Star Wars Rosary

I left the Roman Catholic Church the day it finally dawned on me that no one, not even a Spirit filled pope, would be able to change anything of substance in Catholic doctrine.  I was convinced that the pagan thoughts and practices that were interwoven with Christian belief beginning even in the early centuries of the faith could not be extracted without either schism (the majority wanting to retain the old beliefs) or the death of Roman Catholicism as a religion.  Of the three legged stool - Church tradition, the teaching magisterial of the Church and sacred scripture, tradition and church teaching substituted for the Holy Spirit, over road scripture, and would be defended to the death by the bishops and bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic Church.

So having left that church as one that still knows and loves so many still in it, a number of whom are true believers in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, I do from time to time like to point out the contradictions of church teaching and tradition with the Holy Word.  These are all so obvious if one does not have to think that father knows best but instead believes that sacred scripture is indeed inspired and can be understood by even a simpleton with the help of the Holy Spirit.

My inspiration today was a statement tweeted by Pope Francis earlier this fall;

"The Christian who does not feel that the Virgin Mary is his or her mother is an orphan."

As have been all the popes in my lifetime Pope Francis (the hope of modern day liberals) has a deep devotion to Mary.  This pope even has a special devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, which he picked up in Austria and then introduced to his flock when he was the Archbishop of Buenos Airas.  This is a prayer to Mary that because of the immense mercy that exists in her heart one should surrender into her hands the ribbon of their lives (all their worries and pain and problems).  The prayer declares the trust that Mary will undo those knots.

The University of Dayton, which has a large Marian studies center, publishes a list of Marian statements made by Pope Francis.  In October this year Francis is quoted 18 different times invoking and referencing Mary in his addresses to various groups.  I will only share the following two;

October 25:  Pope's remarks to The Schoenstaff movement.

"Mary is Mother, and one cannot conceive of any other title of Mary that is not 'Mother'. She is Mother because she brings us Jesus and she helps us with the strength of the Holy Spirit, so that Jesus will be born and grow in us. She constantly gives us life. She is Mother of the Church. She is maternity.  We do not have the right, and if we think we do we are mistaken, to have a psychology of orphans.  A Christian does not have the right to be an orphan.  He has a Mother!  We have a Mother!"

October 31;  Pope's address to Fraternity of Charismatic Convention.

"I was told about prayer groups in Charismatic Renewal in which the Rosary is recited together.  The prayer to our Lady must never be lacking, never!"

I was always taught that Catholics don't worship Mary when they pray to her, they only "venerate" or honor her.  Yet here it is pretty clear that not only are Catholics encouraged to pray to her she is also given attributes that belong to God alone.  What the Father desires, what the Son has done and the outworking of the power of the Holy Spirit, in Catholic teaching are all routed through Mary.  She is the dispenser of graces, she is the co-redemtrix with Jesus for the salvation of our souls, she is the queen of heaven, she is mediator between us and God, she is the one who loves us because she is mother, she is the one we should trust.

Contrast that to what Romans 8: 14-17 teaches, especially about our status as orphans;

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry out, "Abba, Father".  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs - heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

The following comes from a post I did in 2007 called - Star Wars Rosary.

One of the forms of adoration to Mary is the rosary.  The roots of the practice began in the 10th and 11th centuries.  In certain monasteries monks would pray the psalms every day.  There are 150 psalms and these were divided in 3 groups of 50.  Later on the common people wanted to adopt this practice but because most were illiterate they would substitute memorized prayers such as the early forms of the Hail Mary in place of the psalms.

Catholic legend says that Mary appeared to St. Dominic (founder of the Dominicans) in 1214 and give him the first rosary.  The rosary is a set of beads, 50 of which are for the Hail Mary prayer. There are other beads for the Our Father and Glory Be prayers, the Apostles Creed and places to contemplate events in the life of Jesus or Mary called The Mysteries.  For example, one of the glorious mysteries is called; "Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth".

In 1858 Mary appears to Bernadette at Lourdes and the apparition is wearing a rosary.  In 1917 Mary appears to 3 children at Fatima and tells them that for the conversion of the world everyone must do penance and pray the rosary daily.  Pope John Paul II was very devoted to Mary and especially to the apparition of Mary at Fatima.

