Isa Atis Aluksnest palus mul panna kirja omad mõtted sellest, kuidas austada püha Maarjat ilma seejuures ebajumalateenistusse sattumata. Postitan nad ka siia, et võibolla saada väärt korrektuure või muud tagasisidet lugejatelt. Kui kunagi rohkem aega leian, püüan ehk ka eesti keelde ümber panna. Seniks aga loodan lugejate mõistvale suhtumisele.
Reverend father,
You asked my thoughts about honoring St. Mary, the Mother of God, without idolatry. Here are some.
1. By honoring Mary we actually honor and admire God´s great mercy towards her and through her (“From now on all generations will call me blessed: for the Mighty One has done great things for me – holy is his name.”). We admire the mercy she was given to be in such a close relationship with our Lord and God, the faith she was given etc. And we praise God for the great things He did to and through her that has also become the salvation of us and the whole nature.
2. By asking her (and other saints) to pray for us we do not commit idolatry unless we also commit idolatry by asking any other christians to pray for us. But it is not so, as we know (and learn also from the apostles). This is the way God has made us, that we would live, serve and worship together and often through one another. By asking someone to pray for us we do not worship them, but express our faith in God in this request. It is an interesting feature installed by God into every human being, that we cannot fully live without one another. And that sometimes seems to be the case also in prayer. Perhaps I should even call it a mystery, that God´s ways are not always following the same protestant logic that we would like to see. Take, for example, Job 42:8: “So take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf.” Or James 5:14: “You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.” And the famous “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” – a saying in the context of praying for each other.
Now therefore, when we ask other committed Christians to pray for us, we do not commit idolatry, but simply express our faith in God in such a way and follow His command. But we also grow more strongly into the communio sanctorum, to the fellowship with and between God´s saints. Both on Earth and in the Church Triumphant. For it would be a terrible thing to be an individualistic Christian all through ones life on Earth, having healthy communion with God, but none or only a weak bond with other saints, and then before the Throne of God discover that we have to spend eternity not only with God, but also with angels and the saints. Praying for one another and asking others to pray for us may be one of the best ways to strengthen our relationships in a holy way, preparing us for eternal communal life (the best way, of course, is the mass, which is evidently a training for heaven; doing good to our brothers and sisters is another great method – and we should use them all).
But, one might ask, can the saints, who are no longer on Earth, really hear us and pray for us? To answer these questions positively, we have to agree with the following: God´s people will spend eternity in a close relation with God Himself (e.g. Rev 21:3), they are no longer bound in time and to them (as well as to those who are eternally separated from God, but this is another topic) everything has been revealed (2Cor 5:10 – English translations do not give the revelatory meaning of faneroo well, but the Greek text certainly has this meaning). And God can work from outside of time. If these statements are true, the conclusion logically follows IMHO. And even if not all of them are for some reason not correct (for example: if the deceased saints cannot know we have requested their prayers), God would still see our expression of faith and hear the prayer (since the request for intercession is in it´s true essence itself a prayer to God).
One more thing to notice about Mary, whom the Catholics call Regina Coeli – since king Salomon´s time (1 Kings 2:19), the mother of a reigning king always sat at his right hand as a “queen mother” (see http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T7194 for explanation). It may, or may not be an important aspect – I have not had time to think about it too much :(
I hope these thoughts are helpful. I´m open to corrections.
Yours in Christ,
Toomas
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