They just love to hate Mary
Recently I’ve been thinking about the conversations I’ve had about the [tag]Catholic Church[/tag] and [tag]Mary[/tag] over the years. Time and again, those who disagree with the Catholic Church spend a significant amount of time and energy arguing against the Marian doctrines as evidence of the Catholic Church being {insert your favorite insult here}. But, even if, by some strange happening, the Catholic Church has something wrong about Mary, is it enough to invalidate its status as Christian?
By this reasoning, I need to only show something amiss in the belief system of the [tag]anti-Catholic[/tag] to prove that he/she is not Christian. Of course, it is likely that the anti-Catholic will turn around and say that there are many errors among the doctrines of the Catholic Church, but the truth or falsehood of such a claim must be proven.
In the charges made against the Catholic Church’s Marian doctrines, there is a strange sense of contradiction. The accusations insinuate that, even in the least of such arguments, Catholics take something away from Jesus; they don’t honor Him as they should. However, look at the arguments against these doctrines versus the logical conclusions of the Marian doctrines…
“She is just a woman, ” proclaims the anti-Catholic. But, is she really just *any* woman? A woman just like any other woman?
No. She is the mother of our [tag]Lord and Savior[/tag]! That alone distinguishes her from all women in human history. Only if we lessen our belief of Who Jesus is can we say the Mary is “just a woman”. We would have to say that [tag]Jesus[/tag] was “just a man” in order to say that Mary is “just a woman”.
Why? Because we must take away aspects of Jesus as Second Person of the Trinity to do so. We must minimize what we mean when we say that Jesus is all-knowing and co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In order to call Mary, “just a vessel”, we express that either there is no free will, or that God took away Mary’s free will in order to accomplish what He wanted to accomplish.
Instead, we profess a belief that God chose Mary, and doing so, He must have seen something special in her. God did not consider Mary, “just another woman”. Further, when we say that God chose Mary, since we also believe that Jesus is God the Son, we state our belief that Jesus chose Mary to be His mother.
Rather than looking at Mary as “just a woman”, we can learn much by learning what God saw in Mary that was so special. In addition, we uphold the fullest meaning of our belief that Jesus is [tag]God[/tag] the Son, our Lord and Savior.
[tags]apologetics[/tags]
would love to have this conversation
please e-mail me with mary comments and we will start
pat said this on May 12th, 2006 at 12:35 am
Were the comments above not enough to start the conversation? Is there something specific you were looking to discuss?
Matt said this on May 12th, 2006 at 8:42 am
1)did mary sin?
2)was mary assumed or did she die?
3)why does mary have to be special?–ie whats gods purpose in mary beeing special
4)mary just a women = yes ; what makes her special is god.what makes jesus more than a man
HE IS GOD ; a little difference
5)tell me your points on mary********
remember people dont hate mary or peter for that matter just your story of them.
6)could any other women have been the son of god?
7)i dont want to argue a point with you that you may not agree on ; that is only reason i ask for more comments –but theres some to start
pat said this on May 13th, 2006 at 12:49 am
Thanks for posting your specific questions on this topic.
I hope you will permit me to focus my reply on that which pertains to the original posting and point of that post. It is not that adequate answers cannot be given to the other questions, but to try to answer them here could move things off topic. In reality, those questions have been answered by many Catholic apologists and there are many good resources on the web — such as Dave Armstrong’s Biblical Evidence for Catholicism — which answer them quite deeply and from a number of perspectives.
So, let me get to the questions:
3) Why does Mary have to be special?
Mary is “special” because she was chosen by God to carry, give birth to, raise and protect our Lord and Savior. As I said in my blog entry, the implication of all this is unique to her and makes her distinct from all other women in history.
4) Mary is just a woman = yes
I believe we are in agreement with this. Perhaps to put it another way: Mary is human, not divine. The point of the blog entry was not to suggest she was divine, or like Jesus (both human and divine). Rather it was to point out her distinction from all others throughout history, which many are content to dismiss.
As for point #5, when it comes right down to it, you’re right. But the vehemence with which some react to Mary, and their choice to focus on the doctrines ad nauseum, as though it were the foundational doctrines of the Catholic Church, in my opinion tend to do injustice to the Mother of our Lord and Savior.
To answer point #6 with any meaning, requires knowledge that we — mankind — are not privy to. There is speculation among theologians throughout history that, had Mary not given her unconditional “yes” to God, He simply would have found another means by which to save mankind. However, that gets into a whole other discussion that really cannot be done justice in this forum.
Hope that begins to answer your questions.
Pax,
Matt
Matt said this on May 14th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
GOT YOUR MESSAGE —NOT TO BAD FOR A START
ITS 3.30 IN THE MORNING SO I WILL GET BACK TO YOU TOMMARROW BECAUSE I AM OFF THATS FOR THE REPLY SEE YOU TOMMARROW
PAT
PAT said this on May 15th, 2006 at 5:50 am
[...] They just love to hate Mary – 2006.05.08 Time and again, those who disagree with the Catholic Church spend a significant amount of time and energy arguing against the Marian doctrines as evidence of the Catholic Church being {insert your favorite insult here}. But, even if, by some strange happening, the Catholic Church has something wrong about Mary, is it enough to invalidate its status as Christian? ~ [Click here to read the entire entry] [...]
CatholicSphere » CatholicSphere Retro said this on May 12th, 2007 at 9:31 am