 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
Darlene
Member
| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania USA |
| Posts: | 868 |
| First Name: | Darlene | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Christian, trusting His love and forgiveness |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 5th, 2007 05:48 pm |
|
Hello Again,
I have almost completed reading "Catholicism and Fundamentalism" (whew) and read something in the chapter titled "Marian Beliefs" that I need some clarification on. I quote the following paragraph from his book.
"Second, Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces because of her intercession for us in heaven. What this means is that no grace accrues to us without her intercession. We are not to suppose that we are obliged to ask for all graces through her or that her intercession is intrinsically necessary for the application of graces. Instead, through God's will, grace is not conferred on anyone without Mary's cooperation." Pg. 279
Keating seems to be contradicting himself in this paragraph. In the first sentence, it seems as though he is saying that all graces come through Mary. That sounds a bit strange to me but perhaps I am misunderstanding his point or he has written it poorly. The second sentence seems to support the first one and is stressing that all grace can only come through Mary. That also sounds a bit strange to me. Is that what he is saying? Then, the third sentence seems to conflict with the first two. Now, he seems to be contradicting his first two statements by saying that it isn't necessary for us to ask for her graces (and that it is even ok if we don't) and also that graces can come from another source other than Mary. (I would suppose that he is thinking that graces can come from Jesus, our Heavenly Father, or the Holy Spirit) Yet the third statement seems to disqualify the first two statements. Now the last statement seems to imply that God is subject to Mary through His willing (allowing) it. That really seems strange to me.
Can someone please help me with this passage from Keating's book? Is he getting his views from the Catholic Catechism or is it just his interpretation of what the Catechism says? He didn't quote from the Catechism so it makes me question the validity of his statements.
As always, I appreciate your helpful comments.
Darlene
____________________
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
|
|
|
CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5347 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 5th, 2007 06:49 pm |
|
EWTN has an explanation of this teaching here.
The essence of the teaching is that all grace comes to us through Jesus, and God gave Jesus to us through Mary. Therefore, all that comes from Jesus (baptism, salvation, forgiveness, grace, etc.) came through Mary. In the same way, all that came to us from Jesus through Mary flows through the Church to humanity.
Remember that eternity is timeless. In eternity, the incarnation is still taking place, as is the crucifixion. They are timeless events. This is, of course, a mystery we cannot fully understand, but if you picture grace flowing to us from God, it comes through Mary to Jesus in the Incarnation, and is dispensed from the cross through the Church to humanity. Just as the Church is dependent on Jesus for her role in salvation, Mary is dependent on Jesus for her role as well. Just as the Church is not necessary but chosen, Mary is not necessary but chosen.
Mary is part of our salvation like the Church is part of our salvation, because that's the way God designed the plan of salvation.
You'll notice in the EWTN reference that Fr. Most quotes from Lumen Gentium #62. The Catechism quotes same reference in section 967-970.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
|
|
|
JillD
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Visalia, California USA |
| Posts: | 766 |
| First Name: | Jill | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | heathen, EvFree, Messianic, LC-MS, Catholic 2007 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 5th, 2007 07:05 pm |
|
That's a beautiful explanation! Placing all those events in eternity is nearly impossible to grasp, but it adds to their beauty and significance.
If Karl Keating had put it that way in his book, it would have been a lot less confusing. His take also would seem to feed the anti-Catholic bias of fundamentalists. I'm not sure the latter would understand what Rick wrote, either, but at least it's a more reasonable explanation.
Jill
____________________
"I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are our works! My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret." Ps 139
"Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men." Ps 140
|
|
|
brian
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
| Posts: | 803 |
| First Name: | brian | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | methodist, evangelical, anglican, catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 6th, 2007 01:10 pm |
|
| The problem I am having understanding this is that the passage said because of her intercession in heaven. While I like your explanation better it seems to be different. I have a diffcicult time believing he is talking about the same thing. He makes it sound like from heaven outside of time graces flow to us through Mary's parayers, which i do believe, but i have trouble believing that it is always this way or need always be this way. I understand that through Mary all graces have flowed to us through Christ, and that way she is necessary for us to receive him, and i understand that she prays for us in heaven, ut i do not understand that in the sense that right now the grace I receive from God through prayer or another means had to be channeled through Mary somehow other than the fact that she played the rolse she played in making these graces available to me in the first place, but I have trouble seeing how they still must always flow through her.
|
|
|
CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5347 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 6th, 2007 03:13 pm |
|
brian wrote: The problem I am having understanding this is that the passage said because of her intercession in heaven. While I like your explanation better it seems to be different.
Brian, I don't have a problem with what he said because I understand what he meant. I am certain he did not mean to say something that contradicts Church teaching. I don't parse individual words, but look to the entire meaning of a statement in the context in which it is intended.
If you parse the invidual words, I can see how you could think his statement means that God needs Mary's permission to grant graces, and that certainly would be a problem. I am confident that is not what he means, and he is talking about Mary's larger role as the source of all graces.
