Apologetics, Bible

On Mary

29 Comments

I got a really creepy email from a Catholic guy who I’ve done prison ministry with.  He actually signed off on the email “In Jesus and Mary.”  He was encouraging people to go to a site called Holy Love, which has alleged direct revelations from Mary, other dead people and Jesus.  Indeed.  Here’s a sample from Mary:

Our Lady comes seated on a Throne. She is in white with gold ornaments on Her Mantle. She says: “Praise be to Jesus.”

“Today, you honor Me under the title ‘Mother of God’. I am the Mother of God, but also the Mother of All Humanity. I am the Mother of all who esteem Me and pray to Me. I am also the Mother of all who have abandoned Me. I am the Mother of those who live in error, those far from their salvation and all who promote sin.”

“My Immaculate Heart is the Chamber of Purification where souls can face illumination and conviction in the Truth. Not believing in the Truth does not change the Truth. Conviction of heart is a great grace in any present moment, and must be accepted for conversion of heart to take place.”

“Therefore, as your Mother, I call each soul into My Heart as I tenderly and profoundly call you to realize the Truth of where you stand before God in any given moment.”

Now here is one from Jesus:

“I am your Jesus, born Incarnate.”

“No one can be saved or come into Paradise outside of God’s Divine Will. So it is, through and in this Divine Will, I come to offer the path of Truth which leads you into the Light. If you pursue the Chambers of Our United Hearts, you will live in the Truth and obey My Father’s Commandments. So it is, I offer you a roadmap to Eternal Joy – a Joy beyond all telling.”

“It is easy to disbelieve and thereby discount what I offer, but disbelief does not free you of the responsibility to discover the Truth.”

“Today, you are experiencing much snow in your part of the world. I tell you, some hearts are ‘snowed under’ by error. Holy Love must melt away the error and help them to begin their journey towards the Divine Will. Be the instrument which melts the ice.”

They have hundreds of those.  You can’t take the Bible seriously and believe any of them.  They have Jesus coming to us regularly and telling us to pray the Rosary.  Sure.

CARM has lots of great resources about Catholicism, such as Roman Catholicism, comparing Mary to God.  This is a great list to study thoroughly.  Look how often RCC doctrine is the opposite of what the Bible says.

My challenge for Catholics is to read the Bible for yourself and see how few mentions of Mary there are.  The book of Acts?  One mention, and only to note that she is in the room.  There are zero in the rest of the official recording of the early church history!  Romans?  Zero. 1 Corinthians?  Zero.  And so on, through the rest of the Bible.

We should have the proper view of Mary, which is that she had a unique role and was an obedient servant of God.  But the veneration / worship commanded by the RCC shows how false they are.  I appreciate their pro-life and pro-family views, but their Mary-worship, indulgences, purgatory, justification by works and other heretical views can’t be tolerated.

Also see What does the Bible say about the virgin Mary?

29 thoughts on “On Mary”

  1. I like your boldness to call out the un-biblical admiration and veneration of Mary. I think too many people in the Catholic church, while well-meaning, have fallen for far too many false doctrines.

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    1. Thanks, Bret. I think a lot of them don’t even know what Rome teaches. They go to “bad” Catholic churches, in the sense that their doctrine is more Protestant-like.

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  3. I do not believe that we are to pray to anyone other than God/Jesus, nor have we any need to do so. But, as I am unfamiliar with them, it is my understanding that the Bible Catholics use has additional books beyond the standard 66. If this is so, could there be some support in any of these additional books of their for their unique view of Mary? And if so, wouldn’t they then be justified in their belief since, as they hold their Bible in the same regard, have reason? Just speculatin’ and askin’ here. I really have no idea.

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    1. The Apocrypha is the set of books that the Catholics consider part of the Bible, but they were written before Jesus. They use them to support purgatory and indulgences but not Mary.

