That's what I think, reasons being ;
Mary, Jesus Christ's,(JC), mother was in the garden and Angel Gabriel came and spoke to her and told her that she was to bear a child and call it Jesus. Months later, she goes to Bethlehem and gives birth to JC. The Magi, Three Wise Men, know of the birth and folow a star to Bethlehem.
Putting this story into todays culture we get a different angle to it. Mary in garden, gets abducted by aliens, gets impregnated with an alien seed, months later goes to Bethlehem, delivers the child JC. The Magi are told by aliens that a new leader is being born and that they should follow the light in the sky, which happens to be a UFO.
Sources include readings of many a Ufology book about abductions, John Mack for example, and thinking regarding the Christian roots, and also many other cultures, ie. the book of the Maharabat and the epic of Gilgamesh, where chariots fly in the sky - UFO's ?
I'm not saying JC didn't exist. He did. Just what's his origins ?
Jesus was the result of alien abduction ? Virgin birth ? Star of Bethlehem ? Other cultures origins ?
I'm with you on this one. I thougt I only thought of the above question.
Why don't you write a book on it ?
Reply:I'll stick with the story as recorded in the Gospels. I have no reason whatsoever to question their historicity concerning this issue.
Reply:You know, that would make a great Sci-Fi movie. I believe there's some websites on the 'net about Jesus being a hybrid human-alien. There's some (very weird) books written by David Ickle about aliens and religions.
Reply:thats a good point.
Reply:Catholics Believe Mary is the Immaculate Conception, having been conceived without the stain of original sin upon her soul.
Mary is the Second Eve, whose "soul did magnify the Lord," whereas the First Eve demagnified God through disobedience of His command.
Mary is the "virgin" Isaiah said would conceive the "Emmanuel, God with us" (7:14): That this prophesy included the virginal birth, as well as the virginal conception of Jesus the Messiah.
Mary, being the mother of Jesus, "the Son of the Most High" (St. Luke 1:32), is the mother of God: "How have I (Elizabeth) deserved that (Mary) the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (St. Luke 1:44).
Catholics Believe
Mary is the spiritual mother of mankind: "Behold thy mother" (St. John 19:27).
Mary is the mother who is ever ready to carry their petitions to her Divine Son.
Mary is the mother who knows the yearnings in the hearts of mankind, having been the ideal maiden, wife, mother and widow.
Mary is the Saint of Saints, our Mediatrix, whose intercessory influence with her Divine Son is first and foremost in heaven.
Catholics are proud to be of those "generations" that Mary said would "call" her "blessed" (St. Luke 1:48). Mary most pure; Mary inviolate: Virgin of Virgins; Queen of the Holy Rosary; "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" Jesus (St. Luke 1:42-43): Holy Mary, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.
Non-Catholics who make Mary the Mother of Jesus do so, because they do not accept the true doctrine of the Incarnation, viz., that Jesus Christ possesses a Divine and a Human nature in one Divine Personality. Jesus was never a human person; He was a divine Person who assumed our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary. She was the Mother of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and therefore the Mother of God.
Catholics cannot help but question the consistency of Protestants giving praise of the highest to Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Deborah, Ruth, and others, while virtually ignoring Mary. Surely she towers far above them. Is it because Catholics are profuse in their love and praise of Mary?
You can go "to Jesus directly," as you say, but why not go to Mary as well? One does not exclude the other. Is not Mary the Mother of Jesus? Is not such a pure and devoted Mother more influential than we are with her sublime and devoted Son? Does not your Protestant Bible say that David asked the saints to give thanks to God for him? Then why not ask Mary, the Saint of Saints, to take your paeans of praise and petitions to her Son?
"Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints oi his, and give thanks at the remembrance oi his holiness" (Ps. 29:5).
Catholics go to Jesus directly through prayer, and also by prayerfully participating in the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the worship that is above all worship in the Catholic Church. It is a continuation, in an unbloody manner, of the bloody sacrifice Christ made on Mount Calvary. Still more intimate and loving is the relationship of Catholics with Jesus through partaking of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Communion. Thus the bodies of practical Catholics are tabernacles of Jesus Christ, as well as temples ol the Holy Ghost.
By prayer, Catholics go to Jesus, in humility, through His Blessed Mother Mary. They believe that the prayers of the saints in heaven are more influential than their own. Revelation 8:3 tells us that saints do pray: "the prayers of all the saints (offered) upon the golden altar which was before the throne" of God. Saints are the heavenly friends of God, the foremost of them being the Mother of our Lord, the Saint of Saints. Devout Protestants pray for the conversion of sinners, why exclude intercessory prayers of the saints, to Mary in particular, to keep us true and pure?
Catholics consider Mary to be their spiritual Mother, the second Eve, who gave the world the Second Adam, to whom they are indebted for their redemption and regeneration. In her they see all, and more, of the good, beautiful and pure that was prefigured in Eve, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Judith, Esther, and Deborah. They love her for herself, because she was the virgin vessel from which Jesus came. Hence Catholics lovingly ask her intercession.
Strange, indeed, is it for Protestants to refuse to go to the Lord through the prayers of others as well as their own, when their Bible shows that Jeremiah asked the prophets to do so:
"It they be prophets, and if the word of the Lord he with them, let them now make intercession to the Lord oi hosts, that the. vessels of the Temple he brought back" (27:18).
St. Paul said: "I exhort that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions,—be made for all men" (1 Tim. 2:1).
If the prayers of man for his fellowman are of value, why not the prayers of souls in heaven that once lived among men?
Longfellow, in the "Golden Legend," Kipling in the "Hymn Before Action," and other famous poets not of the Catholic faith, encompassed the beauty and soundness of the intercessory aid of Mary. Kipling's prayer is—
"Oh Mary, pierced with sorrow,
Remember, reach and save The soul that comes tomorrow
Before the God that gave! Since each was born of woman,
For each at utter need True comrade and
true foreman Madonna, intercede!"
Source(s):
http://www.catholicapologetics.net...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment