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Doc: "holier"

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1) You and I will grasp that one might be "holier" while fasting and praying than when busy and distracted.

2) It is entirely possible to take on the surface what Tradition shares and misunderstand it by reading the history of the debate about "works" into it, as a Protestant. Doing that leaves one with the impression that the Orthodox value the chastity as a kind of earning of "holier"-ness. But, take it another way, that the chastity was an outgrowth of sanctity, and you have something that you can understand better.

BTW - Don't feel bad for Joseph. He was remarried to a wonderful woman, already had hids of his own from his previous wife, and had a very interesting, neet boy named Jeshuah.

Fini

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43 The next day He decided to leave for Galilee. Jesus found Philip and told him, "Follow Me!" 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the One of whom Moses wrote in the law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth!" 46 "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Nathanael asked him. "Come and see," Philip answered.

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The only thing that concerns me about someone's opinion that Mary never had sex is the SIGNIFICANCE they might attach to it -- like she was "holier" for not having had it than if she did have it.

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The SIGNIFICANCE that is added is a modern lens through which we peer at ancient peculiarities. Shall we dig up the graves of the theologians and priests and other ancients who were merely using reason to theologize through the virgin birth so they themselves could better BELIEVE that Christ is really God…should we dig them up and take issue with them for not bearing in mind the complications their theology creates for us who are born 600 years later.

I believe what Al is getting at here is that the virtue lies in the response to the calling—the calling being abstinence—abstinence being the tool that rids us of distraction from God. Which would look more like the call (virgin)=holy . Interpreted: The call and the answer to the call is what leads to sanctity and holiness. The particularity of the call noted in ( ), which in this occasion is chastity and in other cases would be China missions, service, preaching the word . Each would result in or = a particular kind (strain) of holiness.

And so instead of prima facia resonating with the call (virgin)=holy but instead assuming virgin=holy, no offense but that demonstrates a certain measure of “offense at chastity”—which is precisely what Al is talking about and Greg demonstrated. Perhaps I’m reading into things here.

I also don’t get why Greg, you would insist upon it being none of our business about what Mary did or did not do. It is anyone’s business insofar as it bears on pointing me or anyone else in the world to faith. Mary understood that being the mother of God involved being a servant to the world.

I mean no disrespect or arguementativness at any point in my post but I am in a sort of puzzled state of mind about the whole trajectory of my most recent interaction on here, because it seems to be worlds and lifestyles different than it was when I last posted—about 6 months ago. I’m wondering if I came back in 6 more months, I would find Greg who I used to know as an open and vulnerable person arguing for the ethic of privacy as though it were the 1st commandment. Or maybe writer dad will have exchanged his ax grinder for a sunshine spreading machine. (Yo dad, if you see this, I mean it in fun as I too have a slight tendency toward ax grinding and work with those that do too *sigh*)

Just a little confused.


Psalm 103:13,14
Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.


Edited by - dust on 11/04/2002 3:05:08 PM

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Thread: "Why don't we (protestants)call mary blessed?"

PotOnWheel
Zosima
665 Posts Posted - 12/14/2001 : 06:47:31 AM
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"More honorable than the Cherubim
and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim.
You gave birth to God the Word.
True Theotokos (God bearer) we magnify you!"

(Orthodox vesperal hymn)

= = = = = = = =

What shall we offer you, O Christ,
who for our sakes has appeared on earth as a man?
Every creature made by you offers You thanks,
the angels offer You a hymn;
the heavens a star; the magi gifts;
The shepherds, their wonder; the earth its cave;
the wilderness, the manger;
and we offer You a virgin mother.
O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!

