I was a Catholic for 25 years... The focus and devotion goes way beyond what you minimize it to seem.

"Changing the subject"?

You brought it up. You apparently thought that this appeal to your own personal experience verified your position when it doesn't.

How about not introducing the Red Herring to begin with, Etcum.

Do you care to be specific about your objections and whether they have any identity with actual Church teachings or are you simply going to stick with vague accusations and faulty generalizations?

Well, what you implied above ... and the following well known teaching ... are 2 completely different scenarios.

"as no man goes to the Father but by the Son, so no man goes to Christ but by his Mother" ...Mary is to be considered the Dispensatrix of all graces ... and that every grace granted to man has three degrees in order; for by God it is communicated to Christ, from Christ it passes to the Virgin, and from the Virgin it descends to us...Our Lady, our Mediatrix,’ ‘the Reparatrix of the whole world,’ ‘the Dispenser of all heavenly gifts. Mary is called the gate of heaven because no one can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through her.

You are a Catholic and you act as though you are not familiar with the focus and devotion I pointed out above?
I am not making accusations in an sense of the word. I am referring to a perfectly well known fact.

Act? Not at all. I am rather adequately familiar with Marian doctrine. I am familiar that all of those titles are prefaced with no insignificant amount of Biblical Theology.

What you fail to comprehend is that you automatically assume that "focus" or "devotion" to Mary necessarily excludes focus and devotion to God.

In any case this is an assumption that you have not even adequately set forth much less proven.



No you're not. You not referring to anything but some vague innuendo.

I'm still waiting for an actual salient point to be made.

Now you are just making stuff up and assigning the original thought to me.

Thus says the person who refuses to actually put forth a specific argument.

Whatever you say.

IOW:

Drama ... yeah... that'lll distract em... and faking quotes.

What you are saying is pure psychobabel. The assumption is yours ... not mine.

The whole line of logic would collapse without doublethink.
I will say that yours is one of the smoothest deliveries Ive seen. You are very good at serving up confusion in a way that convinces you that it is irrefutable.

EtCum, I am happy that you have had good fortune in your illnesses, but recovery, even of a miraculous nature, is not a testimony that everything you say is correct. Jesus healed ten lepers and only one gave glorified God, to which Christ said, "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?" God gives good things to all men, not just prophets.

Furthermore, whoever argues against the doctrine of saintly intercession from the basis of 1 Tim. is making a fallacious charge when he says that the man Jesus Christ being the "one mediator between God and man" means that no one else can be called a mediator in any sense. That is completely contrary to what St. Paul is actually saying. If you read his argument in context, do you think what Paul has in mind is to condemn the intercession of the saints? No, in fact, he encourages the faithful to intercede for each other in the same chapter, so intercession is not contrary to the unique mediatorship of Christ. Secondly, Paul also calls hinself a preacher, regarding which office he says elsewhere, "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?" So Paul in his own way reconciles sinners to God, which he says in more words in other places. The Holy Spirit also intercedes for us as is said in Romans, "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." We could find so many other examples of persons being mediators for others without contradicting Christ's unique mediatorship.

What is Paul actually saying?



So if you look at the thought Paul is actually trying to communicate, you can see that his statement is an elaboration of God's desire for the salvation of all men. He says, for there is one mediator who gave himself as a ransom for all, and that is the sense in which Paul intends to say that Christ is the one mediator between God and man. This has absolutely nothing to do with the intercession of the living or departed.

Neither can the prooftexts you provided, EtCum, be taken to prohibit seeking the intercession of the saints. In the first place he says to pray to the Father, in John's Gospel he also says that he will do whatever the disciples ask of him. These are not contradictory because the first counsel was not intended to exclude the second. Neither are they intended to exclude the intercessions of the faithful, which are commanded elsewhere. If you think it is sufficient for you to pray only the Our Father, that's fine for you, but I'm not going to spurn any intercessions on my behalf by the faithful, whether on earth or in heaven.

This is the reason I came into this thread. I don't think Irenaeus said the first quote. It appears to have been pulled from Chapter 8 of The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori. Liguori there actually attributes the saying to Ignatius, not Irenaeus, and it is not clear from the citation what work Liguori had in mind. Certainly it is not among the collection of epistles which, as far as I'm aware, scholars regard as his only genuine extant works.

Ok, Etcum. If that's not your argument, fine.

But IF that's not your argument, then you have no argument.

If you are going to actually put forth something coherent, we can address it.

Otherwise the only smoke that exists regarding the issue is the smoke that you're blowing.

It's a testimony to the fact that what Jesus instructed, concerning prayer, is all I need.
"wisdom is proved right by all her children.”
... Jesus

Jesus and the writers of the New Testament... and Old Testament ... never implied that one person cant Intercede for another in prayer. Paul asks for prayer and says to pray for good government so the gospel can flourish. That is not even an issue. None of them ever implied that the people they were addressing should pray to anyone outside of this earthly realm for any reason ... except God.

From what I read and have quoted above from Catholic leaders, the concept has morphed way beyond what Jesus described/ instructed. ... To the point where..., through a labyrinth of logic, it is now taught that without imploring Mary's intercession, there is no grace ... or hope of salvation... and that she is the one that must be approached / implored in prayer ... in order to access any of the goodness of God or heaven itself.

The concept of Intercession now justifies and is used as a spring board to justify a leap into giving power to the saved and down playing the clear, simple instructions of the one that saves

Conversely...
... Intercession used in the way that Jesus clearly, simply described ... and which I have tested, as the Scripture instructs us to do... I have found completely trustworthy. All the rest, as I have tested ... as the Scripture instructs, is just stuff.

If this is from what you have read a "quoted"(not that you have actually quoted anything except titles taken out of context to make vague assertions), then you have sorely missed the point. The above is not what the Church teaches.

I charge you to actually cite something in Church teaching, full context, which states what you are claiming that the Church teaches.

I'm not going to pick through that entire page just to try and glean from it something which you might be trying to say just to have you throw it back in my face by saying "that's not my argument".

I'm not going to do your work for you.

So I'm still waiting for an actual statement in full context which affirms that what you have stated above is actual Church teaching.

"the wife of the Holy Spirit" Where does the Catholic church teach this? I thought that she was the wife of Joseph. You do understand that conception does not necessarily mean marriage don't you. On the earthly level--the physical relationship does not mean marriage. Marriage is a life time covenant between a human man and a human woman.

The only time that I see marriage being used in Scripture to refer to God and humans would be Christ and his Church.
[quote]Ephesians 5:23--33 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband./quote]

Anyway, I was wondering where you got that from.