Why do Catholics adore, worship and deify Mary so much?

[theefaith]

A good tree!

Matthew 7:18
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

The fruit of the tree of Mary is our salvation! Lk 2:30 Jesus is our salvation!
Lk 1:30 Mary found our salvation!

Queen of heaven
In the line of david’s kingdom the mother of the king is always queen!
Jesus is king Lk 1:32-33
And Jesus is the king of heaven & earth & all the angels & saints, so Mary is queen of heaven & earth & all the angels & saints!

A Royal greeting!

Lk 1:28 is the only place in the Bible where such a greeting takes place!
Mary is of the tribe of Judah and the royal house of David the king!

God himself is greeting Mary thru the instrument of the angel Gabriel!

This is a Royal greeting of the queen of heaven and earth! Queen of the angels and saints! Mary is of the house of king David!

In the line of king David the mother of the king is the queen, as Jesus Christ is the king of heaven and earth and the angels and saints so Mary is the queen of the same! Lk 1:32-33

The mother of any king is automatically queen and rules half the kingdom!
The queen mother!

Lk 1:28 And the angel entered to her, and said, Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed be thou among women.
29 And when she had heard, she was troubled in his word, and thought what manner salutation this was.
30 And the angel said to her, Dread thou not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.

Mary is queen in rev 12:1 and heb 4:16
Mother of divine grace who is the throne of divine grace!

In order to show more clearly the purity of the honor which holy Church pays to the most Blessed Virgin, I will mention two contrary heresies, both equally injurious to the veneration deservedly due to Our Lady, One you of the heresies sinned by excess:
calling Mary the Goddess of Heaven, and offering sacrifices to her as such ; the other sinned by default, condemning all honour paid to Her.

The Church, who walks in the royal
road of moderation, in which virtue consists, condemned both these heresies, defining against the
former that no worship, sacrifice, or adoration whatever could be offered to Mary, as she was a pure creature ; and against the latter, that this holy Virgin, being Mother of God the Son, was worthy of special worship, infinitely less than that of her Son, but incomparably
greater than that of all the other Saints. To the first, she says, that the Virgin is simply a creature, yet so holy, so perfect, so closely united to her Son, and so much loved by God, as to render it impossible to love the Son sincerely without loving and honouring the Mother. To the second, she
says, sacrifice is the supreme worship of latria, due to the Creator alone, and the Blessed Virgin is simply a creature, although most excellent. In deed, in speaking of Mary, I call her more the creature of God and of her Son than the rest of creation ; because God created greater perfections in her than in all other creatures, and she had a greater share in the Redemption than all others, being rescued not only from sin but from the power and inclination to sin. And who does not know that it is a greater benefit to rescue a person from slavery before he is made a slave, than to deliver
him after he has become captive ! How far are we then from placing the Son and the Mother on an equality, as our adversaries falsely assert ?
It is true that we call her beautiful, and the most beautiful amongst creatures ; but she is beautyful as the moon, which receives its light from the sun ; because all her glory is communicated to her by her Son. Of herself alone, she is certainly unworthy of our worship, for she is not God. But when the great sign of reconciliation between God and men came and rested upon this holy Virgin by His grace in her Immaculate Conception, and after wards at the Incarnation, when God became her Son, and reposed in her immaculate bosom then, indeed, so great became the fragrance of this
Virgin that no other plant ever could produce before God so sweet and pleasing an odour. Nor will He ever reject the prayers that are perfumed
in this fragrance. We repeat that all this perfume came to her from her Divine Son. Jesus Christ is our Advocate, and so is Mary; but with this difference!
In right of justice, the Saviour is alone our Advocate, because when He pleads our cause He justifies His petition by show
ing His Blood and His Cross. And Mary by Her prayers intercedes with Her beloved Son on our behalf! Mother of our salvation! Lk 2:30

 

[theefaith]

Good enough for Angels!
Good enough for the Bible!
Good enough for me!

Hail Mary! Full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women,
Lk 1:28 blessed is the fruit of thy womb, (Jesus) Lk 1:42 Holy Mary, mother of God, Lk 1:43 pray for us sinners, now,
rev 5:8 and at the hour of our death, Matt 24:13 amen!

