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How does one answer the claim of the Protestant
who says that the Virgin Mary is dead?
[And] that she will be resurrected, with
the rest of the dead?
Is there some Scripture that supports
the Catholic [position|teaching] that
I can use?
I don't think I correctly understand who will
be resurrected, if indeed people do go to
Heaven.
I'm sure they do, so who will be resurrected?
Kay
{
How
does one answer the claim of Protestants who
say the Virgin Mary is dead? }
Mike
replied:
Hi, Kay —
Thanks for the question and thanks
to my good friend Roger
who helped me with this
answer.
The Virgin Mary is no less dead than
my father who passed away two years
ago this year.
If anything, both are more alive and more aware of what's going on
then we could ever imagine. Those
in Heaven see everything in time
eternally.
You and I can think of abstract concepts,
though we have a physical body.
What am I talking about?
Can you see hope?
Can you smell faith?
No, because faith and hope are non-material
concepts that are outside our physical
being and senses.
Man is limited in this life to a
physical body. A body that is not
his own.
He has been given a body to glorify
God with.
You hear pro-abortion women saying:
What right does that old man
over in Rome have to tell me
what I can do with my body?
My reply:
Who gave you the crazy idea that your body, is your body?
If it's
your body, step in front of oncoming traffic
going 70 miles an hour.
If it's your body, you can
just bring it back from the
dead!
My point: Deep down in their holy
gut, they know it's not their body.
Back to the issue.
When my father died two years ago,
the physical remains of his body
remained in the cemetery grave and
will remain there until the Second
Coming of our Blessed Lord. This
is true for all of us.
At his death or passing, his soul
was freed from any physical limitations
and he was judged by our Lord Jesus
Himself.
Like all mankind, our souls will
be either eternally in Heaven or
eternally in Hell. Period.
If we die with remaining self-love,
but in a state of grace, in God's
infinite mercy, he created a special
section in Heaven, I call the Holy
Hospital of Heaven: Purgatory. After
our remaining self-love is burned
away, we are no different then someone
who died with no self-love and who
went straight to Heaven.
An important point Roger brought
up:
Jesus did not die for our debt
to sin. He died for the guilt
of our sin.
Our personal debt to sin, our lack
of personal holiness, is purified
in the Holy Hospital of Purgatory
because nothing impure shall enter
Heaven. (Revelation 21:27)
But what about the Virgin Mary?
Because Our Lord chose to create
the Virgin Mary, Immaculate from
her conception in the womb of St.
Anne, Mary's temporal mother, when
she [Mary] died or passed away, unlike
the physical remains of my father's
body, the remains of Mary's physical
body were assumed into Heaven gloriously.
When the tomb was opened for Thomas, who missed the passing of our Blessed
Mother, there was only an Easter
lily,
No body was present.
Here is an issue that may have led
your Protestant friend to ask you
this question:
Thinking with an informed Catholic
mind involves thinking beyond
our earthly life. Many today
who either:
have had an uncatechized Catholic
upbringing or
have never been taught anything
about Christ and His Church
can tend to think solely with
an earthly view. When we go to
a funeral service many times we
will hear the priest or minister
refer to those who have
died or at the offertory the priest
will offer up prayers for
the dead.
The Catholic Christian has to
remember that the priest
is making a reference to the dead,
in order to make a distinction
between:
those living on earth:
those who make up the Church Militant in the pews, and
those who have died [or passed on to their Particular Judgment] from our Earthly viewpoint.
A better reference used a lot
in the Church is:
the faithful departed or
prayers for the faithful departed
Faithful because they died in
a state of grace, but who are
not necessarily 100% [holy|purified.] The good news:
You can help them. Click
here to find out how.
Like I said earlier, all the faithful
departed [in Heaven] are more alive and more aware of what's
going on than we could ever imagine.
Those
in Heaven see everything in time
eternally.
RE: Scripture you can use.
There is no direct Scripture passage
that talks about Our Lady's Assumption
but for Catholic Christians this
isn't an important issue.
When we say the Word of God,
we don't reduce it to the Written
page. We include the Oral Tradition, for which references can be found
in the Written Scriptures. This is Oral Tradition which has been passed on down through previous members
in the Church.
The Church came before the Bible,
the Bible didn't come before the
Church.
What you can show your Protestant
friends are foreshadowing and similar
analogies from the
Old and New Testament here:
Commentary: The Assumption of Our Blessed Mother is something the Church has always believed, though how she was assumed is a matter of theological opinion.
Some like the Orthodox and I believe Our Lady gently feel asleep into Eternal Life. The Orthodox celebrate this as the Dormition of Mary.
Others, like St. John Paul II believed she died just like anyone of us would have died.
An ancient Coptic tradition states that when Mary was old and nearing this falling asleep, Jesus appeared to 72 of the disciples. He was on the chariot of the cherubim accompanied by 1,000 Angels, and he told them
He was to take his Mother to himself. The disciples wept and asked that Mary should never die, but the Lord said her time was accomplished.
Patrick
Madrid from "Where is that in the Bible" states:
Revelation 12:1-8 shows us that Mary, Ark of the New Covenant, is truly the mother
of all Christians (even those who refuse to acknowledge her as their mother).
This passage also shows us a vision of Mary, queen of Heaven, and hints at
her Assumption. This gift of suffering no corruption in the grave and being "caught
up" into
Heaven while still alive is perfectly in accordance with Scripture. Similar
assumptions are described below, and are promised to some Christians in 1
Thessalonians.
It was because of his faith that Enoch was taken up and did not experience death: he was no more, because God took him; because before his assumption he was acknowledged to have pleased God. Now it is impossible to please God without faith, since anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and rewards those who seek him.
