Five cardinals have invited every cardinal and bishop in the world to join them in petitioning Pope Benedict XVI to solemnly proclaim the Mother of Jesus as the "Spiritual Mother of humanity” as an ecumenical service of clarification to other religious traditions and to proclaim the full Christian truth about Mary.
An English copy of the letter which the five cardinals sent to all the world's cardinals and bishops in various languages on January 1, as well as a Latin “votum” or petition and its English translation has been released by His Eminence, Luis Cardinal Aponte MartÃnez, Fatima Symposium cardinal co-patron, with permission for publication.
This initiative also intends to start an in-depth worldwide dialogue on Mary’s role in salvation for our time and builds upon the endorsement of over 500 Catholic cardinals and bishops for the petition for the definition of this potential fifth Marian dogma over the course of the past 15 years. Renowned contemporary Catholic leaders have also voiced their support, such as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Mother Angelica, foundress of the worldwide Eternal Word Television Network, along with approximately 7 million petitions from Catholics worldwide.
Should this effort prove successful, a proclamation would constitute a historical event for the Church as only the fifth Marian dogma defined in its 2,000-year history.
These five cardinals and their petition, in the form of a Latin votum, included the names and petitions of a number of cardinals and bishops who met at the renowned Marian Shrine in Fatima, Portugal, in May 2005 for a theological symposium on the role of the Virgin Mary as the "Unique Cooperator in the Redemption" (an expression of Pope John Paul II). The symposium ended with a commonly accepted and signed votum to Pope Benedict, which respectfully asks him to prayerfully consider declaring the existing Church doctrine on Mary as the spiritual mother of all peoples as a solemn definition or "dogma," which represents the highest level of recognition of a particular Christian doctrine as a Catholic truth. This definition of Mary as spiritual mother would include her three maternal roles as the human “Co-redemptrix” (which literally means “a woman with the Redeemer” but never on a level of equality with her divine son), “Mediatrix” or distributor of the graces of the redemption, and “Advocate” or principal intercessor to her Jesus Christ – From www.catholic.net
This idea of worshiping a goddess (currently Mary the mother of Jesus) is as old as the Old Testament. Let me show you a couple of passages from the Book of Jeremiah written around the 6th Century B.C.
Jeremiah 7:18: The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.
Jer. 44: 15 Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present—a large assembly—and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah, 16 "We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD! 17 We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine."
The practice of worshipping a goddess of heaven was addressed by Jeremiah. He exhorted the people to cease doing it. They refused to do that. God says, “Then go right ahead and fulfill your vows to the Queen of Heaven. I will be watching over your for harm and not for good” (v. 27).
The Roman Catholic Church is not an evangelical entity. It does not hold to the central teachings of the bible such as, the sufficiency of Scripture, the exclusivism of salvation through Christ, and the exclusive worship of the one true God. This makes the Roman Catholic Church a cult. Now I know this may be offensive to some who have family and loved one within the system, my mom was also a catholic, but not a very good practicing one. My advice to you is to pray that in some miraculous way, God will remove them and bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus first and foremost. It is not important for people to have a relationship with a particular kind of church, but with the living Son of God.
In this account in Jeremiah, two things stand out clearly and are also signs of our times.
First, people tend to worship whoever and whatever based on results.
Notice again what the people in Jeremiah’s day were saying: “We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine” (Jer. 44:17-18).
The Jews in their twisted thinking were giving credit for their prosperity to the Queen of Heaven and not to the Lord. Jeremiah explained to the people that it was precisely because they were worshiping an idol that God removed their prosperity and gave to them hardship (vv. 20-23).
You see – now watch this because this crucial to understand. God often times allows hardships to plague us as a way to “test” our loyalty and faithfulness to Him.
In Joshua time, God did not drive out all the inhabitants in the Promise Land. He kept some there so that the left over people would be a “test” to Israel to see if they would follow through on their obedience to God.
20 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, "Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did” (Jud. 2:20-22 NIV).
Elsewhere in Psalm 26:2, we read: “Examine me, O LORD, and try me; Test my mind and my heart.” One of the reasons why God allows us to go through tough times is to see if we will throw Him under the bus and go after other gods. So Satan comes along and causes us to turn our backs on God and turn to some idol and as a result we experience a measure of success and comfort. So what is our conclusion? What we are doing is good because it brings better results.
This is so wrong and we become so duped. We have got to get away from the mentality that whenever we follow the Lord our lives are suppose to be nothing but blessings and absolute prosperity. I wonder what Job would say to that? We tend to depend too much on pragmatism as a test for truth. That is, if something works and becomes a blessing, then it must be true and okay to do. This is why so many Christians tend to walk by experience and not by faith.
Here is the bottom line: We must worship God and only Him because it is the right thing to do regardless of if we receive the desired results. God has promised to bless us, but He also may postpone the blessings as a way to test our hearts. He may want to expose the motive behind our commitment to Him. Are we committed to following Him for the right reasons or are we doing so for reasons that are less than pure and noble?
Someone prays to the Virgin Mary and has his or her's prayers answered. That’s a test. So now, the person becomes a committed worshiper and follower of Mary because of an experience he received. God is not going to hold us accountable for our experiences, but He will hold us accountable on whom we place our faith and trust in. Just because walking with God can sometimes be hard and difficult and you experience problem after problem – do not jettison your loyalty to God. Stay true to Him. Your heart is being tested.
Now let me share another sign that was true in Jeremiah’s time as well as in our own.
2. The families were pathetically spiritually weak.
Listen to what the women told Jeremiah regarding their husbands: “Besides,” the women added, “do you suppose that we were burning incense and pouring out liquid offerings to the Queen of Heaven, and making cakes marked with her image, without our husbands knowing it and helping us? Of course not!” (Jer. 44:19 NLT).
Isn’t that the most pathetic thing you heard? The women were saying, “Don’t come only to us with this issue. We’re just obeying our husbands. They are the ones resourcing us and making the worship of the Queen of Heaven possible.”
Is this something we see today? Oh yeah! Weak husbands are everywhere! Weak husbands either are weak through their non-involvement and passive spirit, or they are weak through their over-involvement and aggressive spirit.
Both idolatry and weak families weaken the nation. Notice the times God references “all Judah” (Jer. 44:24, 26, 27) and then contrasts the nation with “all the remnant of Judah” (v. 28) who will witness the victory of the Lord.
The Roman Catholic Church is at least upfront in their stance on worshiping the Queen of Heaven. But what about we Christians who ought to know better? You may not be a Roman Catholic, but that does not exempt you from idolatry. In fact, when John wrote his first letter, the very last thing he wanted his readers to remember was this: “Little Children, guard yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).
What are the best ways to heed this warning? First, don’t build your worship of God around positive results. Remember what I said earlier? If you do this, you are building your worship of God around your “experience.” This is never a good thing to do. You have to walk in truth and stand steadfast in the truth no matter what your experiences may suggest otherwise. If you rely on your experiences to determine who and what you worship, you will become a “double-minded person unstable in all your ways” (James 1:8).
Second, your church is your home – pastor it well – especially those of you who are husbands and fathers. When your wife is right, support her, when she is not, correct her and point her in the right direction. Be the leader. Weak fathers and husbands lead to weak families, which leads to weak churches, which leads to weak societies, which leads to weak states, which leads to a weak nation.
Within Judah at the time of Jeremiah, as well as within America is a remnant of true believers. No one who is an idol worshiper is part of God’s remnant. How about you? “Guard yourselves from idols.”