It is really God who greeting Mary with the “Hail Mary”!
Lk 1:26 & Lk 1:45

 

[theefaith]

From Genesis to revelation!

First promise of salvation!

Gen 3:15
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Total war: enmity

None of satans works are found in Mary, she belongs entirely to God!
Even consecration herself to God at a very young age.

Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Mary is the sign that Jesus is the messiah and divine, only God can have a virgin-mother!

Jn 2:11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

His disciples came to faith cos of Mary

Rev 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

Mary’s immaculate purity, and the queen of heaven!

Rev 12:17 Jn 19:26-27 our spiritual mother


1 kings 2: 17 And he said, Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king, (for he will not say thee nay,) that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife.

18 And Bathsheba said, Well; I will speak for thee unto the king. (Intercession)

19 Bathsheba therefore went unto king Solomon, to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand.

20 Then she said, I desire one small petition of thee; I pray thee, say me not nay. And the king said unto her, Ask on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.

 

[theefaith]

Mary is the great sign of the divinity of Christ!

Isa 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Matt 1:23
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Lk 1:35
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Lk 2:35
a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

Matt 27:54
Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

Jn 2:3
And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

Jn 2:11
This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

Rev 12:1
And there appeared a great sign in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

Rev 12:5
And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

 

[Desire Of All Nations]

I think this debate can be settled quite easily.

For all those who think that icons and statues are idolatry, they should keep believing that and move on.

For the rest of us that go to churches where icons and statues exist, we know that we’re not praying to a literal painting or statue so we move on too.

Everybody’s happy. Problem solved.

This is akin to saying "for those who think the LGBT lifestyles are abominations, they should keep believing that and move on. For the rest of us who know they are perfectly natural lifestyles, we know we're not committing a sin so we move on too. Everybody's happy. Problem solved."

Well, guess what? The God of the Bible is far from happy. And because i choose to believe what He says over the presumptuous, ignorant, and self-willed words of individuals who place personal traditions and beliefs above God's words, i am also pretty far from happy. No real Christian would make such an asinine argument, because real Christians knows the sins of a community affects everybody else around them. Did God not destroy the Pre-Flood world, Sodom, Gomorrah, the surrounding towns, and the Canaanites because they all thought their sins weren't hurting anyone else? I have news for you: sins that are committed by an entire community pollutes the very land that community lives on. So says God(Psa. 106:38, Jer. 3:1-2, Gen. 6:11-12, Lev. 18:24-25, 27).

When God said "don't make graven images", that means exactly what it sounds like: "no graven images". That's a pretty straightforward commandment that doesn't need anyone's opinions or interpretations on what constitutes idolatry. Using your incredibly erroneous logic, God was out of bounds for accusing the Israelites in Exo. 32 of idolatry, even though none of them prayed to it or bowed to it.

The fact that the statues are religiously venerated is what makes their very existence idolatrous in nature. That's why Paul said the 10 commandments are spiritual(Rom. 7:14). There is a lot more to idolatry than the literal act of praying or bowing to something, and this consistently goes over the heads of Catholics and Protestants alike because they want to reduce God's commandments to being rituals that have no importance. God's commandments concerns a person's thinking as well as their actions. The very 1st commandment prohibits idolatry because the other 9 commandments are always broken as a direct result of people placing their own will above God's authority.

Where it is true that Mary is not God, and the Catholics are not perfect...do not all good sons love their mother, even put her on a pedestal?

Did Jesus love His mother? Absolutely. Did He put her on a pedestal? Absolutely not. Jesus gave her the respect she was due as His mother and that was it. What He didn't do was elevate her to a point where adoring her became more important than obeying His Father. Christ Himself said that a human mother cannot be allowed to become more important than God(Matt. 19:29, Mar. 10:29-30, Luk. 14:26), and His own mother was not excluded from that company.