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  4. The quick and simple. We so not worship Mary because worship is due to God alone. The word pray comes from old English meaning to request, it is still used in court documents here in the US, so we are nearly requesting that she add to our requests, much like when I ask other people to pray for me. Just because she’s in heaven doesn’t mean she isn’t willing to pray for us. As for the Mother of God, if she gave birth to Jesus and Jesus is God, and Jesus considered her to be His mother then is it not reasonable to say Mother of God? It is not implying she is greater than God or she created God it’s just acknowledging she is the mother of our Lord. As for the works part of your dismissal of Catholic theology of justification James said faith without works is dead. We believe faith is a verb that by faith Christ works through us, and that simply to say “I believe” and to do nothing is believing as the demons do(see James again). I suggest you check out http://www.catholic.com for the rest of your specific issues, you might come to an understanding of the logic and history behind our beliefs. In this time of great persecution and work of Satan we really should try standing together rather than tearing each other down.

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    1. Hi Jordan,

      Call it what you like, but it is worship. There is nothing in the Bible hinting that she can hear prayers of 7 billion people 24×7 in all languages. Just go to God.

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      1. Well I guess we’ll have to disagree since I know it’s not worship you know being Catholic and all, by the by if we worshiped her that would be idolatry which is against the 10 commandments and we really don’t like doing things against those. So I take it you never ask others to pray for you then you just go to God? I would also like you to point out to me in the Bible the words Holy Trinity, sola scriptura, sinner’s prayer, Bible, etc. Calling her the Mother of God was settled in a council at Ephesus in 431 it’s been around for a while. Luther was a huge proponent of Mary, so even the early Protestants loved our Mother. Do you have a picture of your mother in your house? When you look at it do you think fondly of your mother? Would you consider this to be worship? Did you ever go through your mom to get to your dad?

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      2. Yes, I ask people to pray, but they aren’t dead. All your analogies fail because of that. I’d stick with the Bible.

        Luther was right on at least 95 things but not everything :-).

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      3. Ok so you think the dead are dead and that their souls are not alive? My analogies do not fail I believe in life everlasting. I did ask you to point me in the Bible where it says only the Bible and nothing else, would you do that please? Also when you start your previous comment with “call it what you want but it’s worship” without providing any form of clear cut evidence in Catholic teaching that it is I could say all of your arguments fail because of that, but I don’t because that would not be judging each in turn. So if Luther was only right about 95 things and not about everything how much stock should you put into his theology? The dead thing really saddens me, I like the fact that while acknowledging that while their bodies are dead that their souls live on. Mmmm happy true thoughts. 🙂

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      4. Jordan, give it a rest. I know their spirits live in Heaven or Hell, but you have zero evidence that we are to pray to them and that they could hear us 24×7 in any language.

        Ask yourself (and don’t type it here) why there is zero in the Bible about this if it was so important?

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      5. In revelations you have the saints in heaven and the angels bringing the saints on earth’s prayers to God. Evidence. Important. Still no scriptural evidence for sola scriptural? If it’s so important why is there 0 evidence of it in scripture?

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      6. Sigh. Your first sentence doesn’t even prove your point. The prayers go to God, not the saints.

        Re. sola scriptura: You should educate yourself on what that term means. It doesn’t mean we only trust the Bible.

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      7. Yes the saints take the prayers before God also known ad an intercessory roll hence why we ask for their intercessions. Sola scriptura Latin for scripture only so it seems to be self explanitory. If you don’t just use the Bible why do you ask that I back up my statements with the Bible? How did the people do it before the council of nicea when the canon was laid down by bishops in council with the pope?

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      8. Nice try. Go study how the term originated and how it is used.

        The canon was not decided at Nicea. Not sure where you are getting your sound bites but you might take a more critical look at your sources.

        I highly encourage you to study everything here — http://carm.org/roman-catholicism , along with what Glenn shared. What do you have to lose?

