(cont.) ...
StandingUp said:
Deity of Mary was already mentioned in the other thread. Some gasped in disbelief. What do they expect? Just a question of time
You have misunderstood the entire conversation, please go back and read it again.
folks are already working on co-mediatrix (whatever the semantics are).
"Working on" meaning "petitioning for a formal dogmatic definition", which we've done for the past century. As I've said several times before the title of Mary (which has existed for a millenium!) is
Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces, not "Co-Mediatrix". Christ is our sole Mediatrix of Redemption, this we firmly stand upon. But it was Mary who brought Christ, who is the Source and Fountain of All Graces, into the world and she who continues to bring Him into the world. Mary is the conduit through which all the Graces of God flow.
Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces and Co-Redemptrix is fundamentally bound up in Mary as the New Eve, as established by
St. Justin Martyr and
St. Irenaeus and many other Fathers when they establish Mary as the Reparatrix -- the untier of the knot of the sin of Eve (as Irenaeus puts it). It is prophesied about in Genesis (3:15) and the Gospel of Luke (2:35).
Nothing is being, or could be added, to the Deposit of Faith. God already established Mary, predestined from the first moment in time, to her glory as His Holy Mother, and raised her up into Heaven. We can do nothing to alter what God has already done, either to add or take away from it.
Your parenthetical remark, "whatever the semantics are", means you really have no interest in actually understanding what we are trying to say, you just want to use it to sound dubious and scary.
She's already assumed to have been born sinless,
Adam and Eve were also born without Original Sin, is there a problem here?
And? Is sin necessary? We have already established that everyone who dies before the age of reason has not committed any personal sin in their entire life. It is for that reason that the Church does not have requiem Masses for children, since they are already freed from Original Sin through Baptism and have committed no personal sin, there is no reason to say a Mass for their entry into Heaven since they are known to be there. Instead, the priest wears white, uses white candles, and celebrates a votive Mass for the family of the child, that they may be comforted.
Mary, through a particular Grace of God, was born free from the stain of Original Sin and, through the Grace of God, remained always in His service, never serving the devil, as was prophesied in the Protoevangelium:
Gen 3:15 said:
I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
Why do you seek to attack God for this Grace which He gave His Holy Mother?
Do you have a problem with virgins?
As were Enoch and Elijah and as we all shall be raised -- united body and soul in Heaven. Do you have a problem with the Resurrection of the Body?
hears 1000s of simultaneous prayers
And? Why do you keep thinking that the glorified saints in Heaven are worse off than those on earth? There are probably a million posts on this site and I can read any one of them I so choose. Is CT then greater than Heaven?!? Certainly not, as there can be no strife in Heaven
No one has claimed this. Omnipresence is a incommunicable attribute of God.
intercessor between believer and Christ
And so is everyone who prays for another, why do you have a problem with intercessory prayer?
You already said this above under "Mediatrix of All Grace".
The only thing she didn't do was descend into hell, which puts her above her son, btw.
If Mary died, then she descended into Hades. A few people have postulated that she did not die because death is a consequence of Original Sin, but this is contrary to tradition, the apocryphal accounts are that she remained asleep for three days, just as did Her Divine Son. Either way, her death was not a punishment for of Original Sin, just as Christ's was not.
Your statement here, "which puts her above her son, btw", means that you believe that Christ's descent into Hades was a
punishment, which is blasphemous. Christ did not descend in defeat but in triumph! Christ died in order to conquer death.
St. John Chrysostom said:
By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.
O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominion
Unto ages of ages.
Amen.
StandingUp said:
Christ was crucified for me. Not Mary. Not Paul. Not Peter.
1Cor 1:12-14 said:
Now this I say, that every one of you saith: I indeed am of Paul; and I am of Apollo; and I am of Cephas; and I of Christ. 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul then crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Yet Protestants insist on naming themselves after their heresiarchs -- Lutherans, Calvinists, Wesleyans (Methodists), etc -- why?
St. Athanasius said:
For let them not excuse themselves; nor retort their disgrace on those who are not as they, calling Christians after the names of their teachers, that they themselves may appear to have that Name in the same way. Nor let them make a jest of it, when they feel shame at their disgraceful appellation; rather, if they be ashamed, let them hide their faces, or let them recoil from their own irreligion. For never at any time did Christian people take their title from the Bishops among them, but from the Lord, on whom we rest our faith. Thus, though the blessed Apostles have become our teachers, and have ministered the Saviour's Gospel, yet not from them have we our title, but from Christ we are and are named Christians. But for those who derive the faith which they profess from others, good reason is it they should bear their name, whose property they have become.
