Mary

[Arsenios]

Mary is dead and dust.
She wasn't resurrected, didn't ascend.
She's in Sheol.

Like Moses and Elijah?

Scripture please!

Jesus however is alive.

John 11:26
"And whosoever is living and believing in Me shall never die.
Believest thou this?"

I sure do!

Just my take on things. Hope it isn't off topic.

Oh it probably is, but the wounds of western Christianity's infighting between the Latin Church and Her illegitimately birthed offspring, the Reformation and its spawn, are deep and bitter, and the use of the Bible as a tool for debating doctrines is the camel that was swallowed from the Scholastics while straining the gnats of indulgences...

God Bless You, my Brother!

Arsenios

 

[PeaceB]

I don't understand ?

Double Post

 

[Arsenios]

prayer IS worship.
that is the thing I am trying to tell you all.

It is not -

We pray to one another...

Pray tell me true!

Have you never heard the epression: "Pray tell..."??

Lawyers pray the judge in court for relief, etc...

Arsenios

 

[W2L]

The argument is valid and i think the question needs asked. The problem we have is that in Catholicism, Mary is taking a place where God alone has already supplied our needs via the Holy Spirit, who is inside Gods children. Its like saying the Holy Spirits intercession for us in prayer is not good enough, so we need Mary to intercede as well. God never commanded this prayer and it contradicts the Word.

What he said.

 

[W2L]

Right. Only God gets the glory and him only.

I agree.

 

[W2L]

It is not -

We pray to one another...

Pray tell me true!

Have you never heard the epression: "Pray tell..."??

Lawyers pray the judge in court for relief, etc...

Arsenios

Allow me to ask a question of you. Do you pray to your Churches Bishop? Or any other member of your Church? If not, why?

I asked this question earlier but i dont think it got answered

 

[Saint Beloved]

Blergh I'm even more confused now.
My whole lofe I've been told one way which was fine now conflictions everywhere and fear! Hmm that's interesting ! Light bulb does protestantism reduce fear of God because we don't need to do anything but believe? But the puritans had fear so ugh I dunno anymore. I'm not an intellectual I can't discern anything for myself I can't trust any mortal.

 

[Victory-N-Christ]

Like Moses and Elijah?

Scripture please!



John 11:26
"And whosoever is living and believing in Me shall never die.
Believest thou this?"

I sure do!



Oh it probably is, but the wounds of western Christianity's infighting between the Latin Church and Her illegitimately birthed offspring, the Reformation and its spawn, are deep and bitter, and the use of the Bible as a tool for debating doctrines is the camel that was swallowed from the Scholastics while straining the gnats of indulgences...

God Bless You, my Brother!

Arsenios

Moses died before reaching the promised land .Deut 34:5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab,according to the word of the LORD.(vs 6 my paraphrase: he was buried but nobody knows where to this day)
2Kings 2:11 And it came to pass as they still went on and talked that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire and parted them both asunder and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
But yet we're not discussing saying prayers to Elijah.Mary was blessed amongst women when she was chosen to give birth to the Christ.Yet there is no mention of her being anything other than a natural woman.She didn't demonstrate any special gifts.She must have died and been buried otherwise scripture would have said differently right?

 

[Saint Beloved]

So if the pope is infallible when he's teaching because the holy spirit won't let him be in error and one of them or several of them were against us having the bible in our own languages to get to know Jesus for ourselves that to me feels like ripping away my older brother whom I've come to love because I wouldn't have that love if I didn't have the bible that comforts me.

If I became catholic would I have to give my bible up? To be authentic in my humiliation and fear dependent on community and obedient to apostolic authority?

My family would freak out there's no way I could attend mass or have pictures and rosaries and crosses in the house.

 

[Arsenios]

Allow me to ask a question of you. Do you pray to your Churches Bishop? Or any other member of your Church? If not, why?

I pray FOR my Bishop, and he prays FOR me, and the same for other members of the Church... We do not normally pray TO a person still alive on earth...
"Everything by prayer and intercession..."
How do you understand this passage...

I know this much - When I pray for myself, results are few and far between, and I find myself continually asking, like the woman petitioning the unjust judge... When I pray for someone else, the results can be rather startling... And when someone prays for me, I benefit greatly...

"For the prayer of a righteous man availeth much..."

Please call me Arsenios...

