These ASK ABOUT topics are focused on INFORMATION about new paths, rather than on sharing our personal journey. Please keep it to one topic per new path. This is a place for SUPPORT and AGREEMENT only, not a place to tell someone their new path is wrong or why we disagree with them.
agricola wrote:What I've been told concerning prayers 'to' Mary and various saints, is that it is just like asking your Aunt Sarah to pray for you: just because Mary and the saints happen to be dead, is no reason to think they aren't 'alive' in heaven, and fully able to pray for you there, just as they might have done while alive.
Well I guess as long as they don't see it as worshipping God it's ok.
I remember when I was under 10 reading there should be no graven images, very confusing when the graven images are right there in front of your eyes at Church. But I guess the same logic can apply here as long as they don't think those images are God. Who knows. I know I don't anymore.
I didn't take your statement as approving Catholics so much as I took it as expressing a degree of understanding of Catholic thought. BTW I shouldn't be the one in here explaining Catholic doctrines since my knowledge is purely theoretical - I DO have RC friends and I have ASKED about a few things - including the praying to saints/Mary issue, but that doesn't make me a total guru of all things RC by any means.
One can, in fact, understand what others think/believe, without necessarily sharing that belief or even approving of it. All of us here presumably understand what the coc teaches, for instance, but that doesn't require that we necessarily continue to AGREE with everything, surely? but we can - and should - at least 'see their point of view'.
From my own POV - well, this doesn't belong in an ask about Catholicism thread, so I'm going to take what I just wrote and start a thread in ask about Judaism, if anybody is interested.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
katisha wrote:
I am earnest in my search for understanding. When I became a member of the CofC I followed blindly. Now I like to know what it is that I am thinking about believing and I want to understand in the most total way I can. I have searched the scriptures and have not found where it says that Mary was born of immaculate conception. If it says that, then I definitely want to know so I am fully informed. I am not trying to be snarky. I have felt for some time that Catholicism is the path I should follow, but the concept of Mary is a block for me. If I can understand it clearly and fully, then I may be able to go forward with what I feel I should do.
I thought this group was Catholicism - feel free to ask. That is what I did.
Catholics, and many other Christians, have additional sources for their beliefs beyond the Bible. For Catholics, the traditions passed down in their Church are also authoritative. (I am Methodist. We believe in combining Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason.) So for a Catholic, the Immaculate Conception of Mary is based on church tradition, and there is no need for a Biblical reference. This is my understanding, as a non-Catholic, a Methodist who is comfortable with prayers to Mary.
Moogy
NI COC for over 30 years, but out for over 40 years now
Mostly Methodist for about 30 years.
Left the UMC in 2019 based on their decision to condemn LGBT+ persons and to discipline Pastors who perform same-sex marriages
Where can I find this in the Bible? I have looked but I seemed to have missed that part of the story of Christ's birth.
When the angel first appeared to Mary to announce the coming Incarnation, he greeted her with "Hail Mary, full of Grace . . " In Catholic teaching, sanctifying Grace is what we lack at birth due to Adam & Eve's 'original sin'. Mary was "full of Grace" and so uniquely qualified to be the Vessel bearing "God the Son" into the realm of humanity. Kind of a big deal, when you think about it.
But here's the real answer to your question, I think: Everything in the Bible is true, but not everything that's true is in the Bible. The Bible was never considered to be all-inclusive until the Reformation, which rejected church teaching as being (also) authoritative, leaving the 'Bible alone' (Sola Scriptura) for authority -- despite (a) 1500 years of historical church practice to the contrary, (b) the books of the Bible not having been written or assembled in the form of an instruction manual, (c) the logical necessity of human interpretation, and (d) passages in Scripture where the Apostles affirmed that the early Christians adhered to what was passed down to them.
HighLiter871 wrote:But here's the real answer to your question, I think: Everything in the Bible is true, but not everything that's true is in the Bible. The Bible was never considered to be all-inclusive until the Reformation, which rejected church teaching as being (also) authoritative, leaving the 'Bible alone' (Sola Scriptura) for authority -- despite (a) 1500 years of historical church practice to the contrary, (b) the books of the Bible not having been written or assembled in the form of an instruction manual, (c) the logical necessity of human interpretation, and (d) passages in Scripture where the Apostles affirmed that the early Christians adhered to what was passed down to them.
Now that makes sense. I never thought of it that way. Thanks.
Think for yourselves, and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."-- Voltaire, philosopher and historian
This is a pretty common misunderstanding. To Catholics, prayer per se isn't worship -- it's just addressing someone in Heaven -- be it an angel or one of the saints. Worship is a matter of intent, and we don't intend to worship the Blessed Mother (or the Angel Gabriel or Saint Francis or etc.) The idea that you might worship someone accidentally isn't really very sensible, assuming one understands the difference between the Creator and His creatures (created beings). Which would be all of us, including the Virgin Mary and the angels and saints.
FWIW, I think the message we mostly got from the coc is pretty whacked about what 'worship' is. To a coc member, 'worship' is planting your ass in the pew on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, and going through the required parts of 'worship'. Whether you 'like' it, or 'understand' it, or anything hardly matters (I had one coc member tell me it wasn't SUPPOSED to be enjoyable) - simply attending 'services' equates to 'worship' and that is what God wants of us primarily (maybe not ONLY, but primarily): attend regularly scheduled services, listen to a sermon, sing a capella, say 'amen' to a hastily composed prayer by some male person over the age of 10 or so and baptized, and drink a sip of grape juice and eat a chip of dry cracker. That's 'worship'.
Don't have fun. It isn't supposed to be fun.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
Whenever my mother would lose something (Which was pretty much everyday) She would say "Oh Saint Anthony come around something's lost and can't be found" Is that a Catholic thing?
