"mother" Mary

[jeffpugh]

So you know, Socrates, he is of the Pentecostal kind. We have some pretty good discussions about the Church and his denomination.

[T-Bone _]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jul 15 2007, 03:01 PM' post='1329814'

5) No need to apologize. It's refreshing to see a non-Catholic on here with honest questions.
[/quote]

I have to concur. We're having an actual conversation.

[uruviel]

It's refreshing, it's it? It's nice.

[jeffpugh]

Good times, people.

[heshmafluff]

Indeed. They are good times.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1

Most will be familiar with this passage, and know that later on the Word becomes Flesh and all that, and that the Flesh is Jesus.

The way I personally see it is that Jesus came to fulfull and complete the Scriptures, and that he is therefore the Embodiement of the Scriptures...the Word of God.

So, if the Word of God is incorporated with God, what else do you need? You need God, God gave his word which is living and active and enduring and unchanging.

"For the Word of God is living and active..." Hebrews 4:12
"...through the living and enduring word of God." 1 Peter 1:23

[heshmafluff]

I talked to my Pastor and he pointed out Revelation 22:18

[quote]I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.[/quote]

[jeffpugh]

We do not see Mary as a separate "source" of grace or anything of the source. It's not Jesus, or Mary, it's Jesus, through Mary. They're not separate, but Christ has the dominance always. He is God. But God is poetic. He made Mary perfect to create great parallels in the Old Covenant. It's a wonderful thing. If you want answers, it's best you search yourself, but come here if you got any big questions. Thanks for bringing this up here, though.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='heshmafluff' post='1332706' date='Jul 17 2007, 05:15 PM']I talked to my Pastor and he pointed out Revelation 22:18[/quote]
So why do you remove the word "kecharitomene" and all its connotations?

[heshmafluff]

I don't know what that word means.

[jeffpugh]

Aloysuis explained it on the previous page...

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1329180' date='Jul 15 2007, 02:39 AM']...
But on to Luke 1:28... the greek word used in the address by Gabriel is "ΚΕΧΑΡΙΤΩΜΕΝΗ" or "kecharitomene", a perfect passive participle of the verb "ΧΑΡΙΤΟΩ" or "charitoo" which basically means "to grace"; that perfect past participle means "one who has been graced" with the connotation in greek that it is related to her nature; like "you who are graced" might come in English as if the subject was by nature something 'graced'; or maybe to help break the linguistic barrier better I shall put the example to "you who are great" would basically be an all encompassing greatness attributed to the person to whom it was addressed. it implies a fullness attached to her nature when used in that tense. But the most important thing here is that it's in the perfect past participle... meaning here 'gracedness' was something that happened prior to the Angel's speaking to her and was a continuing state, a fullness of graced nature continuing from some point in the past until the Angel Gabriel's visit.
...[/quote]

[heshmafluff]

oh that post...that one was hard to follow. didn't make much sense to me...at all. so I kind of ignored most of it. Sorry about that.

[Aloysius]

well that's the thing: you're not a native Greek speaker; but the scriptures are written in Greek. You'll never get the full extent of their intention... it gets lost in translation. You can go to what the Greek Church Fathers said about Mary, the Greek Church Fathers who understood fluently what "kecharitomene" meant... their quotes are contained in the link I put in my last post. Or, you could trust that the Church which has historically continued since the Apostles is guided by the Spirit to teach correctly about what it means. Or, you could go the scholarly route and try to understand the Greek.

The Greek word written by St. Luke in the Gospel is "kecharitomene"; it means that Mary was perfectly fully graced in her nature. No one can be filled with grace and sin at the same time, therefore, Mary must have been sinless by her nature; otherwise the Angel spoke inaccurately or the Sacred Author wrote inaccurately; but we believe the Bible to be inerrant and the Angel to be the infallible messenger of God's will, so we ought to believe that Mary was sinless.

No one should have to learn all this greek stuff to know what God's word means... that's why there's a living continuance of the tradition which produced the Bible which can tell us what it means: The historic Catholic Church.

[Aloysius]

This is a site that explains about what Kecharitomene means in detail:
[url="http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a116.htm"]http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a116.htm[/url]

It includes quotes by Greek Church Fathers who would have totally understood "kecharitomene" because they were native greek speakers, speakers of the koine greek that was used in the New Testament, actually:

[quote]Gregory Thaumaturgus (205-270 AD):

O purest one
O purest virgin
where the Holy Spirit is, there are all things readily ordered. Where divine grace is present
the soil that, all untilled, bears bounteous fruit
in the life of the flesh, was in possession of the incorruptible citizenship, and walked as such in all manner of virtues, and lived a life more excellent than man's common standard
thou hast put on the vesture of purity
has selected thee as the holy one and the wholly fair;
and through thy holy, and chaste, and pure, and undefiled womb
since of all the race of man thou art by birth the holy one, and the more honourable, and the purer, and the more pious than any other: and thou hast a mind whiter than the snow, and a body made purer than any gold[/quote]

[quote]John the Theologian (c. 400 AD):

"[T]he Lord said to his Mother, ‘Let your heart rejoice and be glad, for every favor and every gift has been given to you from my Father in heaven and from me and from the Holy Spirit. Every soul that calls upon your name shall not be ashamed, but shall find mercy and comfort and support and confidence, both in the world that now is and in that which is to come, in the presence of my Father in the heavens’" (The Falling Asleep of Mary).[/quote]

[jeffpugh]

Wow, this is great stuff. I'm going to take a read through it myself.

[thessalonian]

[quote name='heshmafluff' post='1328475' date='Jul 14 2007, 02:12 PM']I thought Jesus was here to redeem us all; not Mary.[/quote]


Mary is not the redeemer. Noone here would say that. She co-operates in his redemptive plan however and participates in bringing others to Christ. She can do nothing apart from him but in him she can do all things. She has no power in and of herself, but that which she obtains from her son.