Protestants and Mary

As far as I know, Catholics don't see Mary as a middle person necessarily to talk to God, but they do see priests as such, especially when it comes to confession, baptism, and receiving the Eucharist.

 

That was my interpretation as well, and consistent with every other interpretation I've ever read, outside of this thread.

 

That is very cool. :xyzthumbs

 

That's a neat way to put it.

I don't know that it's pride as much as it might be apprehension or even fear about communing with spiritual entities other than Christ. I know that's certainly the case for me.

Several years ago, I was in the middle of some pretty intense prayer about my wife. She was still having a lot of bad after effects from her lupus, and I was tired of living in fear, not knowing if she was going to be okay. So I prayed desperately, asking God how much time she had left.

Immediately, I heard a date in my head: May 25, 2005.

Obviously, that turned out to be untrue. But at the time (and really until 5/26/05), I couldn't rule it out. It was a scary thing to live with for several years until the "myth was busted".

Now, that had nothing to do with praying to a spiritual source outside of Christ Himself, but my point in bringing that up was that it's not hard to be misled in the midst of fervent prayer. Because I now know that is true, I'm even more reluctant to venture outside of direct prayer to Christ, and much more discerning about what I experience during prayer.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting there is anything unscriptural about asking another Christian for prayer support, alive or dead. I just think that for the undiscerning and spiritually immature (like I was), it might be extraordinarily dangerous.

I agree that is a very real risk.

 

Without the constant of the Bible itself, I agree. And far too many Protestants have tweaked the Scriptures to suit their own agendas or fallen away from it to great lengths. And yes, I also agree that has negatively affected the prayer life of many.

 

There are a great number of people claiming to be Christians who have forsaken the church and have basically made themselves spiritual 'Lone Rangers', in a sense. For those people, I would agree that without the guidance of a Biblically sound church, spiritual growth is problematic at best.

Some have, to be sure, but I think it would be pretty cynical to accuse all of them of being guilty of that.

To play a little Devil's advocate here, is it not also prideful to claim that no one can get close to God without using the tools the Catholic church provides, as some Catholics allegedly have?

 

Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, meet Pot.

We're all black.

 

This is sort of my point about prayer. I honestly believe you connected with a negative entity of some kind by praying with your will, rather than God's, and it fed your fears intentionally to drag you astray. When you pray the Our Father, Hail Mary or do novenas or rosaries, you're supposed to focus on God (or the mysteries, or whatever the focus of that ritual is supposed to be), and the verbage promotes that and puts you in a relaxed, meditative state to actually feel God fill you. I know it sounds radical, but I think there are a lot of people praying in their own words for their own purposes, and I'd argue that they are contributing to a collective negative, rather than connecting to God.

 

I just wanted to swim up, grab the bait and pull a bit, and then swim off again.

 

As someone who was raised Roman Catholic & progressed through a series of Protestant churches trying to figure out what I believed, I think I have some understanding of both the Catholic & Protestant approaches to prayer, & see where each is skeptical of the other.

This is very well put. Prayer isn't all talking to God. It's listening as well. The ritual & the repetition are tools to induce that meditative, listening attitude, & they are quite effective.

However, a lot of Protestants feel that the repetition of a scripted prayer is "vain," that it is simply repeating words that don't come from the person's heart. They believe that extemporaneous prayer is required for true communion with God.

I can understand both points of view. There are pros & cons to both methods.

Rosaries & novenas are great for inducing that spiritual focus, that receptive, meditative state that is the goal of prayer. The risk is that people will simply repeat prayers mindlessly without actually focusing on the process.

Ad-lib prayer can be more directly from a person's heart & lessens the risk of falling into mindless repetition. However, it can be far too "me" focused & overlook the listening side of prayer.

It's a matter for each person to find what works for them. And I think it would be a very good thing for people to be more open & understanding of both.