Precisely. How do we know how Mary viewed herself? ? We go to the word of God.
Mary viewed herself as every other human, but a bondslave of the Lord. Some interpetations state it as a "Handmaiden" Fully human.
The entire mission of Mary, according to Catholic theology, can be summed up in John 2:5. She points to Jesus and says "Do whatever He tells you."
The only thing I would add is that we can talk directly to Jesus. We don't need to ask Mary to ask her Son for us.
Yes, we can, and should, talk directly to Jesus. But what's wrong with asking someone else to pray for you as well? If I'm going into the hospital for an operation, and you say, "I'll pray for you," I am not going to say, "Don't bother---I don't need you to talk to God for me, I can do that myself."
The cake story was very interesting. You see, I don't believe that Jesus lets us add to the work of salvation.
We do. We believe that what you do will effect your outcome, for good or bad. Because while salvation is a gift, we don't think that you can simply sit around and say, "I'm saved, that's all I need to do." Faith without works is dead. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
I'll come above board here:
I don't believe that salvation is dependant upon our works and I want others to be free of that false idea.
We'll have to disagree on that one.
And, as mentioned, you cannot debate Catholic doctrine in this specific forum---you'll have to go to General Theology for that one.
I also want to check that I haven't misunderstood what Catholics believe.
We'll have to disagree on that one as well.
We have explained to you what we believe, and you have responded with "I don't believe that." Which is fine, nobody is asking you to, but it's clear from your response that you still don't understand the theology the way Catholics do.
Note that one of the above verses talks about the washing of regeneration, not the washing of Baptism. Also, note the role of the Holy Ghost in salvation.
You've actually inadvertantly done a pretty good job of describing how Catholics view the seven sacraments. A sacrament (baptism, Holy Communion, matrimony, etc.) is a
physical act which provides the believer with
spiritual benefit---or an action that God uses to impart grace.
But you still have to have the gumption to at least do the physical part.
And believe in the grace that is imparted.
But salvation is the gift of God. Therefore it cannot be by works.
Yeah, I think we got that part.
Message received and acknowledged. We disagree on the works part, but we do understand where you're coming from. Further debate on that specific topic is beating a dead horse, I'm afraid.