Arsenios

 

[Rhamiel]

So if the pope is infallible when he's teaching because the holy spirit won't let him be in error and one of them or several of them were against us having the bible in our own languages to get to know Jesus for ourselves that to me feels like ripping away my older brother whom I've come to love because I wouldn't have that love if I didn't have the bible that comforts me.

If I became catholic would I have to give my bible up? To be authentic in my humiliation and fear dependent on community and obedient to apostolic authority?

My family would freak out there's no way I could attend mass or have pictures and rosaries and crosses in the house.

Catholics have Bibles in English, French, Russian, and almost every modern landuage, unless you are a tribesman of some obscure Amazonian or Polynesian tribe you can find a Catholic Bible in your own language (and we are working on those other ones as we speak)
there are different levels of teaching, kind of like the President, not everything he says becomes law
same with the Pope, not every teaching is infallible, there are specific rules for what is and what is not

you can see that before the Reformation there were translations of the Bible or at least the Gospel in many languages
but after the invention of the printing press it was a lot easier to make books, that also means it was a lot easier to make bad books
like bad translations of the Bible, Bibles with things added or taken out anything
and the common man of that day could not read latin, but the common man of that day could not really read German or French or English either, high literacy rates do not really come about until the Industrial Revolution and then they start to get higher and higher
so because people who could not read were being misled by a few who could read and were using bad copies of the Bible, out of love for the simple man, the Church and State forbid unauthorized translations of the Bible
this was never a blanket dismissal, but was rather done in specific places at specific times when it was a problem
the New Testament was translated into English in 1582 by the Catholic Church and the Old Testament in 1610
even before this there were english translations of Psalms and the Gospels
I am not sure about the history in other languages

 

[W2L]

I pray FOR my Bishop, and he prays FOR me, and the same for other members of the Church... We do not normally pray TO a person still alive on earth...
"Everything by prayer and intercession..."
How do you understand this passage...

I know this much - When I pray for myself, results are few and far between, and I find myself continually asking, like the woman petitioning the unjust judge... When I pray for someone else, the results can be rather startling... And when someone prays for me, I benefit greatly...

"For the prayer of a righteous man availeth much..."

Please call me Arsenios...

Arsenios

Thank you. So we have concluded that praying to Mary is not the same as asking a living person to pray for you. This contradicts what Catholics have said on this thread.

 

[Arsenios]

Moses died before reaching the promised land .Deut 34:5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab,according to the word of the LORD.(vs 6 my paraphrase: he was buried but nobody knows where to this day)
2Kings 2:11 And it came to pass as they still went on and talked that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire and parted them both asunder and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

So they did not die? Or one did and one did not? Yet both appeared to John and Peter and Iakovos, yes?

So is our God the God of the Living? Or of the dead?

But yet we're not discussing saying prayers to Elijah.

I pray to him daily - He is the Patron Saint of our Church...

Mary was blessed amongst women when she was chosen to give birth to the Christ.

She is the Blessed Virgin, no question, and the Mother of our Lord... Elizabeth speaking in the Holy Spirit said so and it was recorded in Holy Writ, remember?

Yet there is no mention of her being anything other than a natural woman.

That is one place where the Latin Church and the Orthodox Communion of Churches disagree. The Latins hold that She was given a special dispensation of Grace at Her conception that none of the rest of us are ever given, and this we deny. Her virtuous life in our understanding is a consequence of Her very Person, and not of special Grace apart from us all. We commemorate Her Dormition, whereas the Latins commemorate, on the same Feast Day, Her Assumption. For us, her repose is dogmatically essential... For the Latins, her death is an optional belief, and her assumption is dogmatically essential...

You are right, she is absolutely a natural woman like none you have ever encountered, for She is the Mother of our Lord... No small matter...

She didn't demonstrate any special gifts.

She was pronounced, at age 14 (+ or -) graced of God, and blessed among women, to the degree that she conceived in Her womb Her own Creator and Lord... No special gifts, you say???

She must have died and been buried otherwise scripture would have said differently right?

Scripture does not record her repose, but the Church's Holy Tradition sure does... The Apostle Thomas was in India and late again, as he was before, to Her burial, and when he finally arrived, he asked to see her body to say good-bye... There was no body in the grave, but only her belt/cinch... That belt can be found on Mt Athos to this day. There are no primary relics of Her...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Thank you. So we have concluded that praying to Mary is not the same as asking a living person to pray for you. This contradicts what Catholics have said on this thread.

