The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

According to the Word of God...

If Jesus had been the eldest among children then the others would have been responsible for taking care of their mother. This was not true of step children, who would not have had that responsibility.

If, as some ancient sources say, Joseph was a much older man and a widower with children by his previous wife, then this passage makes perfect sense.

Why then was one of the last things that Our Lord did from the cross the act of assigning his mother to the care of a non-family member?

If He had blood siblings instead of step siblings (who were not responsible for their step mother), why would he have done that?

John 19:26 When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. 27 After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.

Furthermore, it was scandalous in Jewish society for a younger sibling to rebuke or mock the eldest, yet this is what we see happened in the New Testament. However, if His step brethren were older than He then this might occur. Look at Jacob's sons and Jesse's sons in dealing with Joseph and David.

Also, it was virtually criminal for a younger sibling to mock or rebuke the first born son, and yet the word of God shows that this happened to Our Lord This would only be possible if they were the older step siblings by another mother.

With historical documents that suggest that Joseph was a much older man and a widower with children, your assertions fails.
'Brethren of the Lord'
Mary: Ever Virgin (Fathers)
If Mary had other children, then where were they the day their eldest brother Christ was Crucified? Their mother was there and Jesus' best friend John? If she had other kids they would've been there too and they would've been responsible for taking care of Mary. Instead, from the cross and with almost his last breath Jesus gives her to St. John. Something that he wouldn't have done under Jewish customs back then IF HE HAD SIBLINGS.
The New Testament clearly indicates that they were his cousins...the children of Mary's cousin Mary (John 19:25-27).
"25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen.

See! Even his mom's cousin was there...where are these supposed siblings of his? Nowhere...that's where, because they simply did not exist.

Even all three of the "pillars of the reformation" wrote in support of it.
My thanks to San Juan Catholic Seminars for publishing this in their Beginning Apologetics # 5 booklet.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary:

Martin Luther: “ It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin… Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact.” ( Works of Luther, Vol. 11, pages 319-320; Vol. 6, page 510.)

John Calvin: “ There have been certain folk who have wished to suggest from this passage [Matthew 1:25] that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; but what folly this is! For the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph’s obedience and to show that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent His angel to Mary. He had therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company… And beside this Our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to the precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first-born whether or no there was any question of the second.” (Sermon on Matthew 1:22-25. Published in 1562.)

Ulrich Zwingli: “I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel, as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin.” ( Zwingli Opera, Vol. 1, page 424.)

More info:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Mary_Ever_Virgin.asp

Other ECF quotes about the Blessed Virgin:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Mary_Mother_of_God.asp
http://www.catholic.com/library/Mary_Full_of_Grace.asp

Other info about Catholic teaching about Mary
http://www.catholic.com/library/Imma..._and_Assum.asp

Iconoclasm: Or: Catholics Worship Graven Images NOT

View Poll Results: Allegation of Catholic Idolatry
I agree: Catholics worship Mary, the saints and statues		6	3.85%
That is completely wrong and here's why.		150	96.15%
Voters: 156.

Okay let's try this again...

Welcome!
A graven image according to the context of the 1st commandment is anything that a person would construct in order to give it the worship that is due only to God. Now, that said, it could also include anything that we choose to make more important than God in our lives, such as money, career, or power. The Catechism of the Catholic Church gets into it more here: http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/comm1.html#GRAVEN so you can peruse that at your convenience.

Islam forbids the display of ANY images (It's called Iconoclasm, this forbidding) and the iconoclastic heresies that have arisen in Christianity were the result of Islamic influence in about the 800's. you can find that history here at New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07620a.htm

Read the graven image part of the first commandment here:
Exodus 20:1-5

"1 And the Lord spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. 5 Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:"

It is clear that the prohibition is not iconoclastic as you preach, but based upon the intent of the one making and using the image. Since NO CATHOLIC EVER kneels down before any image to worship it we are not idolators at all. We are not stupid enough to confuse a mass of rock, plaster, metal, or any other created thing with the almighty and ever living God of the Universe