(Orthodox hymn, The Nativity of our Lord, Dec 25, Vespers)

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ModesofThought
Zosima
USA
531 Posts Posted - 12/14/2001 : 4:29:12 PM
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I have no problem with calling Mary blessed. Nor do I think it a problem to call her the Mother of God. As POW hinted, much confusion and misunderstanding surrounds these issues in interdenominational coversations. People get the idea that Catholics worship saints like they do God and that causes much of the tension. Language is much more nuanced than that, as POW indicated. I have much more trouble with anti-catholic or anti-orthodox reductionistic rhetoric than I do with the practices that these people object to. Personally, I think that the church needs to recover icons and sacramental theology if it expects to thrive in the post-modern era. "High Church" services are doing quite well lately, from what I have been hearing.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

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PotOnWheel
Zosima
665 Posts Posted - 12/14/2001 : 5:43:59 PM
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Both faithfullservent and rb1963b mentioned who to pray to. Pray to God.

We can, though, pray WITH other Christians. Living and dead. Just open your hymn book and see all the references to "saints on earth and in heaven." Calvin wrote something about saints in heaven having better things to do--specifically the work of the church--than being involved with petty requests. But when we JOIN the whole Church in the prayers of the Church we join both the "Church militant" AND the "Church triumphant."

Looking carefully at Orthodox liturgy I find that ALL prayer is addressed to God! The mention of the Theotokos is a joining, and not only with her but with ALL the church:


(ending the "Litany of Supplication")

"Commemorating our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and each other, and all our lie unto Christ our God.

to Thee, O Lord

Through the grace and compassions of Thine only begotten Son, with Whom Thou art blessed, together with Thine all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.

Amen.


The ONLY mediator in that prayer is Christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 12/14/2001 5:47:06 PM

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Having said this, while there is some nonsense associated with the idea that anyone who holds to absolute truth is intolerant, it is also true that some who hold to absolute truths are so closed minded and rude that they sometimes deserve the label "intolerant." I think it is a sort of euphemism for "narrow minded" and "self-righteous", and in many cases it fits.

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And THAT, my friend, is what concerns me. If Jospeh and Mary infact never copulated, then the only issue I have is why the text seems to suggest that they did.

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To me, it also matters what those who BOTH read the text and knew the oral and semi-contemporary texts thought of the text/ I think this bears on the creedability of both the tradition's claims, and Doc's argued possition. Why would those close to the time, who accepted tradition (and they did) also read the text and not see in it what some Protestants of the last 400 years believe they see.

Doc, you even say above that you believe that the text says that they "copulated." OK, you say "seems to suggests." I'll back off --half way. But it seems sure that those passing on tradition, who had as text both that tradition and the cannon do not appear to be stressed over any dissonance. I guess this says, at least, that it is possible to affirm certain values and not feel at odds with the texts.

Doc, you also say:

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My concern is that those who suppose she never had sex FOR THE REASONS THE TRADITION HAVE GivEN and that this points to "the world of faith" have unbiblical view of sex in marriage.

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Maybe you already know what stump I'm going to stomp. The RCC has sex problems, which what, stem back to Augustine. And those, it seems to me, are also wrapped in the fabric of humanity and woven into the can't-with and can't-without of gender and relationships. Not serprisingly, such taboos do not follow strict geographic lines or time lines. But, in general, and liturgically in particular, the Orthodox Church has a much healthier teaching and practice on sex. They, so they seem, have a VERY Biblical view.

So, while your own, American experience, and Catholic culture (I teach in a convent, remember!) fit what I've clipped... That does not cover all of those who hold to the tradition that you won't hold.

Nothing beyond that is my business. You affirm some good, affirmable things. I'm happy.

BTW -- the way my sister-in-law would say it (the one who's husband will not remarry if she dies), Mary had a very close relationship not just with her baby, but with God-in-the-flesh. For her, perhaps especially as a woman, it is very easy to begin imagining embracing God deeply, and growing to embrace all those God embraces. To suffer as your son suffers. To be pierced of heart, but to also continue to be open and upholding. You know the catacomb art of the "Orant" -- the woman with arms upraised, embracing and worshiping. That is an icon of such worship. An architype of the feminine. (The masculine architype in Orthodoxy is John the Baptist, who expresses his masculinity possitively by decreasing that he might increase. A very secure guy, we might say. But also transforms masculinity into relationship with God--not contradicting it, but transfiguring it.)