Please call me Arsenios...

We ask in prayer those who have reposed to pray for us, because prayer is our link to them, and we ask all manner of holy ones who have passed on to pray in our behalf, and to render assistence for us or for those for whom we are interceding...

The greatest intercessor to Christ for us is the Blessed Virgin, and we pray to Her a lot, in every Service, that She intercede with Christ Her Son in our behalf... It is the same as asking anyone else to pray for us, except for the fact that we cannot ask her face to face...

Remember Scripture: "They have no wine..." And She told Christ in their behalf... And He gave them Wine...

Arsenios

 

[throughfiierytrial]

You can start with these:

28 And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, 25 to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen.

And this is to prove Mary is without sin? David found favor with God...I Samuel 13:14
Daniel was called highly esteemed by the angel of the Lord...Daniel 9:23, 10:11 and 10:19
Are they also without sin.
It is one thing to be highly esteemed and full of faith in God...which credits us with righteousness...it is quite another to then say such a person has no sinful nature or is without sin!

 

[W2L]

Please call me Arsenios...

We ask in prayer those who have reposed to pray for us, because prayer is our link to them, and we ask all manner of holy ones who have passed on to pray in our behalf, and to render assistence for us or for those for whom we are interceding...

The greatest intercessor to Christ for us is the Blessed Virgin, and we pray to Her a lot, in every Service, that She intercede with Christ Her Son in our behalf... It is the same as asking anyone else to pray for us, except for the fact that we cannot ask her face to face...

Remember Scripture: "They have no wine..." And She told Christ in their behalf... And He gave them Wine...

Arsenios

Ok Arsenios, thank you.

 

[throughfiierytrial]

No. Jesus elevated her position. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Him.

Her position not elevated from human to something else...super-human...she has no supernatural attributes and no sinlessness...no...only one was that spotless Lamb.
Mary gave Jesus His humanity which He took on to carry out His work of redemption....you miss the big picture, the whole point, when you claim Mary was sinless...she is the human mother...the Holy Spirit gave Jesus his God-nature. You see He had to become human...He who knew no sin became sin for us....that's through Mary and the passage I cited was...II Corinthians 5:21

 

[Jipsah]

I dont get why Mary is prayed to. Dont get me wrong, im not here to bash Catholics, or to debate prayers. I just dont understand why we need Mary when we have the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Intercessor, the Teacher, the Lamp for our feet, and the Light of the world.

Do you ever ask anyone to pray for you? Most of us do. Why not ask the Mother of our Lord to pray for as as well?

 

[W2L]

Do you ever ask anyone to pray for you? Most of us do. Why not ask the Mother of our Lord to pray for as as well?

Well for starters i dont ask dead people to pray for me. Thats not what the bible teaches us.

Secondly i dont believe that other people are sinless, and neither was Mary. So its hard to compare Mary with other people, like you are attempting to do.

 

[Arsenios]

Ok Arsenios, thank you.

Thank-you, my Brother...

The Orthodox Communion of the Faithful lives in a vast prayer tradition spanning two thousand years. Paul was not kidding when he instructed the faithful to be praying without ceasing. The acquisition of prayer is one of the most basic and fundamental features of discipleship in Christ, and is at the same time the most exalted one, giving us from St. John the Theologian the Book of Revelation, wherein he reports that he was "in the Spirit" receiving this revelation from Christ...

So that when your progress in the Faith of Christ which He discipled to His disciples, there can come a point where prayer becomes all consuming, wherein the Apostles appointed Deacons to serve the Church so that they could continue uninterrupted in prayer for the faithful... How prayer works is a great mystery taking many forms... The entry into one's "prayer closet" is the isolation of self from the world for the sake of union in prayer with Christ... That is the meaning of eternal life - eg of "...knowing the one true God and His Son, Jesus Christ...", where that "knowing" means "union with" in a profoundly deep manner, as is does in an infinitely more shallow manner when "Adam knew Eve"...

Yet prayer is the basis of a Spiritual life, being an essential feature of repentance, and its acquisition in the sense of knowing (union with) God is Life Eternal itself...

It is a very big deal...

Arsenios