New Advent entry on Iconoclasm. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07620a.htm


From the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

IV. "YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE . . ."



2129 The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: "Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure...."[66] It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. "He is the all," but at the same time "he is greater than all his works."[67] He is "the author of beauty."[68]

2130 Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim.[69]

2131 Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new "economy" of images. 2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype," and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it."[70] The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone:
Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.[71]

If the making of images is wrong as the Moslems and these misgiuded iconoclasts say then how do they account for God COMMANDING the making of images to adorn the top of the Ark of the Covenant and the brass serpent that Moses lifted up to save the Israelites that had sinned and which in fact is mentioned in the NT as a type of the lifting up of Christ for our sins? The temple of Solomon is described as having been adorned with all manner of images yet God was pleased to be present there and did not condemn them for it.

Reasons Why I Believe in The Blessed Virgin Mary's Assumption

Do you believe in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary? Poll Results:
Yes: The Church teaches it, and it makes sense		243	92.75%
No, No way, if it's not spelled out in the bible then...		9	3.44%
Not sure: Let's talk about this.		10	3.82%

To me, the Assumption is easy to believe in. If you check the OT you see that it happened back then too. Enoch, Moses, and Elijah were all taken up by God because of who they were in His plan and their faithfulness to Him and though the NT gives us nothing to go on on this event, there are non-canonical early church writings that do suggest that our Lord took the Blessed Virgin as well. This makes perfect sense to me for several reasons.

1. Mary was Jesus mother and He surely loves her just as any of us love our own and would do everything He can to display that love.

2. Jesus would no doubt protect his mother from the terrible persecutions that followed. You will notice that there is no record of Mary's death or where she went after the day of Pentecost, though we do know that she went home to live with St. John after Our Lord's death right? We know that St. John was the last of the apostles to die and that at one point he was miraculously saved by God when being boiled in oil for his faith...yet he never mentions Mary in his letters but there's just no way that he wouldn't have known her fate...that just doesn't make any sense.

I think that the NT is so silent about the Blessed Virgin because they all agreed to protect her. Can you imagine the PR blitz that would've occurred if the Jews or Romans could have found and tortured and killed the mother of this Jesus? Whew!

3. Since God did some really amazing things with the early church, like snatching St. Stephen away to Azotus after he baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts, it seems logical to me that God did some amazing things for the woman who said yes to bearing His only Son. My friends, Mary is probably the 2nd most unique soul in all of history, behind Jesus Himself. No one else was ever called "Full of grace" like that, and I believe that that "fullness of grace" meant she was way more than what a lot of folks think she was. No...she's not God! But I think she had to be about THE holiest person imaginable. Can ya imagine living every day of your life with the real live son of the living God as your kid? WOW! Now THAT's "walkin' with Jesus!" :D

So...the Assumption is really pretty easy for me and that is why.

(I cite no scripture because the pertinent passages should be fairly easy for anyone to find if interested.)

There are extrabiblical and non-canonical , but traditional sources about this belief.
Here is what the Catholic Encyclopedia says about it all:

THE FACT OF THE ASSUMPTION

Regarding the day, year, and manner of Our Lady's death, nothing certain is known. The earliest known literary reference to the Assumption is found in the Greek work De Obitu S. Dominae. Catholic faith, however, has always derived our knowledge of the mystery from Apostolic Tradition. Epiphanius (d. 403) acknowledged that he knew nothing definite about it (Haer., lxxix, 11). The dates assigned for it vary between three and fifteen years after Christ's Ascension. Two cities claim to be the place of her departure: Jerusalem and Ephesus. Common consent favours Jerusalem, where her tomb is shown; but some argue in favour of Ephesus. The first six centuries did not know of the tomb of Mary at Jerusalem.

