CATHOLIC DIALOGUE #7

(Jesse and Butch are both kitchen workers. This scene takes place at work. They have discussed their religious views before, but Butch is very anti-Catholic. He makes one accusation after the other and doesn't give Jesse a chance to respond. This is very frustrating for Jesse because Butch is so rude.)

Butch: Hey Jesse. Where have you been hiding?

Jesse: I've been around.

Butch: Oh yeah? I thought you were avoiding me.

Jesse: Why would you think that?

Butch: Because you lost the argument we had about your religion.

Jesse: Lost?!

Butch: Well, you couldn't answer any of my questions. What else would you call it?

Jesse: One thing I couldn't call it was a dialogue, discussion, or even an argument.

Butch: What?

Jesse: In order to have a dialogue, both people have to get a chance to speak. What we had was a monologue, or more appropriately, you gave a lecture.

Butch: Now wait a minute.

Jesse: No, you wait. I have been avoiding you, but not because your arguments were too strong. I've been avoiding you because you were so rude. If you want a dialogue, that's fine, but if you want to deliver a monologue, you can do that alone.

Butch: Ok. How do you explain the invented doctrines you follow?

Jesse: The first thing is..

Butch: What about worshiping the statues?

Jesse: We...

Butch: You put Mary above God. You pray to Her.

Jesse: Butch!!

Butch: What?

Jesse: You're doing it again. I'm serious. I am not going to listen to a lecture. If you won't be polite enough to listen to my response, then I won't continue this conversation.

Butch: Alright I'm sorry.

Jesse: Now, why don't you pick one topic and I'll be glad to discuss it. What's your biggest point of disagreement?

Butch: That's easy. Why do you guys worship Mary?

Jesse: We don't.

Butch: What do you mean, you don't? Catholics think she was perfect. They say she never sinned, but Romans 3:23 says, "all have sinned." What do you say to that? And how about in Luke 1:48 when she describes herself as "lowly"?

Jesse: Ok. Now give me a chance. Suppose I have an accident and someone is killed. I am not negligent or reckless. It is a real accident and someone is dead as a result. Am I guilty of breaking the fifth Commandment (thou shalt not kill)?

Butch: No. You can't be guilty of killing unless you intend to kill.

Jesse: Then what you are saying is that to commit sin, there has to be intent, and a full understanding of what I'm doing?

Butch: Right.

Jesse: By that definition a small child below the age of reason can not commit actual sin. Neither can a person who is mentally insane. So it would seem that Romans 3:23 must not refer to "all" as meaning every person, but rather all mankind in general. What Catholics believe is that Mary was a human being subject to sin like the rest of us, but that God intervened at the moment of Her conception just as He had promised in Genesis. Remember the part where God says to the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the Woman"? God could do that, because He's God.

Butch: But She said, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior." Why did she need a Savior if she didn't have sins?

Jesse: It was precisely because she had a Savior that She didn't have sins. You see, She was redeemed by the death of Jesus in advance. Healed by His stripes in anticipation. And about Her describing Herself as Lowly. Jesus described Himself as gentle and "humble". Does that make Him a sinner?

Butch: Of course not. He was human in every way except sin.

Jesse: Exactly. Now let's draw a logical conclusion. In a normal human pregnancy mother and child's bodies are connected. If she were anything but pure, wouldn't He have been tainted by such close contact? He got His flesh and blood from Her. She would have to be kept pure so that She could produce purity. This is what led St. Louis de Montfort to say, "a bad tree can not bear good fruit."

Butch: Ok, I agree that She probably passed on Her genes and chromosomes to Jesus, and He probably even got His blood type from Her because she was His mother. But how can Catholics refer to Her as the Mother of God? I mean, how can God have a mother? He is older than Her isn't He.

Jesse: God is not governed by time as we are. He does not live one day at a time and is certainly not subject to a calendar. He exists as Alpha and Omega, beginning, end, and all time in between. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "The Father and I are one." If they are in fact "one", then she is the mother of God. Any other explanation would lead me to think that you don't believe in the trinity.

Butch: Ok, but why do you guys pray to Her? I mean isn't that like putting Her in the place of God?

Jesse: We don't pray to Her in the same sense as we pray to God. What we actually do is pray with Her and ask Her to mediate for us with Jesus.

Butch: The Bible says there is only one mediator between God and man. That mediator is Jesus, not His mother.

Jesse: What do you do when you pray for someone else? Aren't you acting as a mediator?

Butch: Well, yes...

Jesse: Christ is still the sole mediator because our prayers are dependant on Him. It is His perfect mediation that makes our prayers effective in the first place. The Bible tells us that Mary was right there with Her son at every important moment of His earthly ministry. His birth. His first recorded miracle. She was at the crucifixion. She witnessed the resurrection. She was in the "upper room" when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles...

Butch: Ok ok, what's your point?

Jesse: My point is that Mary cooperated with Jesus in His mission. She was always there for Him and in many ways shares His ministry. Romans 5:18 describes Jesus as the new Adam. "Just as by one man's disobedience, death entered the world... by one man's obedience all were justified." I say that by one woman's disobedience, sin entered the world and by one woman's obedience Jesus entered the world.

Butch: So?

Jesse: So don't you see that we would all be in a mess if Mary had not said yes to God's plan.

Butch: I just think you Catholics over do it , that's all. I mean, that's what the protestant reformation was about wasn't it? Didn't the reformers want to get back to basics and eliminate all of the Catholic inventions?

Jesse: Ok. Try this quotation on for size. Mary is "the workshop of God." Or how about this one, "there will never be a time when She will not be praised."

Butch: Who said that?

Jesse: Martin Luther.

Butch: What?!

Jesse: And how about when John Calvin said, "we cannot celebrate the blessings given by Christ without commemorating at the same time how high an honor God has granted to Mary." You see, when you refer to "man made" religions and "inventions", you are not speaking about the Catholic Church. Jesus started our Church when He commissioned the Apostles and sent the Holy Spirit to guide them. The man made churches were started about 1500 years later, and in some cases, they still bear the names of the men who started them.

Butch: I guess it's pretty obvious who you mean.

Jesse: The most interesting thing, is that even these men who disobeyed Jesus's prayer that the Church be one, had a strong devotion to Mary. The real inventing took place years after they died by the men who followed them.

Butch: Are you trying to say that the Church practiced devotions to Mary right from the beginning and that it was the protestants who invented an aversion to Marian devotions?

Jesse: Well, if Luther and Calvin had Marian devotions, that means that it was probably a practice in their time which was about 1500 A.D. Our Church only defines a doctrine when it is challenged. Since there is no mention of that until the 1800's when the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and in the mid 1900's when the Assumption was defined.... Well, you can draw your own conclusion, but I think they were defined because that's when the objections were invented. I have my own idea of why this happened. You see, the protestant church was born out of the rebellion of a few men. In its infancy it still had devotion to Mary as its Mother. As it grew, it started to feel more self sufficient and finally when it hit adolescence it rebelled against its Mother the same as many teenagers do. I think that maybe in another hundred years or so when it reaches adulthood, it will appreciate Mary as the loving Mother She is.

Butch: That's a pretty interesting theory Jesse. I mean, what you say makes sense.

Jesse: Good. If you think about it with an open mind you will see my point. Some of the greatest minds of the last 2000 years have given their whole lifetimes to analysis of these questions. If nothing else, you will appreciate the good Christian example that is set by Mary. Humility, purity, charity, and obedience would be just to name a few.

Butch: I never thought of it that way.

Jesse: Well start thinking. When you're ready I'll tell you about Fatima and Guadalupe.