There are actually quite a number of other Marian apparitions.  The most famous recent one began when Mary appeared to some children in the Croatian village of Medjugory in 1981.  Ever since she has given a least one of them a monthly message (all are available at the Medjugory website) which usually includes a request to do penance and to pray the rosary daily.  The fact that tens of millions of people go to these places should remind us that Mary veneration is not just a blast from the past.

I have a personal story about saying the rosary.  My mother grew up in the Reformed tradition but because my father was Catholic that meant that his children must be raised Catholic.  About the time I was in 5th grade my mother had a crisis of faith which led to her becoming Catholic.  Of course I was pleased when my mother became Catholic but the down side came when initially she wanted to be a very devout Catholic.

For awhile during the summer before my 6th grade mom would gather her innocent little children into our hallway, in front of the crucifix hanging on the wall with palm branches stuck behind it, and ignoring the sounds of other children outside, happily enjoying the forbidden pleasures of freedom, she would lead her tiny clan in saying the rosary, using the same boring tones as the ladies from the rosary guild who would sometimes lead the school children in the saying of the rosary before the mass that began each academic day, a monotone "halemaryfullofgracethelordiswiththeeblessedartthoughamoungwomenandblessedisthefruitofthywombjesus", over and over.

My mother really didn't understand anything about my asking Jesus into my life when I was 22. In her mind I had become "religious" and a little overboard at that.  After a couple of years, although still Catholic, I immersed myself in scripture and read many books written by non Catholic authors.  It had already become obvious to me that scripture contradicted many Catholic practices.

One day my mother stopped by to visit Jackie and me at our little place in Kalamazoo. She and my dad had just come back from Europe and she said that she brought back a present for me.  Our of her purse came an ordinary little rosary.  She proudly gave it to me and said; "The Pope blessed it."  Now I must tell you in my mind I pictured the Pope walking through a warehouse somewhere in Rome full of holy cards, rosaries and other religious objects while waving his hand in one great swoop and saying in Latin; "Bless this stuff."

I realized that my mother was trying to express a spiritual connection in terms that she understood but I soon became really distraught at the thought that maybe my parents were actually missing a saving relationship with Jesus. A day or two later I was kneeling by my bed, pouring out my heart with as much emotion as I ever had, praying for the salvation of my parents. In the midst of that the Spirit of the Lord settled upon me and unspoken gave me the assurance that they were right with God. Even though we couldn't talk the same talk, and even though our theologies were quite different, God had given me a life long peace about them.

Jackie and I sent our oldest 3 children to a Catholic school for a few years.  When Ben was in 2nd grade he came home with a black plastic rosary that the school gave each of the kids.  Jackie went into his room, decorated with sports and Star Wars items and noticed his new rosary hanging from his top bunk. Curious she asked Ben why he had it hanging like that.  Now the rosary has a medallion which usually has a picture of Mary on it but in Ben's 2nd grade mind the image of Our Lady of Fatima on the black plastic medallion looked just like Darth Vadar from the Star Wars movie.  And so he proudly displayed it. We thought it was quite humorous and were actually relieved at the limits of Catholic school indoctrination.

Prayer beads have been around for thousands of years.  Jesus could have been addressing those types of prayers in Matthew 6 when He said;

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the gentiles do; for they suppose they will be heard for their many words.

Jesus then provides a pattern for prayer which is now called the Our Father.  Well guess what?  Repeating the pattern as a prayer with endless repetitions was exactly what Jesus was telling us not to do.  And saying 10 Hail Mary's to each Our Father is not exactly addressing our prayers to the Father as Jesus taught.

Our heavenly Father wants to change our lives and draw us closer to Him.  He speaks to us through His Holy Spirit in many ways.  It is the Holy Spirit, not Mary, that always works to reveal Jesus to us because we can go directly to the Father through Jesus.  To hear God we need to have a heart that seeks Him and is willing to respond to what He says.  When I cry out to God from the depths of my heart and worship Him with made up songs and unknown tongues and weep in response to a verse of scripture that I've reflected upon, moving me to repentance, that is better than ten thousand rote prayers.

The veil has been torn in two.  Neither priest or minister or saint or Mary should be an intermediary between us and the Father.