Angela53510:
"So, is Mary God? Or is she a person?" Mary is not a god. Nor is she "just" a person.
"Mary, even if she was magically “assumed” into heaven, she does not have the ability to hear, let alone take all those millions of daily requests to God."
People who die in a state of grace in God's eyes are assumed to be brought into His presence for eternity. Please provide your evidence (that means biblical or theological documentation -- with citations) to support your assertion: "she does not have the ability to hear, let alone take all those millions of daily requests to God." A theological reference would necessarily be from an individual accepted by the academic theological or prominent religious community as possessing the necessary accreditation to examine thoroughly such arguments. This does not include someone who posts on a blog or Youtube unless they, too, possess academic accreditation. My arguments, with biblical and theological references support the opposite view. Your turn to demonstrate that your assertions are not merely a projection of your personal biases on a matter of theology.
Provide your evidence to support that statement.
You also wrote: "This is the essence of why Mariology is a lie from the devil, enslaving millions of people in a system where prayers are not properly sent to God, but a mere person, with no ability to hear or answer prayers."
Angela, You and I are "mere" persons. But Mary, most certainly, is not.
The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of grace." Luke 1:28-30 (KJV): "(28) And the angel came in unto her [Mary], and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured [full of grace], the Lord is with thee: blessed [blest] art thou among women. … (30) And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God." How could Mary be "full of grace" prior to Christ's death on the cross? To become the mother of the Saviour, Mary was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role. According to the Catholic Catechism, The "splendour of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son." The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him in love." All people were born in sin. But only one person -- in His infinite wisdom, His infinite love, and His infinite power -- could make the vessel chosen to give birth to His only Son free from sin from conception, and therefore worthy to bear that Son.
I dare say that neither you nor I, as "mere" persons, has ever had the Archangel Gabriel, God's messenger, tell us that we are "full of grace."
You also wrote: "Or, some ridiculous system where people cannot pray to God for their requests and needs, and end up praying to someone with no power, no ability to answer prayer, and indeed who keeps them away from the real God."
The Catholic Church specifically teaches that God alone is worthy of worship. However, there are those among us who, because of their heroic virtue, are deserving of acclaim and honour. There are three degrees of religious respect in Roman Catholic theology. They go by specific names: Latria, Dulia, and Hyperdulia. [Dr. E.A. Livingstone (ed), Oxford Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church, (2013, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK), pp. 174, 274, & 328]. Thomas Aquinas [Summa Theologiae, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae Partis), 103:3 -- at the Guttenberg Library] bases the distinction on the difference between God's supreme dominion and that which one man may exercise over another.
Latria is worship. It is the worship that is due only to God. Dulia is not worship. It is honour or veneration. Dulia is what is given to the saints -- they are given the honour that is due to them. As part of this, people ask them for things, primarily for their intervention on our behalf before God. It can be compared to a mere person asking a lawyer to speak on his or her behalf before the court and the judge.
Hyperdulia (to put it simply, lots and lots of dulia) is the honour given to Mary because she is unique among all God’s creation. She is the only created being who was honoured by God so greatly that his Son took his flesh from her. She has a totally unique place of honour in Heaven and therefore also among all of God’s people on earth. The honour given her, therefore, and the dulia she is given is higher than any other being. But it is not latria. The Catholic Church is very clear about that: Catholics do not worship Mary. Repeat after me: "Catholics do not worship Mary." They pray to her to ask her to intercede before God on their behalf. And they do so because of her status, not as a "mere person," but as the mother of Jesus, and because God granted her the status of being full of grace.
Pope John Paul II used the title "Mediatrix" several times, and in his encyclical
Redemptoris Mater, he wrote: "The maternal role of Mary towards people in no way obscures or diminishes the unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power: it is mediation in Christ. ... Mary's mediation is intimately linked with her motherhood. ... Through this fullness of grace and supernatural life she was especially predisposed to cooperation with Christ, the one Mediator of human salvation. And such cooperation is precisely this mediation subordinated to the mediation of Christ." This is not blasphemy since the status of Mary as intervenor is clearly subordinate to both Jesus and the Father -- not a joint- or co- anything. [
Papal Encyclical of 25 March 1987].
There is nothing in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that says people cannot pray directly to God. The best example of that is the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), said by Protestants and Catholics alike. Surely you must of heard of it. This should be understood clearly: the hyperdulia and dulia given by Catholics to Mary and the saints is ultimately honour given to God -- not for who they are, but for who God made them to be. This directing prayers of intercession to Mary and the saints, of course, does not preclude anyone from praying directly to God. [
Catholic Encyclopedia]
"This is the essence of why Mariology is a lie from the devil." There is no "Mariology" in the Catholic Church for the reasons I've outlined above. If you are unable to understand the reasoning and accept the evidence presented, that is not my fault. I acknowledge the Catholic Church has committed some horrendous acts in its history, and that is strongly supported by historical evidence. But personal biases and distorting facts to suit the laughable assertion of Mariology is beyond the pale.