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    2. “For Mary to guide and protect the whole of humanity and sustain all Catholics on their journey of faith, she would have to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. What supernatural powers would it take on her part to hear millions of prayers simultaneously in hundreds of different languages and dialects, to keep them all in her memory, and to answer them all by her power! Furthermore, it is blasphemy of the worst kind to ask Mary to obtain the salvation which Christ alone has already provided through His death and resurrection and now offers freely by His grace to all who will believe in Him. …

      “Both the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (approved by the Vatican) and the Second Vatican Counsel (Vatican II) refer to Mary as ‘the Mother of God to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs.’ Why fly to her protection when God’s protection is available? And if this Catholic Mary can indeed protect all Catholics from all dangers and supply all their needs, then she must be at least as great as God. Moreover, she is apparently considered to be more sympathetic than God, because at least a thousand times as many prayers are offered to Mary as are offered to God and Christ combined. …

      Regardless of what any individual Catholic may believe, the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the practice of the vast majority of her members elevates Mary to a position where she is at least equal in power to God and is considered to be far more sympathetic than He. No wonder, then, that Roman Catholics by the hundreds of millions perpetually offer prayers to Mary for every need and desire.”

      Dave Hunt, “In Defense of the Faith,” p.193-194, 197

      As Dave Hunt notes, all these powers given to Mary by Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma indeed makes a god out of Mary. The Mary of the RCC is a myth and an idol, who has nothing in common with the Mary of the Bible.

      You might also read my article exposing the RCC’s unbiblical Mary at:
      http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2010/06/mary-mother-of-church-is-not-mary-of.html

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      1. “Mary is co-redemptrix of the human race…because with Christ she ransomed mankind from the power of Satan. Jesus redeemed us with the blood of His body, Mary with the agonies of her heart…. The church and the saints greet her thus: ‘You, O Mary, together with Jesus Christ, redeemed us.’…

        God has ordained that no grace will be granted to us except through Mary. ….No one will be saved or obtain mercy except through you, O Heavenly Lady. …No one will enter heaven without passing through Mary as one would pass through a door…. O Mary, our salvation is in your hands.”

        Keith A. Fournier, “Evangelical Catholics”

        “Sustain us, O Virgin Mary, on our journey of faith and obtain for us the grace of eternal salvation.”

        John Paul II, “The Holy Father’s Prayer for the Marian Year,” 1988

        These examples of the Roman Catholic worship — yes, WORSHIP — of Mary show just how blasphemous and unbiblical are such teachings. Nowhere in the Bible will you find Mary being a redeemer of mankind; that office is held ONLY by Jesus. Nowhere does Scripture say that Mary “ransomed” mankind in any way. Nowhere in Scripture does it even intimate that Mary is God’s channel of grace to mankind, or that salvation is through her.

        Salvation is ONLY through Christ, the redemption of our sins is ONLY through Christ, the ransom paid for our sins was ONLY by Christ.

        Roman Catholicism has made Mary into a part of the Godhead, and this is pure blasphemy and idolatry. Mary was no more than a humble woman who was blessed to be chosen to give birth to our Savior. She was not born sinless, nor was she bodily assumed into heaven. These are stories the Roman Catholic Church made up. And these teachings are examples of why Romanism is a false belief system.

