comes to mind - Matt 16)

In Christ,

Bob[/b]</font>[/QUOTE]Bob,

We do not say that she is sinless because she is blessed, though that is indeed one of the reasons why she is blessed.

She is "full of grace," and "the Lord is with [her]," and this is before the Holy Spirit has come upon her, before she was Baptised or born again, etc etc etc. It's very clear that she was blessed before now, being full of grace already.

God bless,

Grant

 

"None of that says "sinnless" and there are others in scriptures identifying those said to be "blessed" that are not considered "sinless"."

But are any of the others FULL OF GRACE???

 

I gave the following quote -

"All power is given to thee (Mary) in Heaven and on earth, so that at the command of Mary all obey even God"


Grant has pointed out an error - I missed a few quotes

"All power is given to Thee [Mary] in heaven and on earth that at the command of Mary all obey, even God." - Alphonsus de Liguori, Roman Catholic Cardinal and "saint", from his book The Glories of Mary


Since the Mother, then, should have the same power as the Son, rightly has Jesus, who is omnipotent, made Mary also omnipotent; ibid. (pp 180-181)

"She is omnipotent, because by her prayers she obtains whatever SHE wills. (ibid pp 182)

I shall add them. Thanks for pointing those out.

In Christ,

Bob

[ December 29, 2002, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

The RC preference is to view Luke 1:28 as saying "Mary you are sinnless from birth" by using the code words "Hail Mary full of Grace"

So what do we find there?

Luke 1:28 "And coming in, he said to her 'Hail favored one. The Lord is
with you. But she was greatly troubled" (NASB)

Though this should not lead us to conclude that the phrase "FULL of grace"
is missing from that translation

"None of that says "sinnless" and there are others in scriptures identifying those said to be "blessed" that are not considered "sinless"."

- it IS there in the NASB where the word for "Grace" is actually IN the manuscript -


Acts 6:8 "And Stephen FULL OF GRACE was performing GREAT wonders and
signs".


I have not heard that the RCC teaches that this clearly implies that Stephen was born sinnless or bodily assumed into heaven - have you?

Maybe the "code phrase" ceased to function in the early days after the cross?
...

Luke 1:30 And the Angel said to her "Do not be afraid Mary; for you have
FOUND favor with God"

Clearly finding favor with God - is not Mary's name, or title - it is an attribute
of Mary describing God's own act in bestowing favor.

There is nothing in the text telling us that someone who finds favor is assumed
into heaven - see the examples at the end of this text.

The idea that the assumption into "heaven"
after death is "clearly implied" by the term "Full of Grace" can be tested by
looking at Acts 6:8. And in the case of Acts 6:8 it is the actual word for "Grace"
used repeatedly in the NT and translated as "Grace".

Acts 6:8 "And Stephen FULL OF GRACE was performing GREAT wonders and
signs".

2Peter 1:2 says that "Grace and peace be multiplied" to the church - does this
"clearly imply" that church members are born sinless or assumed into heaven without decaying
in the grave?

What about "favored of God" does that "clearly imply assumption into pre-cross
heaven"? Exodus 33:17 Moses is favored of God. "You have found favor
in My sight"

Gen 6:8 Noah is said to be favored by God. "Noah found favor in the eyes of
the Lord"

1Sam 2:26 Samuel is also said to grow in favor with God and man just as
Christ. The NT writers consider that David also "Found favor with God" Acts 7:46.

I know of no RC doctrine stating that being favored by God in these cases "clearly
implies" that they were born sinless .

IN christ,

Bob

[ December 29, 2002, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

When a ballet star is full of grace is that a different grace - Can some one Clarify?

What about saying "grace before meals" ? is that yet another grace?

Is full of Grace associated with COVERED by the Holy Spirit? Is COVERED and FULL of a similiar vane?

 

"Acts 6:8 "And Stephen FULL OF GRACE was performing GREAT wonders and
signs"."

In Acts 6:8, the phrase is pleres charitos, not kecharitomene, as in Luke 1:28. Different Greek words, different meaning. The Greek word kecharitomene, which is the perfect passive participle, indicates a completed action with permanent result. Thus it translates, "completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace."

It's interesting to note that not all translations use the term 'grace' here in Acts 6:8; in fact, Strongs Exhaustive Concordance, a decidedly protestant work, uses the Greek term 'pistos',or faith, in place of charitos, or grace; and the Greek term for 'full' in Acts 6:8 is 'pleres'. Yet even in those translations which do use the phrase 'full of grace' in Acts 6:8, it's evident from the Greek language that it is not the same word used in Luke 1:28, 'kecharitomene', or 'you who have already been fully graced'.

 

At what point in Mary's life was she concidered by Angels "blessed among women" and for how long?

Does this phrase mean, in the Angels eyes (not necessarily ours), Mary is the Top Woman - The Number 1 - The Eve.