Whether you believe it or not, there are at least 2 recorded incidents that shows Jesus completely ignoring Mary's personal requests. One of them was at the wedding in Cana(Jhn. 2:4), while the other was at a time where Mary and Jesus' younger brothers came to speak with Him while He was already lecturing a crowd(Matt. 12:47-50, Luk. 8:19-21). Both Catholics and Protestants need to realize that Jesus came to put the Father on a pedestal, not Himself or any human woman.

 

[Cassandra]

and against the latter, that this holy Virgin, being Mother of God the Son, was worthy of special worship

Finally! We have a statement about Mary deserving worship!! I always heard it was venerate, and "we don't worship Mary". Well, you admitted you do.

 

[quietthinker]

Why do Catholics adore, worship and deify Mary so much?
They've had the wool pulled over their eyes. It's another of many attempts at eclipsing Jesus.....even relegating him to a position of unapproachable.....by substituting Saints, Mary, indulgences, penance and what not else ....all making Jesus as God's means of salvation insufficient.

 

[Grailhunter]

Well question also is, why are the Protestants so fixated on Miriam?
The people that have issues with Miriam are usually fundamentalists....Bible only? Well not really because they like to reach over the fence for things they like. And then complain and ridicule what they do not like or understand.

Protestants like weddings.....no requirement in the Bible for weddings and it was in fact the Protestants that first started the requirement for wedding if you want to be married....not biblical....are they going to stay in their corral or not? The first 65 years of Christianity and that is it. You cannot speak against slavery...women should have no choice who they marry and definitely know their place LOL get your wives to wash the feet of the saints...saved through childbearing? LOL And the world is flat! You guys have to stay in your corral if you are going to say, if it is not in the scriptures we are not going to believe.

Biblical verses do not have any relevance for Christianity to make a rule for weddings or to abolish slavery or a description of a round earth. Same thing goes for Mary....all that happened after the biblical era.

Some religions have lived the 2000 years of Christianity.....Protestants had a late start in the 1500's. There are a lot of things that have happen over the last 2000 years...No one closed down heaven, No one tied and gagged the Trinity....No one tells them what to do or say. A very active God in the Old Testament and the Trinity has been very active over the last 2000 years. Protestants recognize the first 65 years of Christian history and of God's activities. That is a theological choice and that is fine....stay in corral!

The history of Miriam has spanned 2000 years...still active today. All these shines are connected to miracles and it is hard to get number on how may shrines there are worldwide. But most of her activities happened after she was ascended to heaven that is after the biblical era....at this point witnesses number in the tens of thousands and I am one of them. And I love Miriam and pray to her. I am not Catholic nor am I a fundamentalist. My interest and education and research span the periods of the Bible...and up to this day.

I do not ridicule the fundamentalist beliefs in Bible only....I just think it is funny that they cannot abide by their own rules. Don't worry about Miriam....Bible only!

 

[Illuminator]

My question is: Why are anti-Mary Christians so obsessed with misrepresenting Catholic teaching on Mary (that even the reformers agreed with)?

 

[Bob Carabbio]

To correct to op, we do not adore, worship or deify Mary!

And everything about the ROman Catholic Church Corp. says that you're NOT telling the truth about your "Blessed Virgin". That you WORSHIP her is obvious to EVERYONE.

The Orthodox Catholics (that Rome tossed under the bus so that they could be in charge) have an INFINITELY more accurate version of "theotokos" than Rome does, even though the Orthodox version is overstated.

ONLY Protestants relate property to the MOTHER Of Jesus, and don't load her with meaningless "titles".

 

[Bob Carabbio]

Protestants had a late start in the 1500's.

Not true. The Roman Catholic organization became the FIRST PROTESTANTS in 1050 when they tossed the Orthodox Catholics under the bus, and took over the primacy in political Christendom.

 

[theefaith]

This is akin to saying "for those who think the LGBT lifestyles are abominations, they should keep believing that and move on. For the rest of us who know they are perfectly natural lifestyles, we know we're not committing a sin so we move on too. Everybody's happy. Problem solved."

