What Is The Position Of Mary In Catholic Church? What Is The Place Of

[Louie]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1330538999' post='2394529']


Sorry. I have a propensity for logic…and an aversion to foolishness.
[/quote]

So with that being said you resort to answering a question with a question...doesn't seem very logical to me, but then again it seems that any question that challenges your belief you treat it as foolishness...so then if it's foolishness why respond to it? I would think your inclination to logic would keep you from responding to foolishness not reacting to it

[Archaeology cat]

Just a point of clarification,but we don't see Mary as the source of grace, but God. She is mediatrix of grace because she bore Jesus, the source of grace. She co tinues to intercede for us with her prayers, as she did t Cana. She is full of grace not by her own power, but by the power of God. The specific Greek construction used of her, though, does not allow for sin, as it shows her to be completely full of grace, as far as I'm aware.

God bless

Edited February 29, 2012 by Archaeology cat

[Archaeology cat]

There's an illustration that helped me understand this when I was examining the Church. Imagine there's a pit full of mud. One person falls into the pit, and is then pulled out. The same person who rescued the first then pulls another who is about to fall into the pit. Both have been saved, but only one has been kept from the stain, while the other needs the mud cleaned off, too. Similarly, we need the mud cleaned off us, but Mary was saved before she fell in, preserved from sin by virtue of the sacrifice Her Son would make. This is fitting for the Ark of the Covenant (for her identification as the Ark, see Revelation 11 & 12; also look at e contents of the original Ark and compare that with Jesus, the Bread of Life Who cam down from Heaven, the Word, our Shepherd and Priest).

God bless

[MIKolbe]

As an aside, one could philosophize that in order for Jesus to be a perfect savior, there would need to be at least one person who he perfectly saved...(a la not falling into the pit of mud to begin with). We see this in Mary.

Again, the doctrine that was formulated about the Immaculate Conception is:

[quote]
We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, a[b]nd in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race,[/b] was preserved free from every stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful[/quote]

I have a feeling that you may (and I may be mistaken) feel that Mary is the source of her very redemption. She is not. Jesus was/is her savior.

[Papist]

[quote name='Louie' timestamp='1330540404' post='2394534']
So with that being said you resort to answering a question with a question...doesn't seem very logical to me, but then again it seems that any question that challenges your belief you treat it as foolishness...so then if it's foolishness why respond to it? I would think your inclination to logic would keep you from responding to foolishness not reacting to it
[/quote]


"Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, correcting opponents with kindness. It may be that God will grant them repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth, and that they may return to their senses out of the devil’s snare, where they are entrapped by him, for his will." --2 Timothy 2:23-26

Never argue with the wrong attitude, or for the wrong motives. Never argue to win, but to help the other person. And never fight. I am not trying to fight, nor win an argument. I am trying to help person(s) understand my beliefs.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='MIkolbe' timestamp='1330545092' post='2394576']
As an aside, one could philosophize that in order for Jesus to be a perfect savior, there would need to be at least one person who he perfectly saved...(a la not falling into the pit of mud to begin with). We see this in Mary.


[/quote]
That was the thought that crossed my mind. I don't believe that God plays chess and makes up the moves as he goes. Mary never was in danger of the mud.
[i]Stations of the cross conclusion[/i]
[i]Accept each moment with faith that all that happens has purpose. Do not look for me in far off places, for I am near at hand. your workbench, office, kitchen are places where you offer love to others, I am with you there.[/i]


[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1330547665' post='2394603']
"Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, correcting opponents with kindness. It may be that God will grant them repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth, and that they may return to their senses out of the devil’s snare, where they are entrapped by him, for his will." --2 Timothy 2:23-26

Never argue with the wrong attitude, or for the wrong motives. Never argue to win, but to help the other person. And never fight. I am not trying to fight, nor win an argument. I am trying to help person(s) understand my beliefs.
[/quote]
Ten thousand props!