The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is founded on the apocryphal treatise De Obitu S. Dominae, bearing the name of St. John, which belongs however to the fourth or fifth century. It is also found in the book De Transitu Virginis, falsely ascribed to St. Melito of Sardis, and in a spurious letter attributed to St. Denis the Areopagite. If we consult genuine writings in the East, it is mentioned in the sermons of St. Andrew of Crete, St. John Damascene, St. Modestus of Jerusalem and others. In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (De gloria mart., I, iv) mentions it first. The sermons of St. Jerome and St. Augustine for this feast, however, are spurious. St. John of Damascus (P. G., I, 96) thus formulates the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem:

St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.

Today, the belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is universal in the East and in the West; according to Benedict XIV (De Festis B.V.M., I, viii, 18) it is a probable opinion, which to deny were impious and blasphemous.

Link

History is not all in the Bible...not even close. Nor is mathematics, science, or all literature! No; God might not let us know in the canon... but there is a great deal of stuff that He didn't see fit to include in the canon. Is there a miraculous principle of God doing things like this? Of course there is! The Holy Spirit snatched Philip away to Azotus after he baptized the eunuch...is that the only time that happened? No one can say...not even preachers and teachers. Are there stories of such things happening after the NT was closed? Yep. Lots of them...or does your particular version of Christianity disbelieve in miracles? If so I'd say that is really a shame.

I think that the whole fallacy of what you try to tell us is summed up in the closing line of the statement:

Quote:

Always go back to the Bible for your answers.

That is a drastic oversimplification of Christianity and it simply defies all God-given good sense and logic since history tells us a very great many things about what the early church believed and why things developed the way they did.

I have a problem with those who always say that Mary could not have been assumed into heaven when there are so many things that God has done in the NT (Acts in particular) that are precedent setting. There are a lot of things that God has done that are beyond my simple comprehension, yet that does not make me doubt the things that He did for her. I mean if people are willing to believe in tongues and the other gifts of the Holy Spirit, then why not this as well? The fact that God has assumed OT faithful such as Moses & Elijah makes me wonder why He wouldn't do the same for someone as holy and special as His own grace filled mother. That just seems like a serious case of doubt to me.

A non Catholic friend said:

Quote:

I've been thinking about this, & doing a little research (& a lot of toiling with my brain!!) I finally came up with what I had been trying to remember. In Matthew 16:28, Jesus says:"There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom"(KJV)...OK, this is explained away by a lot of people, but this--plus the reference in Revelation--It seems to me that He is saying that there is somebody--a real actual human person-- that is known to/in the company of the apostles, who is not going to die, but be taken to Heaven without dying. And, as someone has all ready pointed out, the person with the empty tomb--in fact, the missing tomb--is Mary. So combine that with the fact that this is not something that just occurred to someone one morning--It has been believed throughout history, I find that it is a pretty sure thing that, yes, Mary was assumed into Heaven. Besides, why not??

That just blew me away! That is entirely possible, and as with so many things that I have discovered from the Scriptures it makes serious sense. I can think of quite a few reasons for Mary's assumption...and very few counters. It really doesn't hurt us either way though.

The fact that there are extra canonical sources that tell these things makes it all the more clear. There is ample precedent in scripture and when a thinking person considers all this one can see that it follows logic and the sense of the Word of God. It therefore does not surprise me that the Church proclaims it infallibly.

God is perfect and His works are the source of all wisdom and truth, therefore they are also logical. If there is error...it will be in our capacity to understand, not His works or will.

My contention is that this is still within the character that God has revealed to us in His word and the Assumption is not inconsistent with that nature since God did the same thing with OT people who were not His mother.

Here's the link to Munificentissimus Deus so everyone can read it for themselves.
MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS Since you bring up this document, I decided to have a look at it for myself, and found this:

"21. Thus St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God's Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God."[17]

22. These words of St. John Damascene agree perfectly with what others have taught on this same subject. Statements no less clear and accurate are to be found in sermons delivered by Fathers of an earlier time or of the same period, particularly on the occasion of this feast. And so, to cite some other examples, St. Germanus of Constantinople considered the fact that the body of Mary, the virgin Mother of God, was incorrupt and had been taken up into heaven to be in keeping, not only with her divine motherhood, but also with the special holiness of her virginal body. "You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life."[18] And another very ancient writer asserts: "As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him."[19]"