That's a very serious accusation there.



Scripture is only one of the sources for Catholic teaching, alongside Tradition and the Magisterium, which have to be in harmony. As you should have known already, the "Scripture Alone" position is the cause of the multiple sects of Protestantism, because each person interprets Scripture "to their own destruction" (2 Pet 3:16).

Sigh. I think I have posted enough in the past regarding the different degrees of worship.

Again, I've addressed this in the past.

It is the angel Gabriel (a messenger from God, thus it is God Himself messagewise), who calls her "full of grace".

This post has been edited by yeeck: Feb 13 2019, 02:28 PM

Well, see Luke 10:16, and Matthew 16:19. The authority was given by Christ Himself to others.

I think that's a self-made teaching of yours.

Yes but those early groups differ more on specific definitions of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, etc, rather than claim Scripture Alone as the basis of their disagreement, unlike Protestantism. Remember that the canon of Scripture wasn't defined until later, so which Scripture Alone to base on?

This post has been edited by yeeck: Feb 13 2019, 05:17 PM

Nobody claimed she has powers of her own, other than that which pleases God to grant miracles through her intercession. See miracle of of the wedding banquet at Cana.

Note that the angel's salutation preceded Mary's acquiescence. Mary was already highly favored. God's grace was not given in time after Mary accepted the angel's word. The Church believes that this grace was given from the very beginning of Mary's life. It is clearly grace because at the time of Mary's conception she could have done nothing to earn it.

This post has been edited by yeeck: Feb 13 2019, 05:15 PM

Don't be silly. Being born again in Catholic teaching is being regenerated by water and Spirit. And this is via the Sacrament of Baptism. Peter mentioned this transformation from sin to grace when he exhorted people to "be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).

Another thing. Truth is not determined by the number of people believing in something, so asking how many here believe in so and so I feel is rather pointless.

This post has been edited by yeeck: Feb 13 2019, 05:27 PM

Perhaps there was something wrong with your catechism/catechist.

You define born again=infallibility, which is not true according to Catholic teaching.

Nope, being sinless doesn't mean she is divine. The Church still teaches that she is a created being. No where does the Church teaches that she is equal to Christ or equal to God. I guess most Protestants have issue with the title Mother of God, which is also an issue with Nestorius.

As if you know God's will and not the rest? Hehe

They are when they intend to definitively teach the faithful. And you brought up the clear example of Peter that he was given the authority, but also as human he can fail/fall personally.

Wrong.

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). This one applies to Christ, the Word made Flesh.

"And Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, did great wonders and signs among the people." (Acts 6:8) This one applies to Stephen.

"And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." (Luke 1:28). This one applies to Mary.

Do check the Greek words used, I think unknown warrior can explain, after which I will add in with the Catholic understanding from his explanation.

For Luke 1:28, it's κεχαριτωμένη (kecharitomene).

For John 1:14, it's πλήρης χάριτος (pleres charitos), same as for Acts 6:8.

"Full of grace" is literally "pleres charitos," and that wording is used in reference to Jesus (John 1:14) and to St. Stephen (Acts 6:8). Obviously, its used with two different meanings in those two passages, but its meaning is clearly gleamed by its context. Technically, anyone who was recently baptized or received the sacrament of confession is pleres charitos.

In Luke 1:28, the word that the angel uses is kecharitomene. So its not literally "full of grace," but its root word is the Greek verb "to give grace" (charitoo). The word is the past perfect tense, meaning that the action of giving grace has already occurred. It was not something that was about to happen to her but something that has already been accomplished. The word was also used as a title. The angel did not say, "Hail Mary, you are kecharitomene" but rather, "Hail kecharitomene." Therefore the word is not simply an action but an identity.

It is thus difficult to translate because it is a unique use of the word. It has been translated by various scholars as "full of grace", "graced one," "one who has been made graced," "highly graced," and "highly favored." In the last instance the translator is using the concept that to be graced by God is to find favor with God. It would appear that any translation should use the word "grace," because that is the root word.

However, it might sound "clunky" to some—they might think "highly favored" is more title-sounding than "full of grace," and there is nothing inherently incorrect theologically about asserting that Mary was favored by God. The early Christians certainly believed in Mary's sinlessness, and they are more trustworthy witnesses rather than the later comer Protestants who arrived more than 1500 years late to deny this belief.

The constant faith of the Church attests to the belief in the special preparation of the holiness of the person of Mary to bear in her body the most holy person of the Son of God. Implicitly found in the Fathers of the Church in the parallelism between Eve and Mary (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140? - 202?); Found in the more general terms about Mary: "holy", "innocent", "most pure", "intact", "immaculate" (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140?-202?; Ephraem, Syria, 306-373; Ambrose, Milan, 373-397); Explicit language: Mary - free from original sin (Augustine, Hippo, 395-430 to Anselm, Normandy, 1033-1109).

Even when you check with scriptures, you have different intepretations, which is exactly the cause of the mushrooming multiple churches of different beliefs, especially after Luther. Oh, perhaps you should consider who defined the canon of Scripture that you are accepting.

Which is why I wanted unknown warrior to give the Greek explanation first . To say that at that point of time that Stephen was sinless is not wrong, as he was baptised not long before. The Catholic Church teaches that baptism washes away both original and actual sin. This is certainly different from Mary's Immaculate Conception, where she was graced by God with this privilege as preparation for the Word to become Flesh.