[Louie]

This grace means endued with special honor: she was honored with the blessing to birth the Messiah. Again this is the same word for grace as to believers in the New Testament. Where does it say the virgin will be without sin? It doesn’t, it does not say she is sinless but full of Grace which really is highly favored. If full of grace means without sin than what of the grace given to believers, God’s grace is promised to all the believers collectively? Mary didn’t have grace from birth but when she was going to be with child. 

The Greek reads like this in Luke 1:28 of the Interlinear Transliterated Bible                              

 eípen   Chaíre  kecharitooménee  ho   Kúrios         metá   soú 

 said,   Hail,  ( thou that art)    highly favoured,   the  Lord      (is)   with   thee

In fact this whole doctrine is fairly new not an apostolic tradition. It was in 1547, at the council of Trent that the Catholic Church announced the sinlessness of Mary enabling her to avoid venial sins. In 1620 Pope Paul the 5th forbade anything contrary to the teaching of Mary's immaculate conception to be said publicly under threat of excommunication. In 1622 Pope Gregory the 15th forbade any contradictory statements of her immaculate conception to be made in private. And so began the official elevation of this servant woman the mother of the humanity of the Lord. Until  Pope Pius IX in 1854 “Let all the children of the Catholic Church ... Proceed to worship, invoke, and pray to the most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, conceived without original sin"), but that the reason she never sinned at any time during her life was because she was unable to sin.” Then in 1950 Pius the 12th said, “Mary the immaculate perpetual virgin mother of God after the completion of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.”

[Louie]

[quote name='Archaeology cat' timestamp='1330544429' post='2394568']
There's an illustration that helped me understand this when I was examining the Church. Imagine there's a pit full of mud. One person falls into the pit, and is then pulled out. The same person who rescued the first then pulls another who is about to fall into the pit. Both have been saved, but only one has been kept from the stain, while the other needs the mud cleaned off, too. Similarly, we need the mud cleaned off us, but Mary was saved before she fell in, preserved from sin by virtue of the sacrifice Her Son would make. This is fitting for the Ark of the Covenant (for her identification as the Ark, see Revelation 11 & 12; also look at e contents of the original Ark and compare that with Jesus, the Bread of Life Who cam down from Heaven, the Word, our Shepherd and Priest).

God bless
[/quote]

That's not speaking of Mary...That represents Israel, who gave Christ to the world (v. 5) and who will be persecuted severely during the Tribulation (v. 13).

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='Louie' timestamp='1330551767' post='2394638']


That's not speaking of Mary...That represents Israel, who gave Christ to the world (v. 5) and who will be persecuted severely during the Tribulation (v. 13).
[/quote]Why can it not be speaking of both? It speaks of the woman giving birth to the Son. I don't know of anyone who doesn't identify the male child with Jesus. Mary is His Mother.

As for the doctrine being new, it may not have been proclaimed until fairly recently, but that doesn't mean it wasn't believed before then. Things are not usually defined/proclaimed until there is a question/debate about it.

[Archaeology cat]

Similarly, the Trinity was not defined officially until Nicaea (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong), but was believed from the very beginning.

[Louie]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1330547665' post='2394603']



"Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, correcting opponents with kindness. It may be that God will grant them repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth, and that they may return to their senses out of the devil’s snare, where they are entrapped by him, for his will." --2 Timothy 2:23-26

Never argue with the wrong attitude, or for the wrong motives. Never argue to win, but to help the other person. And never fight. I am not trying to fight, nor win an argument. I am trying to help person(s) understand my beliefs.
[/quote]

Well if that's what you say you were doing during our conversation I must say that it seemed far from what you say you are trying to do...talking down to someone as if they don't have a clue is not what I would call being helpful...you might want to rethink your strategy there...

[Archaeology cat]

Nvm

Edited February 29, 2012 by Archaeology cat

[Mark of the Cross]

I don't understand this discussion of if Mary was sinless or not. It seems only logical that she was sinless. Where do you keep your most treasured possessions, in a defective vessel? Satan would have tested Mary to the extreme. Only a sinless woman could resist it.

