re: May the Blessed Virgin Mary protect Our President TRUMP and the beautiful First Family!

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One difference is we aren’t praying to our friends and family. “ Hey Mom, include me in your prayers if you want” is much different than bowing my head and praying to Mary.

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Interesting. What's the difference between...

"Mom, could you pray for me?"

and

"Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death."

At the end of the day, they are both a petition to be prayed for.

Everything else in the Hail Mary is either a statement of fact or quoting scripture.

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prayer
/prer/

a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship

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Okay but that is Webster's definition.

Catholics define it as:

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The Catechism clearly defines prayer as a "vital and personal relationship with the living and true God"

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"In a poetic moment, Pope Paul VI wrote, “The sun will never be dimmed by the light of the moon.” Jesus, as the Son of God, doesn’t feel threatened by love and devotion to his Mother. He trusts her and loves her and knows their wills are united. Mary, because she is a creature and not the Creator, will never outshine the Trinity, but always be a reflection of it".

Mary is our spiritual Mother. That moment on the Cross, when Christ gives Mary to St. John, and St. John to his Mother, is when Mary’s role as mother expands to all of humanity.

but Benotdecievedgal is going to change minds because of her opinion as she eats her Q Crisp cereal. There was a time that Beejon things and religious threads were banned here. Some people need to high tail it back to Voat with their crap. They poke fun of this site for being so 2004, don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out...

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed are 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. If you truly believe in the trinity than there is no refuting the fact that she is in fact the mother of God as is the fact that the Holy Spirit, God, and Jesus are one. I lived in Mississippi for 8 years, right in the heart of the Baptist bible belt and you would have thought I was on the same level as a satanist because i prayed to the Mother of God. I was told it was sacrilege to pray for the intercession of the Holy Mother.

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Right. They just add all that other stuff, like praying to saints and acting as if a Priest is Jesus' representation on Earth and can forgive your sins

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I just love it when non Catholics think they know what Catholic Faith!

The Priest does not forgive us when I go to confession without God. God is with the Priest in the confession as I am too.

Without the Priest having completed his Holy Orders he can not forgive my sins, it is through the sacrament of Holy Orders that he receives this and other sacramental authority and it thru the sacrament of confession that I am forgiven for my sins.

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Do you guys think God, Mary and Joseph ever had any threesomes?

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Nah, Joseph was textbook cuck.

Unfortunately catholics have "added a ton of man-made stuff into their teachings. Take the belief in purgatory as yet another add in that is not really in the Bible. Or a mortal sin that if you die without confessing to a priest you can go to hell. You are saved through the blood of Jesus not a priest.

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FooManChoo

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I greatly respect you as a commentator on this board, and always enjoy reading your theological perspectives. You never hesitate to declare your beliefs even when you know that you are going to get unnecessary and vile insults hurled in your direction. I consider you, sir, as one of TDs true "defenders of the faith"

We are going to just have to agree to disagree on this one. The arguments you put forth are mostly rooted in the premise that sola scriptura is a "settled science." And as you know, Catholics do not adhere to sola scriptura. So we'll always be at an impasse as far as this thread goes.

But that aside, I certainly believe that the barrier between this earthly realm and that of Heaven is not impermeable. The Bible clearly illustrates that it is not, and there are instances of beings other than God - both angel and human - crossing that boundary to appear before living humans. I certainly agree that the dead do not bear the burdens of the living, but that doesn't mean that they don't care about the living and wish to see us join them one day as part of God's family in Heaven. If not, that would seem quite strange, no? That they are with God in Heaven, a God that cares for us and loves us deeply. Yet those who are with him in Heaven have no concern for us at all?

And FWIW, I don't think 1 Timothy 2:5 presents any sort of final authority on this topic. Taken out of its full context, it could seem that way. But Timothy is pointing out the truth that Christ is the sole mediator who paid the ransom for our sins. Nobody else paid that ransom, and therefore deserves to be the object of our worship. Even though he mentions prayer immediately before that statement, I find the relation between them to be fairly indirect.

And that's all intercessory prayers are; petitions to be prayed for just as we'd ask the living to pray for us. We can set aside all the silliness that Catholics "worship" Mary and the saints. We simply hold them in very high regard as role models of the Christian faith. Do we find it strange or blasphemous when - in the home of our friend - they point out to us a picture of their grandfather and tell us how he was posthumously awarded the silver star for bravery during WW2, and that they admire him and hope to be as brave as him? Of course not. They certainly aren't claiming that their grandfather is a deity to be worshiped.

And in regards to prayers building up Christ's Church, I certainly agree with that. But in the end, the past, present, and future of Christ's Church will unite. I'd like to think that I've gotten to know Mary and saints a little bit before I meet them in Heaven one day (God willing).

I believe I've said this to you before, but when it comes to your posts, I'm always reminded of CS Lewis when he said that the faithful who are "at the center" of each denomination have much more in common than those lukewarm practitioners on the peripheries would have us believe.