One of the hardest things for a person coming to Catholicism from a Protestant background is the ability to look at the "whole picture" and to judge things in their totality. You can't take an entire book and pick out a single word or single phrase and judge its meaning separated from the whole. Is there anything in Keating's book (other than that one word) that would lead you to believe that he thinks God needs Mary's permission to grant graces?
Most of the errors in Protestant teaching come from taking individual passages and separating them from the whole of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium. It all has to be judged together.
Keating probably should have chosen a different word, since he is in fact writing for a Protestant audience. Why don't you write to him and ask him about it? His web site is Catholic Answers, and he does answer personal email. Then let us know what he has to say.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
|
|
|
CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5347 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 6th, 2007 03:15 pm |
|
JillD wrote: That's a beautiful explanation! Placing all those events in eternity is nearly impossible to grasp, but it adds to their beauty and significance.
Actually, it is impossible to grasp. That's why we call it a Mystery.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
|
|
|
graceknowledgement
Member
| Joined: | Tue Jul 10th, 2007 |
| Location: | Bethel, Connecticut USA |
| Posts: | 23 |
| First Name: | Peter | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Roman Catholic with Protestant influence at early age, then Minister, ... |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 12:10 am |
|
Brian,
Did you ask and receive an answer? If you haven't done it, I may, because I, too, would like to have an answer on this.
Thanks,
Peter
|
|
|
brian
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
| Posts: | 803 |
| First Name: | brian | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | methodist, evangelical, anglican, catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 03:10 am |
|
Feel free. I thought about it, but I had a harder time figuring out which e-mail address to send it to, or I just sort of forgot about it since I feel alright about what I understand the teaching to be. But I wanted to. And to include a link to this page so that he could see what we were debating about his writing and he might know which parts and explanations we are getting right or wrong. Please let us know if you do.
While I agree with Rick that we need to look to the context at large to find the meaning of certain teachings and not take things out of context, I also think that words are important and that in dealing with theology with protestants, this subject should be handled with great caution. Not that he didn't do that, but that it was confusing to some of us.
After all, context is determined by smaller sections building on one another so even though we want to keep things in context, it is hard to just dismiss smaller sections we do not understand or just explain them away. In order for the big picture to be true, all the little aspects making it up need to make sense.
But from our part I think sometimes we need to try to understand the idea at large sometimes and then go back and piece together what the difficult portions are really saying.
I love the catechism because it takes you through doctrine step by step and is very well organized.
All the best,
Brian
|
|
|
BriarRose
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jul 20th, 2007 |
| Location: | New Jersey USA |
| Posts: | 29 |
| First Name: | BriarRose | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | LCMS;RCIA student&Candidate for conversion |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 03:08 am |
|
As a protestant Candidate to the Catholic faith, this subject has remained such a totally confusing one for me, up until recently--I loved your explanation, Rick, and understand how such a mystery can not be completely fathomed by us without direct help from God--but, this is how I pictured things as I read through your explanation of what Keating said:
God did not need a Mother for His Son, since He could have placed Christ on earth as a full blown adult, or in any manner He so chose--but, that was not part of God's plan--So, God chose one woman to bear His Son, and bring Him into this world--He chose Mary--God brought Jesus into our world through the woman that He[God] chose to be His Son's Mother--Mary--as it stands, now that Christ is risen, God could have chosen to distribute all of His Graces through Jesus, alone, since Christ is our Savior, and Lord--but, instead, He has chosen to 'distribute' His Graces to us, through Jesus, Who, in turn, 'distributes' God's Graces to us, through His Mother--so, in essense, we are to look to Mary, who will give us the graces that her Son has given to her--to give to us--and, Christ obtained those same graces for us, from His Father--
--From God, to Jesus, to Mary--to us. In reverse: from us to Mary, to Jesus, to God the Father--then, once granted to us from the Father, they go to the Son, then, from Him to His Mother--then, to us.
So, in effect, doesn't it appear that God, Himself, is involving His Son's Mother, Mary, in our relationship with Him through Jesus, BY involving Mary in that manner? If I've gotten that basically right, then, it seems to me that God is the one who has decided to involve her, and is wishing us to see her involvement as being sanctioned by Himself--
--and, since I believe in St. Francis de Sales' vision of the two ladders--one of which was being held by Mary--with Christ telling him to, "Tell your people to come to Me by this ladder, by way of My Mother."--in direct reference to His desire for us to use the Holy Rosary--
--then, for me, once the Church finally makes Our Blessed Lady officially "Mediatrix"[by making it a dogma of the Church?], I will have not one bit of problem with accepting her as such. What a glorious honor for her, as the Mother of Christ--the Mother of God--that God, Himself, is bestowing on her, by involving her in our lives with her Son, in that way--in my opinion, that is--but, I more than like my opinion, when it comes to this!
Last edited on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 03:09 am by BriarRose
____________________
The Blessed Mother said to Bernadette during the 16th Apparition, at Massabieille, on 3/25/1858: "Que Soy Era Immaculada Conceptiou."
Pax Christi,
Briar
|
|
|
Current time is 12:17 am | |
|
|
|
|
|