Well, guess what? The God of the Bible is far from happy. And because i choose to believe what He says over the presumptuous, ignorant, and self-willed words of individuals who place personal traditions and beliefs above God's words, i am also pretty far from happy. No real Christian would make such an asinine argument, because real Christians knows the sins of a community affects everybody else around them. Did God not destroy the Pre-Flood world, Sodom, Gomorrah, the surrounding towns, and the Canaanites because they all thought their sins weren't hurting anyone else? I have news for you: sins that are committed by an entire community pollutes the very land that community lives on. So says God(Psa. 106:38, Jer. 3:1-2, Gen. 6:11-12, Lev. 18:24-25, 27).

When God said "don't make graven images", that means exactly what it sounds like: "no graven images". That's a pretty straightforward commandment that doesn't need anyone's opinions or interpretations on what constitutes idolatry. Using your incredibly erroneous logic, God was out of bounds for accusing the Israelites in Exo. 32 of idolatry, even though none of them prayed to it or bowed to it.

The fact that the statues are religiously venerated is what makes their very existence idolatrous in nature. That's why Paul said the 10 commandments are spiritual(Rom. 7:14). There is a lot more to idolatry than the literal act of praying or bowing to something, and this consistently goes over the heads of Catholics and Protestants alike because they want to reduce God's commandments to being rituals that have no importance. God's commandments concerns a person's thinking as well as their actions. The very 1st commandment prohibits idolatry because the other 9 commandments are always broken as a direct result of people placing their own will above God's authority.
Did Jesus love His mother? Absolutely. Did He put her on a pedestal? Absolutely not. Jesus gave her the respect she was due as His mother and that was it. What He didn't do was elevate her to a point where adoring her became more important than obeying His Father. Christ Himself said that a human mother cannot be allowed to become more important than God(Matt. 19:29, Mar. 10:29-30, Luk. 14:26), and His own mother was not excluded from that company.

Whether you believe it or not, there are at least 2 recorded incidents that shows Jesus completely ignoring Mary's personal requests. One of them was at the wedding in Cana(Jhn. 2:4), while the other was at a time where Mary and Jesus' younger brothers came to speak with Him while He was already lecturing a crowd(Matt. 12:47-50, Luk. 8:19-21). Both Catholics and Protestants need to realize that Jesus came to put the Father on a pedestal, not Himself or any human woman.

then why did God command Moses to make images?

such as the cherubim on the ark of the covenant exod 25:18 and the bronze serpent num 21:9

 

[theefaith]

Finally! We have a statement about Mary deserving worship!! I always heard it was venerate, and "we don't worship Mary". Well, you admitted you do.

the old English word worship does not mean adoration but it means veneration or venerable such as a judge being called you’re worship!

Once and forever: only God may be worshiped, I.e adoration!

you should leave apologetics to men for it requires thinking and not emoting!

 

[theefaith]

As the terminology of Christian theology developed, the Greek term latria came to be used to refer to the honor that is due to God alone, and the term dulia came to refer to the honor that is due to human beings, especially the saints. Scripture indicates that honor is due to these individuals (Matt. 10:41b). A special term was coined to refer to the special honor given to the Virgin Mary, who bore Jesus—God in the flesh—in her womb. This term, hyperdulia (huper [more than]+ dulia = “beyond dulia”), indicates that the honor due to her as Christ’s own Mother is more than the dulia given to other saints. It is greater in degree, but since Mary is a finite creature, the honor she is due is fundamentally different from the latriaowed to the infinite Creator.

Another attempt to make clear the difference between the honor due to God and that due to humans has been to use the words adore and adoration to describe the total, consuming reverence due to God and the terms venerate, veneration, and honor to refer to the respect due humans. Thus, Catholics sometimes say, “We adoreGod but we honor his saints.”

 

[theefaith]

And everything about the ROman Catholic Church Corp. says that you're NOT telling the truth about your "Blessed Virgin". That you WORSHIP her is obvious to EVERYONE.

The Orthodox Catholics (that Rome tossed under the bus so that they could be in charge) have an INFINITELY more accurate version of "theotokos" than Rome does, even though the Orthodox version is overstated.

ONLY Protestants relate property to the MOTHER Of Jesus, and don't load her with meaningless "titles".

