Thought For The Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I’m sure Jesus has strong words for anyone who sidelines His Mother.
So rude.
The lack of secondary causality within the Nominalism of Protestant ideology is what leads to this metaphysical flattening out of the hierarchical nature of the order that God established.
St Thomas notes—in relation to St Dionysius’ discussion of how higher angels mediate knowledge to lower angels—that this order is suffused throughout creation, that God uses things to bring about goodness in other things. We see this in the angels, the Church, the family, I think in our own means of knowing the world, and even the ordering of the higher and lower aspects of our nature. In respect to the intercession of saints, then, that which is higher (the saints) is used by God to bring that which is lower (those not yet saints) to Him. This ordering would seem to be the only way in which St James’ statement about the effectiveness of the prayers of the righteous could even begin to make sense. True, on the literal level God cannot be “talked into” anything, but for a righteous man’s prayer to be “effective” implies an “ineffectiveness” of an unrighteous man’s prayer, and thus a real movement, so to speak, from lower to higher by means of an intermediary.
Within the nominalist rejection of essences outside of the mind is a concomitant rejection of secondary causes, and thus the aforementioned flattening out of the hierarchical order God created. It probably “seems” to many Protestants like rejecting the intercession of the saints is to give more glory to God, but whether intentionally or not the mindset of “just me and Jesus” is rather an overthrow of the order of creation and the Church.
Want to have some fun? Next time some anti-Marian Protestant starts in on Our Lady, ask him if he’s aware that Martin Luther prayed the Rosary regularly his entire life, and what that says about devotion to her by non-Catholics. They either have to admit they are wrong or conclude that their beloved Luther was wrong. Or they just try to change the subject, as usually happens when I have that conversation. 😇
I like the footnote on “all generations shall call me blessed” in the Douay-Rheims: “These words are a prediction of that honour which the Church in all ages should pay to the Blessed Virgin. Let Protestants examine whether they are any way concerned in this prophecy.”
Hans will never admit that the reason for 40,000 different Christian Protestant denominations is in fact due to the pride of so-called followers of Christ who incorrectly interpret the responses of the Jesus that they pray to. Go figure.
The Ape of God loves Han’s comment because nothing suits Satan better than division and muddy waters do nothing to strengthen God’s children.
Humility is the foundation.
Going to and through His Mother is a respect for God that Hans can’t fathom. The wedding feast at Cana, properly understood by Protestants, would of saved them the humiliation that they now have. That being no good explanation as to why they have over 40,000 denominations when Jesus himself prayed to Our Father in John Chpt. 17 that; All be one in Him.
Only Satan loves division. He has many was to conquer his adversary if they are divided.
Hans needs our Prayers.
John.
Chapter 17
The Prayer of Jesus.*
1
When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven* and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
2
* just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him.
3
* Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
4
I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
5
Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
6
“I revealed your name* to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
7
Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
8
because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
9
I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours,
10
and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.
11
And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.
12
When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13
But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.
14
I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
15
* I do not ask that you take them out of the worldj but that you keep them from the evil one.
16
They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
17
Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.
18
As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.
19
And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
20
“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
21
so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
22
And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,
23
I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.
This is how I look at it: Jesus is pleased when his Mother is honored and his Mother is pleased when Jesus is honored. It’s not as if they are in competition with one another, and Mary has perfect humility after all.
My go-to analogy for intercessory prayer is CPR. If I give someone CPR and God doesn’t want him to be brought back, he won’t come back. If I don’t give someone CPR and God wants to recuscitate someone, the person will be revived. BUT – there’s a non-zero chance that God wants my CPR to be the means by which the person is brought back.
The problem is the rise of the heresy of Nestorianism among Lutherans, Evangelicals, and Pentecostals. From the Catholic Answers web site:
Nestorius rejected the traditional doctrine of the Incarnation by implicitly denying the hypostatic union of human and divine natures in the one divine person of Jesus. This denial was characterized notably by the rejection of the title “Theotokos” (“God bearer” or “Mother of God”) for the mother of Jesus. He claimed that Mary was the mother of Christ’s human nature but not the mother of God. Thus, Nestorius concluded that only Jesus the man suffered and died on the cross, a logical but false conclusion on which these Protestants waffle.
Hans F: a word of caution to you:
“For he scatters the proud in the conceit of their hearts..” -Luke 1:51
“For what it’s worth. “