This post has been edited by yeeck: Feb 14 2019, 03:07 PM

This raises the question as to how to translate the word at issue (kecharitōmenē) in the first place. The word is a form of the verb charitoō. This word should look familiar, even to non-Greek speakers. It’s where we get our word charisma, which refers to someone’s gift as a leader. In ancient Greek, the companion noun was charis, the stock New Testament word for grace. Although it’s sometimes translated as favor, it overwhelmingly is rendered in the King James Bible as grace. (Out of 156 instances, 132 read as grace, while just 7 are favor. Most of the rest appear to be translated as a form of thanks.)

We are right to suspect that charitoō then has something to do with grace as we understand it. And that’s exactly how it’s defined. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines the verb this way: “to endow with charis, primarily signified ‘to make graceful or gracious,’ … ‘to cause to find favor.’” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon puts it this way: “to pursue with grace, to compass with favor.” Another dictionary drops “favor” altogether and gives us this definition: “kecharitōmenē … means endowed with grace.”

However, these definitions do leave it open-ended as to whether grace or favor is the way to go. Although favor and grace have related meanings they remain distinct. In a theological context, grace is a free and unmerited gift of God. Grace is something given to someone. Usually we think of a favor as something done for someone else. So which way do we go in Luke 1? Unlike the noun, the verb is used only one other time in the New Testament, so we don’t have too many verses to guide us on how it’s used. (For the record, the other instance is Ephesians 1:6 and the most common translation is grace.)

Fortunately, the text does not leave us hanging. After Mary’s initial apprehension, the angel tells her, “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God” (Luke 1:30). Grace here is the noun charis, which we’ve already established usually means grace and only rarely favor (in the New Testament at least). If Luke 1:28 was unclear, Luke 1:30 is our clarification. This should settle it. We’re talking about grace.


Now our question becomes: How much grace did Mary receive and when? The dogma of the Immaculate Conception holds that Mary was fully graced from the moment of conception, that through the grace of God, Mary’s life was one without sin. Is this supported by Luke 1:28?

For the answer, we now turn from the dictionary to the grammar book. As mentioned above kecharitōmenē is a form of the verb charitoō. Our focus will be on the tense. A verb tense at the most basic level refers to the time of action. “I wrote an article” is an example of the past tense. “I am writing” is present and “I will write” is future. Now in ancient Greek there were more than just these three simple tenses. There were other tenses that tell us something about the action done and its enduring impact. And that’s where things get exciting.

Kecharitōmenē is the “perfect” tense of charitoō. According to Herbert Weir Smyth’s A Greek Grammar for Colleges—still the bible for Greek grammar today—defines the perfect tense this way: “The perfect denotes a completed action the effects of which still continue in the present.” So Mary received grace in some complete way and remains completed in that grace. We’re coming awfully close to the Catholic dogma.

Or are we reading too much into this? Here’s the conclusion two scholars draw: “It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase kecharitōmenē as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace” (Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament).

Indeed, to say that Mary was “completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace” is not only a restatement of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, it also points forward to the traditional teaching that Mary is a “Mediatrix of all graces” (yet to be dogmatically defined). If anything, “full of grace,” seems to understate what the Greek text is saying. But “filled completely, perfectly, and enduringly” is a mouthful, so it’s easy to see why the Vulgate went with the more poetic approximation “full of grace.” Don't forget, St Jerome was translating into Latin which was the lingua franca then.

By turns the dictionary, concordance, and grammar argue for the Catholic reading of Luke 1:28.

Three facts from the narrative seal the case. First, as St. Thomas Aquinas notes in his commentary on the Hail Mary, the angel’s reverent salutation of Mary is a complete reversal of roles from the Old Testament, in which men revered angels. Such reverence was due to angels because angels have a spiritual and incorruptible nature, are more familiar with God, and “partake most fully of the divine light.” In revering Mary, then, then Angel Gabriel is showing that she surpasses the angels in these three aspects. Only someone “full of grace” could merit such extraordinary reverence.

Second, in the Greek text, as Aquinas points out, Mary’s name is missing from Luke 1:28. The text literally reads as “Hail, full of grace.” Mary has become so “full of grace” that it has consumed her completely—it has become more who she is even than even her very name.

This omission makes the most sense if we translate the verb as grace and not as favor. A favor does not involve the interior man (or woman). It chiefly is concerned with their exterior circumstances. I can do a favor for you without changing who you are (for example, buy you a car, or get you a job). God’s grace changes who we are. Grace implies a spiritual state or interior condition (hence the phrase “state of grace”). One can imagine, then, that someone could be in such an intensive state of grace that it defines their whole personality.

Third, Mary’s reaction to the angel’s words is a giant clue as to their significance. Here is the text again (Douay-Rheims translation):

[28] And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. [29] Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. [30] And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.

[31] Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. [32] He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. [33] And of his kingdom there shall be no end. [34] And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? [35] And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

This is a lot to take in. Mary is “blessed among women.” Her son will be the “Son of the Most High” and a king after David. And she will do this while remaining a virgin. Instead, she will conceive by the “power of the most High.” Terror-inducing words for any mortal ears, not to mention an unmarried teenage virgin. Readers may recall that Mary was “troubled” by the words of the angel. Your quote of Luke 11 as if trying to make Scripture verses contradict each other is at least ill-advised. But Catholics do not see contradiction in Scripture.

But go back and read at what point she was “troubled.” Mary’s apprehension comes before the angel foretells the birth of Christ and His kingdom. It comes after just this one line: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. One wonders, were this just an act of divine “favor” what would be so troubling to Mary? Favors are always welcomed, never feared. Divine grace, on the other hand, is powerful, awesome, even fearsome.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception can indeed be “troubling.” Our best response, however, is to follow the example of Mary and accept God’s words in faith.

They are not yet dead, I say not yet, because they will in the future, as in the book of Apocalypse, they will return to preach before the 2nd coming of Christ, and die then.