Die Schreiben von Schreiber

 This is a combination of a series of Facebook posts I made some time ago: Did you know...Mary is the greatest woman who ever lived. The archangel Gabriel and her cousin, St. Elizabeth both confess in Scripture "Blessed art thou among women." She was chosen by God to conceive, enflesh, birth, nurture, and raise "very God of very God, of one essence with the Father!" He who can not be contained condescended to be contained in her womb. She is the first Christian to receive the Savior, and she did so in ways no one else could ever do. She found favor with the Father, was overshadowed by the Spirit, and gave birth and raised the Son. (Icon: Our Lady of the Sign, depicting Christ's conception in her womb as she says "May it be done unto me." Her arms are open to us in an invitation to also receive the Savior of our souls.) Did you know...Mary is the model of a life of faith. When God's Angel came to her with His amazing message, in faith, Mary respo...

Many people have various ideas concerning the Saints of Christianity. Many Protestants, while acknowledging a few of them by calling them "Saint Paul" or "Saint Luke," fall into two camps. The more "evangelical" denominations generally don't recognize many, if any non-biblical persons as saints, to my knowledge. The "Mainline Protestants" like Methodists, Anglicans, Lutherans etc, do recognize other saints, to a limited degree. Coming from Lutheranism, I know they acknowledge Saint Augustine, Saint Lucia, and others. Ironically, Martin Luther, the Reformer who is credited with "restoring the Gospel" is not recognized as a saint, and no person is considered a saint, in the narrow sense, since the Reformation. In Lutheranism (I'm not sure about others), there is a broad, general sense of saint-hood, and it's generously applied to pretty much all those who have departed this life apparently in the faith. But that's it. Sain...

On the veneration of Mary and the Saints Part 1 - Praise travels uphill: My parents visited me a few weeks ago and on that Sunday they went with me to church. They met some of my new friends, one of whom especially said some really nice things about me and closed with "of course, that's all a reflection on you and is to your credit." And I thought "what a great explanation of veneration of Mary and all the saints!" God is glorified in His saints, and the great things we say about them are *because of Him* and therefore praise of Him, ultimately. We call Mary Mother of God because of her Son. We call her "More Honorable than the Cherubim" etc because those bodiless powers serve God and He rides/sits on the Cherubim, but He lived inside and took flesh  from Mary. We could go on and on, and the Church does in the daily honoring of Her saints with hymns. Reading these short daily verses, you can see that the honor given the Saints is due t...