In the coming two pieces that I am writing, I will explain more about the reason of my resistance regarding Mother Mary.

I would like to share in this first installment some of the logic of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church:

Curtis Martin turned away from the Roman Catholic Church. He met the following questions after getting in contact with a lively evangelical church and became a protestant pastor. What about:

• One Mediator?
• Upstaging God?
• Mary as the Virgin?
• Vain Repetition?
• Graven Images?
• Was Mary conceived without sin?

I would add ‘The need for a Pope?’

Meeting Charismatic Roman Catholic Believers

Curtis Martin had the same questions as I when met Charismatic Roman Catholics in Austria. I found their faith vibrant, and their prayer-language was like I had met in the Netherlands. They also prayed the Rosary with equal enthusiasm and didn’t feel they should leave the RC Church. I liked the positive atmosphere and decided to ‘bracket’ the differences but to concentrate on what united us.

A Shocking Encounter

Then one day, I had a shocking encounter with Jesus, who said: ‘Téo, I want you to become a priest’… Now I had never once dreamed that I would be a RC priest. This explains the reason for this shock! It was the third time in my life that God talked personally to me in this way. I recognized His voice at once.

— The first time I was in Suriname. The Holy Spirit surprised me with an intense outpouring of His power that deeply affected my further ministry.

— The second time He saved my life, by shouting STOP just as I reached a crossing. I stood on the brakes as a heavy truck crossed. God saved my life.

— Now again, He spoke, catching me, totally unaware, as I woke up out of my sleep.

Becoming a priest at the age of 73 is impossible. They go on a pension when they are 70. I had never said anything to Mary. That goes deeply against the grain of any protestant. I had a small statue of her in my bedroom. I looked at it and said: ‘Mary, can you talk to Jesus about that?’ At once, I was knocked out and fell in a dreamless, refreshing sleep. When I woke up, I decided not to talk to anyone about it. I thought, ‘IF this is you, Lord, please confirm this.’

I went through all the questions, as Curtis gave. He and Dr. Scott Hahn helped me to think these questions through. Dr. Scott Hahn was very influential in my ‘Crossing the Tiber’ and becoming Roman Catholic. He was a Presbyterian minister, and in his studies, he concluded that he should become Roman Catholic.

One Mediator? 

Is Mary a Mediatrix? Doesn’t this speak against St. Paul’s assertion that there is only one Mediator between God and man, and that is Christ? (1 Tim. 2:5). Dr. Hahn explains the Greek term “one” is EIS (meaning “first” or “primary”). It is not MONOS (meaning “only” or “sole.” We are sons in the Son. Christ’s mediation does not exclude Mary’s but establishes it by way of her participation. Furthermore, the Epistle to the Hebrews explains Christ’s high priesthood in terms of His being the first-born Son of God (Hebr. 1:5-2:17), which serves as the basis of our divine sonship (Heb. 2:10-17) as well as our priestly sanctity and service (cf. Hebr.13:10-16; 1 Pet. 2:5). Here we don’t fight about Christ’s priesthood and our participation in it’. Pg. 5 – 9 (Page reference see footnote) 

 

 

Is the attention given to Mary not ‘Upstaging God’?

Scott Hahn says: “Christ fulfilled the commandment to honor one’s Father and mother. The Hebrew word for honor is “kabbed”; literally, it means ‘to glorify.’

“… Christ didn’t just honor His Heavenly Father. He also perfectly honored His earthly mother, Mary, by bestowing His own divine glory upon her. Our veneration of Mary then is an essential part of our imitation of Christ… Just like we honor our own mothers, we honor ” whomever He honors—and with the same honor that He bestows.”

The title ‘Mother of the King’ had in Israel a special meaning. Some of the kings had more than one wife. None of them functioned as a queen. It was always the mother of the king who stood in second place in the Kingdom (cf. 1 Kings 2:19, Rev.12:1-17). Hahn asserts:

“Mary’s role in God’s saving plan is expressed both as a noun and a verb. She is a Mother, and she also mothers. She shows us that we too ‘by receiving the gift of His Son in the Fullness of the Spirit,’ we become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ 2 Petr. 1:4. Dr. Hahn concludes: “So if you want to judge how well a person grasp the Gospel in its essence, find out how much they make of having God as their Father — and Mary as their mother.” pg.10.(Page reference see footnote) 

This explanation is also supported by the Early Church Fathers  who affirm their high esteem for Mary.

Another theological idea is “merit.” Hahn asserts that both Catholics and Protestants usually don’t get the Biblical meaning. If it is something understood as “an economic term, then it is untrue and even offensive. God doesn’t owe us anything! If one sees it in a familial sense, ‘it is as natural as an inheritance or as an allowance.’ Hahn compares it with children who are ‘allowed their dessert after they have finished their plates.’ He quotes Augustinus, who writes, “(I)n crowning their merits you are crowing your own gifts (as quoted in Catechism, no, 2006).”

God, acting as a father, enables us to merit:

“Filial adoption, (that is) in making us partakers by grace, … the divine nature can bestow ‘true merit’ on us as a result of God’s gratuitous justice. ( It ) … is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us’ co-heirs’ with Christ. (Catechism no.2009).” Pg.10 (Page reference see footnote) 

Mary as the Virgin?

All Reformers accepted the miraculous conception of Jesus in Mary, through the Holy Spirit. That isn´t much a question, I believe. That she had only one child is disbelieved by many Protestants. Dr. Hahn declares that in ‘Aramaic, the word for brothers and nephews is the same. The fact that Jesus said to John on the cross: ‘This is your mother’ would go against all the Jewish family rules if there were other brothers.

Vain Repetition?

There is a difference between honoring the Lord through stating Truth, repeatedly, then what the heathen did, repeating meaningless words. The angels too repeat in Heaven over and over again ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’

Graven Images?

God ordered self that Graven Images should come on the Ark of the Covenant. For many centuries, when people couldn’t read, they looked at images, like of Jesus, the apostles, and Mary. One can compare this with the photo’s people have of loved ones. They remind us of these people. When I look at the photos of my parents, there is often a thought of gratefulness that goes through my mind.

Was Mary conceived without sin?

How could Jesus be born from a mother who wasn’t perfect? Her sin-tainted blood streaming through His holy body? That seemed impossible for me. Again, most Reformers, Luther, and Calvin, to name two of them, believed the same.

While we often have a

“yawning gap between what we want and what God wants—with Mary, there   is no gap. By the gift of unsurpassed grace, Mary attained the goal of the covenant: a perfect union of divine and human wills. With Mary, the ideal and the real are one and the same.” Pg.11 (Page reference see footnote) 

‘The need for a Pope?’

The issue of having a Pope was, for me, the breakthrough into Roman Catholic thinking. God wanted me to be Roman Catholic, I had accepted that, and it gave me such an inner rest. It was the end of my eternal questioning who could be my boss, where I could go to with my pastoral questions. There is a structure that takes responsibility for me. I don’ t have to have an answer to every question. There is a deposit of faith in nearly 2000 years of Christianity I could fall back on.

Next time I write more about my emotional struggle to accept Mary.

Blessings,

Téo