Sirach 24
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition

24 I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.
25 In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue.
26 Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits.
27 For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb.
28 My memory is unto everlasting generations.
(I know this scripture is deleted by the tradition of men in the KJV)


The Dove, & rainbow signs of peace are types of Mary mother of our salvation who obtained peace for all men!

Song of Solomon 1:2
Smelling sweet of the best ointments. Thy name is as oil poured out: therefore young maidens have loved thee.
Oil heals and fuels the flame, and is the fruit of the olive (peace) so the name of Mary is our peace, and healing, and fire of divine love!

Proverbs 8:35
He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord:

And hundreds more, you will find in the excellent book by Saint Alphonse Lugosi the glories of Mary!

Lk 1:45 all generations shall call me blessed!

Actually this is an exultation of thanksgiving for having obtain thier eternal salvation!

Mary and all the saints grace, virtues, and merits are from God’s infinite goodness mercy and love and they end in the God glory!

 

[Illuminator]

In Scripture, the term “worship” was similarly broad in meaning, but in the early Christian centuries, theologians began to differentiate between different types of honor in order to make more clear which is due to God and which is not.

As the terminology of Christian theology developed, the Greek term latria came to be used to refer to the honor that is due to God alone, and the term dulia came to refer to the honor that is due to human beings, especially the saints. Scripture indicates that honor is due to these individuals (Matt. 10:41b). A special term was coined to refer to the special honor given to the Virgin Mary, who bore Jesus—God in the flesh—in her womb. This term, hyperdulia (huper [more than]+ dulia = “beyond dulia”), indicates that the honor due to her as Christ’s own Mother is more than the dulia given to other saints. It is greater in degree, but since Mary is a finite creature, the honor she is due is fundamentally different from the latria owed to the infinite Creator.

Another attempt to make clear the difference between the honor due to God and that due to humans has been to use the words adore and adoration to describe the total, consuming reverence due to God and the terms venerate, veneration, and honor to refer to the respect due humans. Thus, Catholics sometimes say, “We adore God but we honor his saints.”

Unfortunately, many non-Catholics appear unable or unwilling to recognize these distinctions. They confidently assert that Catholics “worship” Mary and the saints, and, in so doing, commit idolatry. This is patently false, but the education in anti-Catholic prejudice is so strong that one must patiently explain that Catholics do not worship anyone but God—at least given the contemporary use of the term. The Church is very strict about the fact that latria, adoration—what contemporary English speakers call “worship”—is to be given only to God.

Saint Worship?

Virgin Mary Appreciation Thread

 

[Grailhunter]

Not true. The Roman Catholic organization became the FIRST PROTESTANTS in 1050 when they tossed the Orthodox Catholics under the bus, and took over the primacy in political Christendom.

Not true or looking at it differently....LOL....You would probably upset the Protestants if you started calling the Catholics Protestants.

 

[Cassandra]

the old English word worship does not mean adoration but it means veneration or venerable such as a judge being called you’re worship!

Once and forever: only God may be worshiped, I.e adoration!

you should leave apologetics to men for it requires thinking and not emoting!

You don't tell me what I need to do. Simple fact--you got busted.
Perhaps you should be more careful in what you write.
Awfully sexist comment you made. I hold up pretty well.
You are the one who gets all bent out of shape.

 

[theefaith]

Why do Catholics adore, worship and deify Mary so much?
They've had the wool pulled over their eyes. It's another of many attempts at eclipsing Jesus.....even relegating him to a position of unapproachable.....by substituting Saints, Mary, indulgences, penance and what not else ....all making Jesus as God's means of salvation insufficient.

actually it establishes Jesus, He is the source of all merit, and all honor, veneration, end in Him!

it is God who does marvelous works Lk 1:49

 

[Bob Carabbio]

Unfortunately, many non-Catholics appear unable or unwilling to recognize these distinctions.

Because there really are no "distinctions", - nothing but dishonest Roman Catholic "Word Games". You go to your Mary thing for help, not Jesus. You rely on your Mary thing to Arm-twist Jesus, and Father God to give you what you want, and you load your phony "Blessed virgin thing" with all sorts of TITLES, when the only one that really matters is: Jesus' physical mother.