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orant (orans) figure : a standing figure with both arms raised. This was a gesture of prayer in the Early Christian period. (Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture)

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And the famous one at: faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/gaddis/HST354/Jan14/orant.jpg


Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 11/06/2002 11:57:35 PM

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Doc: I’m taking a pounding here! What’s with this thread!!!! BBB, I love principles and love people without compromise. Do you deny that some who hold to absolute truth are sometimes so closed minded and ruled they deserve the label "intolerant"?

The apparently relativistic-right-to-privacy -above-all compromiser of principles just kidd'n

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Here's a few more for ya Greg, , , ....<------That last one was for your last apparent smartaleck remark.

No, Greg, I do not hold that there are not people who value principles more than people...I'm just saying that your "posture" is "against" those victimizers such that at times you end almost becoming like that which you abhor, seemingly. Think blue skies and rolling fields of daisies...let...it...goooooo.....



Brandon
"Totalitarianism, whether in the civic or in the ecclesiastical realm, is unacceptable."--Richard Mouw: Consulting the Faithful

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Think blue skies and rolling fields of daisies...let...it...goooooo.....

Doc: its gooooooonnnneee.

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Doesn't that feel better now?? Don't you feel a weight lifted??Ok...hugs.

Brandon
"Totalitarianism, whether in the civic or in the ecclesiastical realm, is unacceptable."--Richard Mouw: Consulting the Faithful

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dust
---------------------------------------------------------------------Greg,

If I am not mistaken, Marian theology began to develop some time after Christ—like 200 AD or so. It developed for a variety of reasons but played a key role in the controversy over the humanity of Christ. Later scholars use the Protoevangelium of James as their document of evidence for the ever-virgin Mary. And many see the theology of the ever-virgin status of Mary as some sort of pragmatic accommodation for the purpose of erecting a model for those who dedicated themselves to the church as virgins. What’s so terrible about that? The New Testament does it with the Old. We do it all the time. We theologize from the story in the text or the story behind the text to erect for ourselves some moral example or theological principle applying to me now. What else is the Jabez book about? What of even open theism? It’s theology pointing us toward faith in a time when God, time and knowledge is understood differently than it was understood by those who’ve been before us. And I don’t think this is reading into things although it is necessary to keep that critique in mind.

Although the ever-virgin Mary theology may not be true to the Greg’s interpretation of the text. Greg holds strongly to the very protestant private interpretation of scripture. I on the other hand also have a strong private interpretation of scripture but have made much more place for the authority of tradition and “all of the community of God” in revealing the “word of God” (which is not equal to Bible) Marian Theology has various stages of development and many subpoints. I personally am skeptical of some of the subpoints but because of my value of other people’s inspiration and the necessity of my own need toward a stance of humility with regard to my own ability to interpret, discern and reason correctly, I allow Marion theology to speak to me as much as possible from its own realm of influence, it’s own audience, it’s own inspiration. So though I am protestant now, I cannot write off Marion theology as thoroughly as Greg does, simply because it does not make sense to me as directly applied to my current situation in culture and spirituality. This is my angle.

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Here's another verse, froim Luke 2 also.

Many of these Protesant Bones in my body, and Evangelical Gray Hairs in my beard feel mighty skeptical that Mary the daughter of Joakim and Anna could have been brought to the temple (as in the ProtoEvangel of St. James) to spend the rest of her growing up years. I mean: "Just how pious can a person be, and still be normal?" (Those bones and beard talking!)

UNTIL...

I read this:

LUKE 2:
36 There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

Do the math! (16, or 17 plus 7 equals 23 or 24 when Anna entered the temple...to spend the next sixty years where "she never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.") Just how culturally out of place would this have been. And if the ProtoEvangel of St. James is correct, Hannah and Mary would be well acquainted!

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