Revelation 12
[url="http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=73&ch=12&l=1#x"][1][/url] And a great sign appeared in heaven: [u]A woman[/u] clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: [url="http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=73&ch=12&l=2#x"][2][/url] And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. [url="http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=73&ch=12&l=3#x"][3][/url] And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns: and on his head seven diadems: [url="http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=73&ch=12&l=4#x"][4][/url] And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the [b]dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son.[/b] [url="http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=73&ch=12&l=5#x"][5][/url] And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne.

[MIKolbe]

[size="2"]Catholics see Mary as the Ark of the New Convenant. Look at how Luke writes his Gospel to get this message across aluding to the old, that which is fulfilled in the new....[/size]

[quote]
[size="2"][b]2 Samuel 6:2 [/b]And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the LORD of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. [/size]

[size="2"][b]Luke 1:39 [/b]And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda [/size]
[/quote]



[quote]
[size="2"][size="2"][b]2 Samuel 6:9 [/b]And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and said, How shall the ark of the LORD come to me? [/size][/size]

[size="2"][size="2"][b]Luke 1:43[/b] And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? [/size][/size]
[/quote]



[size="2"][quote][/size]
[size="2"][size="2"][b]2 Samuel 6:11[/b] And the ark of the LORD continued in the house of Obededom the Gittite three months...[/size][/size]

[size="2"][size="2"][b]Luke 1:56 [/b]And Mary abode with her about three months...[/size][/size]
[size="2"][/quote][/size]

[size="2"][quote][/size]
[size="2"][size="2"][b]2 Samuel 6:16[/b] And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD [His Presence over the Ark] [/size][/size]

[size="2"][size="2"][b]Luke 1:41[/b] And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: [/size][/size]
[size="2"][/quote][/size]

[Louie]

[quote name='Archaeology cat' timestamp='1330552103' post='2394641']
Why can it not be speaking of both? It speaks of the woman giving birth to the Son. I don't know of anyone who doesn't identify the male child with Jesus. Mary is His Mother.

As for the doctrine being new, it may not have been proclaimed until fairly recently, but that doesn't mean it wasn't believed before then. Things are not usually defined/proclaimed until there is a question/debate about it.
[/quote]


(215 AD Tertullian) “God alone is without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ; for Christ is also God” (The Soul 41:3).

Clement of Alexandria “ The Word Jesus Christ alone was born without sin.”


If we go through history we find many of the popes did not believe in Mary being sinless; Augustine Bishop of Hippo “Whatever flesh of sin Jesus took, He took of the flesh of the sin of his mother. Jesus did not partake of sin, but took of his mother, which came under the judgment of sin.”

Augustine “ He, Christ alone, being made man but remaining God never had any sin, nor did he take of the flesh of sin. Though He took flesh of the sin of his mother."

Pope Leo 1 (440 a.d.) “The Lord Jesus Christ alone among the sons of men was born immaculate”(sermon 24 in Nativ. Dom.).

“And therefore in the general ruin of the entire human race there was but one remedy in the secret of the Divine plan which could succour the fallen, and that was that one of the sons of Adam should be born free and innocent of original transgression, to prevail for the rest both by His example and His merits. Still further, because this was not permitted by natural generation, and because there could be no offspring from our faulty stock without seed, of which the Scripture saith, '’Who can make a clean thing conceived of an unclean seed? is it not Thou who art alone?’” (Sermon 28:3) The unclean seed includes Mary. The one being from Adam who is sinless is Jesus - Pope Gelasius (492 a.d.) 
“ It belongs alone to the immaculate lamb to have no sin at all.” (Gellasii papae dicta, vol. 4, col 1241, Paris, 1671)

Pope innocent the third (1216 a.d.) “She (Eve) was produced without sin, but she brought forth in sin, she (Mary) was produced in sin, but she brought forth without sin.” ( De festo Assump., sermon 2) When the immaculate conception was first presented in the year 1140 it was opposed by Bernard of Clairvaux also Thomas Aquinas adamantly taught Mary was a sinner.