Meanwhile, I will gladly ask my fellow Christians here for intercession and also take their requests. On Sunday we pray for each other in the service. It makes more sense, too, because this way we have the caring fellowship and love on earth that we need along with God’s help. (Bear one another’s burdens). This praying for each other, a fellow Christian in my circle of friends and acquaintance, prompts us to love and do something.

I think the key thing with intercession of saints, especially Mary, is that the Saints are not dead (physically, their bodies, yes, but spiritually they are very much alive) As we know saints in heaven are certainly more righteous than the best of sinners on earth, and we also know that James 5:16b says The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. This is the basis for the intercession of saints, who ALWAYS pray for us in Jesus’ Holy Name.

Mary and all the Saints point us to Jesus. They also help bring Jesus to us, by their example, and by their prayers. If the angelic hosts unceasingly proclaim Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the God of Hosts likewise does the Communion of Saints, only with more authority, because men (neut) who are made in the image and likeness of God, are higher even than the host of Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominations, Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim.

If the angels can hear us, who is to say the Saints do not?

In fact, I was at an awards banquet last Saturday. A “Christo et ecclesia award” was given to our former president of Lutheran Church Canada. He had four consecutive terms, he is involved with our missions in Nicaragua, etc. etc. What does he say: “I’ve only done what I was called to do. And when I look back not as well as I would have liked. I am so glad that I preach the forgiveness of sins.” (Pretty close to the Luke 17:10). Another award was for a little old lady, who had spent her life visiting and praying, etc. She said: “What comes to my mind as a response to this is: See how they love one another.”

I think you can say “thank you” honestly to a compliment, encouragement, reward, in a humble way. It’s always in the way everything is done, is it not? I’ve heard rather triumphalistic “thank you’s” by someone I consider rather narcissistic. But you can also say “thank you” with looking someone in the eyes and realizing that they are being kind and brotherly (”see how they love one another”). Just to be noticed is a kindness, as by sinful nature we are blind to everything but ourselves.

This glory in John 17:22, is like this, we are to be one in the Lord through the Spirit. And when we look at Christianity, we are always sad that we don’t agree on everything. Yet, the discourse is also stimulating and keeps us growing. But as the Una Sancta we still have this brotherly love and love of the Lord that is the reflection of His first loving us. But only through his Spirit and giving of himself are we brothers and sisters and have some glory of unity.

As to the veneration of Mary. I’ve not been exposed to much of it and can’t comment on it too much. As a Lutheran attending Catholic convent school, I sat during the Hail Mary’s that were only said during the month of May, but said the Lord’s Prayer with the others all the rest of the year. In the Hail Mary it’s the “Pray for us now and in the hour of our death” that is like a prayer to Mary and we don’t believe that praying to any dead person has a scriptural mandate. (In Bavaria, we had many Crucifixes, but I don’t recall many statues of Mary. Usually, when I see statues of Mary around here, I’m a little embarrassed for her. They tend to be so gaudy on top of it.)

I’ve watched Mary closely at times in the Bible, especially lately as I just also lost my only son. I like her very much. I love her faith. But I have faith, too, and without having seen. She is my sister and I have unity with her in waiting for the Son of God, her Savior and mine. That was the whole reason of “Theotokos” and of “Mother of God”: it was to say that Jesus Christ is God. That’s the point.

I missed you post about the awards dinner etc. it went up at the same time as mine after it did.

I think we have to be careful exactly what we say about faith and works. It is surely true that without the Holy Spirit we cannot, as Augsburg says, work the righteousness of God; and (which is to say the same thing) nothing we do can bring God down from heaven. That said, God has come down from heaven, and we really do have the Holy Spirit. Thus the Solid Declaration of Concord “the question at present is not…also not what sort of a free will he will have in spiritual things after he has been regenerated and is controlled by God’s Spirit, or when he rises from the dead. But the principal question is only and alone, what the intellect and will of the unregenerate man is able to do in his conversion and regeneration from his own powers remaining after the Fall.”

In short, Soli Christi Gloria does not assert that God does not give true glory to us after our baptism, nor indeed that after regeneration our wills do not cooperate with grace (I seem to remember reading that the regenerate will cooperates with grace somewhere in the Book of Concord, but I can’t find it.)

Also, we have to be careful that we don’t say that just because someone receives the promise through faith, that they are not to be commended. Romans 4:13 says that Jesus [note that "seed" is singular] was justified by faith, and not works: “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” Moreover, we should read Romans 4:3-5, Christologically. As John makes clear, Christ did not seek to save Himself, but trusted God. Though his body was good as dead, He did not seek to save Himself, but trusted Himself, believing that God could even raise the dead.

And as Philippians (and many other passages say) it is precisely for this that we praise and glorify Christ. He did not seek to glorify Himself, and therefore He has received all glory.

I think you think we Catholics disagree with you on this and I don’t think we do. I agree with what you say. All glory is God’s. As my love for my wife is actually a reflection of my love for God, any praise that I would give Mary would be God’s as well.

We are in agreement.

You do realize that your Isiah 42:8 line is in direct conflict with the John 17:22.

I’m not disagreeing with you it’s just what you’re saying isn’t as fleshed out as you believe it is which I think is the point of this post.

I say inappropriately because it was God Himself who declared all of the creation to be good. I have no problem in admitting that humans are fallen and damaged. But, more and more I appreciate the Orthodox emphasis on the idea that the image of God has not been lost, only the likeness of God.

On this blog there has been more than one comment made on other posts on the damage some people have felt because they have felt diminished by their religious experience. That is, it is one thing to truthfully say that we can never earn our salvation, but it is another thing to fail to praise people for progress made or fail to recognize the positive changes in people’s lives.

I have no problem in saying that God is the origin of all good things. Scripture says that. Holy Tradition says that. I have a problem with those (as was cited by one of the posters above) who are incapable of simply saying a humble thanks for praise received because if they dare to say such a thing, they might be misinterpreted as diminishing God’s Glory.

I have no problem with Sola Dei Gloria as a theological concept. I have a problem with any application of SDG that aggressively diminishes people created in the image of God because to praise them too much is to somehow do wrong to God. More than that, an overly aggresive application of SDG effectually drifts into hyper-Calvinism. What do I mean? An overly aggressive application of SDG, by refusing to give any credit whatsoever to human free will, seems to drift into a hyper-TULIP thought pattern. It fails to recognize that in many situations God’s glory shines precisely because a human being made a correct decision. It is “both/and” not “either/or.”

If this has to do with theosis, this is too complicated for me just now. I did find an article on Luther and Theosis here: http://www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1054

Do you read Fr. Stephen’s blog? I think what he calls the “two story universe” comes into play here. We’re fine giving honor and glory to people so long as we remain on this story, and the glory isn’t Glory; but when we go into the second story and approach “God things” we can’t give honor or glory to people, only to God.

Brigitte

But there’s also passages like John 17:22, and we really cannot take the Isaiah passage to mean that God does not share his glory period, but that it isn’t divided up with idols, first because Christ says he gives God’s glory to us, but also because otherwise we would have to say that God doesn’t share his glory with Christ.