LONE IRAQI woman WORSHIPS(MARY) at Cath. Church in IRAQ!

[joyfulchild]

news.yahoo.com

Wed Oct 24, 10:28 AM ET



A woman lights a candle in a pretty courtyard outside the Virgin Mary Church, a scene replayed in Christian places of worship the world over. But this woman is in Baghdad and she is a Shiite Muslim.

Umm Ali lives nearby in Karrada, one of the few parts of the battered Iraqi capital to have recovered some semblance of normality from the horror of suicide bombs and sectarian killings.

Beside a splashing fountain, below a frieze of the Virgin Mary in her classic pose with arms outstretched and open, the Shiite mother of three young children cuts a strange figure in her black hijab headscarf.

"It's the same thing for me here as a mosque," she tells AFP, referring to Islam's recognition of Mary and a long tradition of Iraqi Muslims praying at Christian shrines.

"I came here to pray that God will look after my children."

But this is not the whole story. She prefers to pray here rather than at any of the numerous mosques within a muezzin's call because someone listened here. Her prayers were answered.

"I came here when I was pregnant and I prayed for a girl because I have two boys. A girl came!" she says joyfully....more at link.

Sadly this article continues as we so often see along the lines that this is a Christian church(error as it is CATHOLIC) servicing the CHRISTIAN community(in other words the people that come to this church are incorrectly portrayed as CHRISTIANS.)

[4givenmuch]

Anyone every read The Source by Mischner? This practice has gone on since the beginning of time. God knows the hearts and I am grateful He does!

[RomaLynnStar]

"It's the same thing for me here as a mosque," she tells AFP, referring to Islam's recognition of Mary and a long tradition of Iraqi Muslims praying at Christian shrines.

Isn't that wonderful???? I knew this was probably going on when I did research on the marian apparitions at Fatima, Portugal.

Real beleivers do not pray in Mary's name. It makes me sad that they call this a Christian shrine. Maybe a Roman Catholic shrine, but not Christian.

[savedbygrace]

http://www.abcog.org/mary4.htm

Catholic theology: Technically, it is impossible for Catholics to "worship" Mary. "Worship" has been defined as applying only to "God". The worship of Mary is termed "hyperdullation" or "veneration", and of the Saints, "dullation". Further, Catholics do not "pray to" Mary, they "ask Mary to pray for us." But to any non-Catholic, this is exactly the same as praising and praying to someone, i.e., worshipping them. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

"Since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh." (Council of Ephesus, 431 A.D.)

Dr. J. D. Fulton: The Lady of Roman Catholic Mariology is not even an invention of Roman Catholicism, but an adoption of a pagan conception which cursed Babylon, the prototype of the modern Babylon, centuries before Christ appeared as the son of Mary. Pictures of the mother and child were then worshiped. In almost all the devotional books of the Roman Catholic Church, the mother of God is crowned, sceptred and enthroned as the Queen of heaven. ["She has been appointed by God to be the Queen of heaven and earth", Pius IX, 1854, but not made "official" till 1954 by Pius XII.] "I can never," said the Rev. M. Hobart Seymour, in his Evenings with the Romanists, page 254, "forget the shock I received when I first saw in their churches in Italy, the Virgin Mary crowned as Queen of heaven, seated on the same throne with Jesus crowned King of heaven. These were the God-man and God-woman enthroned alike. There was nothing to distinguish the one above the other."

The origin of this idolatry had its root in ancient mythology. Astarte of the Assyrians, Ashtoreth of the Sidonians and Bowaney of the Hindoos held the place that Mary occupies in the church of Rome. Greece had her Venus and Rome her Juno. The Diana of the Ephesians was a female, from whose body in every part there seemed to be issuing all the various animals of creation, symbolizing the conception and creation of all things. The Egyptians on the one hand and the Etrurians on the other had their Isis, the same symbol, a female divinity whom they regarded as "the mother of the gods." Jeremiah describes the Jews who had rebelled against God as making cakes to "the queen of heaven" (Jer. 7:18; 44:17), the title given to Juno in the Scandinavian theology. Rome has adopted this element of heathenism, this product of the carnal heart. In all its essential elements the Roman Etrurian and the Roman Catholic Mary brought from Babylon and adopted by papal Rome are in accord - Romanists are idolaters. In their churches are pictures of the Virgin that are worshiped because of the wonderful things professedly done by them. In St. Peter's is a picture of the Virgin bearing the inscription that it had miraculously shed blood when struck by a stone. A picture of the mother and child is at Lucca, of which it was affirmed that when some one flung a stone at the face of the child she transferred the child to the other arm and thus saved it from injury. Roman Catholic Mariologists defend this.