...
[W]hen Alexander of blessed memory had cast out Arius, those who remained with Alexander, remained Christians; but those who went out with Arius, left the Saviour's Name to us who were with Alexander, and as to them they were hence-forward denominated Arians. Behold then, after Alexander's death too, those who communicate with his successor Athanasius, and those with whom the said Athanasius communicates, are instances of the same rule; none of them bear his name, nor is he named from them, but all in like manner, and as is usual, are called Christians. For though we have a succession of teachers and become their disciples, yet, because we are taught by them the things of Christ, we both are, and are called, Christians all the same. But those who follow the heretics, though they have innumerable successors in their heresy, yet anyhow bear the name of him who devised it. Thus, though Arius be dead, and many of his party have succeeded him, yet those who think with him, as being known from Arius, are called Arians. And, what is a remarkable evidence of this, those of the Greeks who even at this time come into the Church, on giving up the superstition of idols, take the name, not of their catechists, but of the Saviour, and begin to be called Christians instead of Greeks: while those of them who go off to the heretics, and again all who from the Church change to this heresy, abandon Christ's name, and henceforth are called Arians, as no longer holding Christ's faith, but having inherited Arius's madness.
How then can they be Christians, who for Christians are Ario-maniacs? Or how are they of the Catholic Church, who have shaken off the Apostolical faith, and become authors of fresh evils?
It is no defense to say, "But I do not follow Arius, he was wrong, but John Calvin/Martin Luther/[any of the thousands of heresiarchs] is right so I follow him!" or even, as many say today, "I follow neither the Catholic Church, nor Arius, nor Luther, nor anyone, but instead I create my own religion!" -- heresies are "the blind leading the blind" but that's just the blind man stumbling about on his own as did the pagans who prayed "to the unknown god".
The apostles and early church did not teach in any form or shape the idea that we should invoke the deceased.
Well, they teach that the saints pray for us in Heaven and they teach that we should ask one another to pray for us. It is no great leap of the imagination to ask the saints in Heaven to pray for us! Even if there is no direct prayer to the saints in the epistles, the practice dates to at least as far back as the second century and is well established all around the world. Only the occasional heretic like Jovianus, who St. Jerome wrote against, popped up until the Protestant rebellion when heresies flourished like an infection.
But what about Mary? See Jer. 44 if you really want an explanation.
What has Mary to do with Asherah or Hera or Frejya or any other pagan goddess?
Mary full of grace. Stop there.
Hail, Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
We must pray for our souls now and also for the grace of final perseverance, lest everything we have fought and lived for be lost in hell.
But we were warned of wolves entering in.
Yes, the heresiarchs you follow who seek to draw souls away from the Catholic Church, which God established!
Folks want to worship Mary in every way but semanticly, have at it.
Those things which you list have nothing to do with giving divine worship to Mary, which we abhor. One of those things, omnipresence, we do not even claim since it is peculiar to God alone. You also keep saying that you list these things but have no real interest in what they mean, you show your ignorance. You keep repeating the reference to the goddess Asherah, yet what connection is there between the Mother of God and a pagan goddess? You think by mere repetition and association, you can make some people think there is a connection?
The goddess Asherah is false, the Most Holy Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, is true.
As for me and my household, we'll follow the Lord God through His Son Jesus Christ.
So you claim, but without true worship or the Sacraments or orthodox bishops to follow who were established to lead the Church which Christ founded for the salvation of the world, how do you propose to do this?
1 Tim. 2:5 For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
Hbr. 12:24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than [that of] Abel.
One mediator. Not from me to deceased Mary to Jesus to God. One mediator.
The verses are right, your reading is wrong. The passage in Hebrews right there says, "Jesus the mediator of the new covenant" not "Jesus the only person who is allowed to pray". One misreading of a verse does not overturn dozens of other verses which clearly indicate the need to pray for one another. Nor does it overturn our imperative to be crucified with Christ on our own crosses joined with His.
For unless we act as co-redemptors, mediators of Grace and advocates, as Mary did and still does in a unique way, we will not be saved. 