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      2. OK eMatters I’ll read that if you go and read either the Catechism or http://www.catholic.com and the dogma of sola scriptura means that everything necessary for the faith is to be found in scripture and there is no need for any form of Apostolic teaching ie Tradition. The problem with that is there was no canon of the New Testament until the a council of bishops with the pope said this is it. So if there was no New Testament prior to that point then how did the people know the faith? Paul speaks of both tradition and the old testament in his epistles. Glenn your first source is anti Catholic so how would he really know what Catholics believe? If God is the supreme being the Creator and is all powerful then would it be unreasonable for Him to give the saints in Heaven the ability to hear the faithful’s prayers to be able to add their voices to it? If you say that it is unreasonable then you are limiting God who is infinite. Now Catholics do not believe that the saints are omniscient, they cannot see into us as God does. We don’t believe that they are omnipresent, they are in heaven with God. We have not made Mary a part of the Godhead or a part of the Trinity (two concepts that the Catholic Church in council with a pope came up with), that would be making her a Divine person or being which is reserved to God alone. If she brought Jesus into this world by giving birth to Him, and if he is our Redeemer, and he brought us the grace of God, is it unreasonable to say that the grace flowed through Mary as she gave birth to the Redeemer. You are relinquishing her merely an incubator and the most important parts are that she said yes and she gave Christ his humanity. Try reading Augustus and Thomas Aquinas or the Catechism they explain it better than I can. You might also look into the history of Marian devotion and iconography. First or second century drawings of her can be found in the tombs of the faithful. To say she was not honored and veneratred from the beginning would be like saying that the Church got off the right path right after Jesus ascended into Heaven.

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      3. Jordan, of course his source is anti-catholic, otherwise he’d be catholic! You aren’t even trying.

        Your “what-if” is just that. It is NOTHING you should base such a teaching on AND it contradicts scripture in how catholics use it. Saying we are limiting God is silly.

        Appeals to early church issues means nothing UNLESS it comports with scripture. Perhaps you noticed that Paul wrote letters to the early churches correcting false doctrines?

        Rome has a different Gospel. Galatians 1:8–10 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

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      4. If you say it is not possible for the saints to hear prayers when they are with God and everything is possible in God and it comports with Scripture in Revelations then I would say you are limiting God or at the very least you are taking something very straightforward and bending it to suit your beliefs(hmm think I’ve heard that argument leveled before). Show how those early Church “issues” don’t comport with Scripture. In what ways does the Gospel preached by the Catholic Church differ from the one Paul have them. Do you have a recording of that Gospel that Paul preached to them since you know he hasn’t written it down at that point. Again you make calls to back it up Scripturally but there was no Scripture except the Old Testament before a council of bishops with a pope guided by the Holy Spirit said “these works were divinely inspired.”. Sola Scriptura is a self defeating theology since it cannot back itself up in scripture. Also in regards to Paul writing to refute false doctrines, he was pretty specific with many, if the devotion to Mary was as strong as history shows it to be, and it is evil and false, why did Paul never write about it? Why is there nothing in Scripture or in any writings by Christians condemming it until 1500 years after the Church was founded? Why do all the prior schismatic churches honor and venerate Mary until the reformation? Simply because it was an accepted part of Christianity.

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      6. So if the Catholic Church is false teaching back that up with the Scripture in the book that the Church put together. It’s amazing that you can so assuredly call it false when the Catholic Church has been on the same path since it was founded at Pentecost, minority groups split from Her she just keeps chugging along from now until the consummation of time the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Dominus vobiscum.

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      8. Why would I break free from the true bride of Christ? I was a southern Baptist for 30 years there is nothing at that site but hateful falsehoods and unorthodox teaching and a lack of charity http://www.catholic.com your baptism already makes you a Catholic come home prodigal son. Dominus vobiscum.

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      9. The truth sounds like hate to those that hate the truth. Hopefully one day you’ll realize that works-based false gospel is too tiring and you’ll accept the true Gospel. You can give up indulgences, purgatory, Mary-worship, praying to the dead, and so much more.

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  5. Greetings Eternity Matters,

    I came across your site a few months ago…and see that you have fine quality apologetics articles. You can really tango with the atheists! Anyway, I was wondering whether you would add my blog to your apologetics links (or however you classify links). As to who I am, I am simply a youth who has an interest in science and apologetics….This is the part of the “blogger swamp” in which I dwell:

    https://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/

    If you check out my link, then you will notice a lot of criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. And the reason being is that I almost converted to that religion and am quite familiar with its tenants. There is also a lot of ministry, commentary on social/moral issues, apologetics, etc…..Thanks for reading this.

    God bless!

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