It is claimed by Romanists that the mother and child sustain the same relation in heaven which they have assigned them on earth, and that Jesus is more the mediator with Mary than Mary is the intercessor with Christ. From Babylon, this worship of the mother and child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, in Assyria, in China and in Greece and elsewhere, this form of worship suited to the carnal heart gained sway. Circe, the daughter of the sun, taken from Pompeii, has the nimbus or circle surrounding the head in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna is at this time adorned in the pictures given of this mistress of Rubens, this lady of Roman Catholic Mariology. Can any one believe this coincidence accidental?

Mariolatry encourages sinners.

Christ's worship is built on the teachings of the Scriptures. To obtain forgiveness of sins through Christ there must be a change of heart, a new birth, a new life. Old things must pass away, all things must become new. Romanists believe that they can be saved more easily through Mary. Christ requires repentance, Mary devotion. Faith in Christ demands submission to the will of God, reformation of life, and devotion of heart as required by the gospel; while devotion to Mary consists in prayers to her or some external practices in her honor. Liguori teaches that damnation is impossible where there is devotion to the Virgin. Hence the worship of Mary encourages sinners and multiplies sins. Pio Nono (Pius IX), after decreeing the Immaculate Conception, made the cornerstone of the Roman Catholic faith to believe and to teach that salvation is received solely and alone through Mary. It is ours to refute this blasphemous assumption by proclaiming Christ as the way, the truth, and the life.

When Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ her [unique] mission ended. The dream that haunted the imagination of the Jewish maiden was fulfilled; Mary had given birth to Jesus. The world worshiped the being born, not the one who gave birth to the Son of man and the Son of God. They did it then. True believers do it now as they will do it in heaven. Mary will walk with the redeemed in white. "The assumption of Mary" [bodily into heaven, Pius XII, 1950] is a Popish assumption, and it is nothing more. Mary has not risen and will not rise until the trump shall sound, when she will come forth and cast her crown at the feet of Christ, with the countless throng that no man can number. Mariolatry, the perpetual virginity of the virgin, is a popish lie and calculated to deceive millions, while it is an insult to our Lord and Saviour. It declares that Christ lacks compassion, is wanting in knowledge and depends for information upon Mary, and is without willingness to help and save the lost.

As a virgin, Mary became the medium through which the ever blessed Christ came into the world. Because of this she was blessed among women. She was not worshiped by those who knew her in the flesh, and she is without any claim to worship at this time, or any time.

Jesus Christ is the Stone which is being set at naught by Romanists, but as Peter said "He is the head of the corner; neither is there any salvation in any other, for there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved." [Acts 4:11-2] Hence in our hearts and with our lips we glorify Christ, and reject Mariolatry as dishonoring to God and destructive of faith in Christ, and we glorify the one Mediator between God and man [1 Tim. 2:5], Christ Jesus our Lord, who was crucified, dead and buried, and who rose from the dead and ascended up on high [Eph. 4:8] and was welcomed into heaven by the multitudes that no man can number and is worshiped by the redeemed as the being by whom and for whom all things were made. [Col. 1:16]

by Justin Dewey Fulton D.D., "Is it Mary or the Lady of Roman Catholic Mariology?", Brooklyn, New York, January, 1890.

[Abiding in His Word]

I'm moving this to the "Other Religions" forum.

[qb0987]

Actually, Islam that is practiced in many parts of the world is not pure. People still mix a lot of folk religions into Islam. You see a lot of these in S.E. Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, etc) and also in Africa.