The unchanging folly taught to the Roman Catholic people!

‘A beautiful day to have saint’s relics in our parish’

‘A beautiful day to have saint’s relics in our parish’ Honouring an alleged saint’s bones

The BBC Northern Ireland news site has been carrying the story of the touring of the bones of a Roman Catholic ‘saint’, French farm girl, Bernadette Soubirous. She claimed back in 1858 that she had seen the ‘Immaculate Conception’. This happened between 11 February and 16 July 1858, and Bernadette claim that the young lady who appeared to her identified herself as ‘the Immaculate Conception’.

Bernadette Soubirous

The term,  ‘the Immaculate Conception’ is explained as meaning: ‘The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church.’

I find it strange that what the young French girl claimed she saw was not ‘the Virgin Mary’ but ‘the Immaculate Conception’, which is the title of a doctrine of Rome and not a person!

Of course ‘logic’ has no place in this or any of the other notions that Rome puts forth as a ‘doctrine’ to be believed!

What is a truth, however, is that Mary never claimed for herself that she was free from sin. Rather she praised the Lord as the One Who was her ‘Saviour’.

“And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,” Luke 1:46-47.

If she was not a sinner she had no need of  a ‘Saviour’ and would not have then referred to the Lord as such!

But of course, Mary was born a sinner, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23. She did find a Saviour and she speaks of that experience as she ‘magnified the Lord’ in what has become known by the Latin term, ’The Magnificat’, the opening words of which I have just quoted.

Here is the rest of Mary’s song of praise to her Redeemer.

“For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever,” Luke 1:48-55.

I recall while in prison in 1966, having a number of conversations with two young IRA men, convicted of arms offences and serving their sentence in the same place as me, the ‘Joinery Shop’.

When the subject of the Virgin Mary came up, I spoke of her in keeping with the Bible’s description of her. I reverently referred to her as the ‘Blessed Virgin Mary’. This surprised the Roman Catholic lads for, as one of them said, ‘I thought that Protestants hated Mary’

Well, I explained to him that there were ‘Protestants’ who were not Protestant in the historic sense of that term but who believed nothing of what those back in Martin Luthers’s day believed.

A true Protestant believes and seeks to practise ONLY that which the Bible teaches. Concerning Mary, the Bible speaks highly of her as a young virtuous girl who feared God and believed the Holy Scriptures.

Cousin Elizabeth

Her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, spoke of her in the following words.

“And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord,” Luke 1:41-45.

Please note the title Elizabeth gave to Mary. She called her ‘the mother of my Lord’! Elizabeth did not call Mary the ‘Mother of God’, a title Rome has invented and which has no foundation in Holy Scripture and is in fact a blasphemy!

He Who is ‘everlasting to everlasting’ cannot have a ‘mother’! Such a title robs God of His ‘eternality’! He cannot be the ‘eternal God’ if he had a mother!

No, Elizabeth called Mary ‘ the mother of my Lord’ or her Master. The Lord Jesus Christ, Whose human nature was born of Mary, was ‘God made flesh’ and dwelling amongst men. This is what John 1:4 says. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth,” John 1:14.

The Shorter Catechism, that which sets for children the orthodox teaching of the Bible on matters divine, says this of Christ’s birth.

Question 22: How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?

Answer: Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.

The answer is accompanied by texts of Holy Scripture which prove the authority of these statements.

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same,” Hebrews 2:14.

“Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” Matthew 26:38.

“Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. . . . The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” Luke 1:31, 35.

“Such an high priest became us, [who is] holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” Hebrews 7:26.

NO BASIS

There is no basis in the Bible whatever for Rome’s claims concerning Mary. She was not sinless when she was born nor when she bore Christ as her firstborn son. She is not the ‘mother of God’ nor is she the ‘Queen of heaven’. Rather that title was given by wicked rebellious Israelites to a heathen deity they worshipped in the rebellion against God and His truth in the days of Jeremiah the prophet.

Listen to what he wrote at the Lord’s direction!

“Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched,” Jeremiah 7:16-20.

The worship of this heathen deity was one of the reasons the Lord judged Judah, destroyed Jerusalem and carried away thousands of Jews into Babylonian captivity some 2600 years ago!

I would that Roman Catholics understood these truths and recognised the folly in which they are engaged with the encouragement of their ‘church and its priests’!

Do I despise the Roman Catholic who is found rejoicing in the opportunity to honour the ‘fairy tale’ of Bernadette and her ‘visions’? Not any more than did Paul despise the people he observed on Mars Hill in Athens who worshipped idols.

Listen to what he said to them.

“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you,” Acts 17:22-23.

No Paul did not mock or laugh at them but rather was prepared to risk his life and tell them of their error and set forth the truth of the gospel!

Love does not fear to show men who know not God their ‘ignorance’, their ’superstitious’ devotions! Men must be told of their errors before they will cease from them and follow after truth.

My heart is grieved for the Roman Catholics whose ‘devotions’ are reported on the BBC news site. Lisnaskea was my home town. On my way from school, I had to pass ‘Holy Cross’ Roman Catholic chapel. Those that gather there to pay homage to what are alleged to be the bones of ‘Saint Bernadette’, were once my neighbours or more likely, the offspring of those who 70+ years ago lived around Lisnaskea.

I say ‘alleged’ saint for Rome’s declaration of her ‘sainthood’ came some 54 years after she died, and that on the basis of miracles that Rome claims she performed! It is puzzling that her body is said by the Roman Catholic Church to remain uncorrupted yet ‘relics’ of her body, a fragment of the 6th rib, the kneecaps, a sample of muscle, from the external part of the right femur and some of her hair. are now paraded around Ireland!

True Saints

Let me show that how true saints are ‘made’. These are the words of greeting of Paul to the Christians at Ephesus at the beginning of his epistle to that church.

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace,” Ephesians 1:1-7.

In chapter 2, Paul explains just how they became ‘saints’, which is of course, just another title for Christians.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast,” verses 4-9.

Their change from ‘sinners’ to ‘saints’ was wrought in an instant. They passed from ‘death to life’, wonderfully converted by the power and grace of God. They immediately were changed. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” 2 Corinthians 5:17.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” Romans 8:1.

There was no waiting for 54 years but rather an instantaneous and glorious deliverance from sin’s condemnation experienced.

The divine workings of the Holy Spirit, whereby faith in Christ is created by Him in the soul of the sinner and repentance over sin is imparted and exercised, and a joyful assurance of pardon is immediately enjoyed, is summed up in the well known words.

As soon as my all I ventured on the atoning blood,
The Holy Spirit entered, and I was born of God

It is interesting that when Paul wrote to the church at Rome he said this:

“Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world,” Romans 1:6-8.

Their faith in the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ made them to be saints.

That is still God’s way of preparing sinners for heaven, not bowing before and reverencing a casket containing the remnants of a human being who passed from this scene of time some 150 years ago.

My Testimony

Nearly sixty one years ago I was a blind, so-called Protestant but was as ignorant of the true God as any heathen! Then God in mercy saved me. He spoke to me by His Spirt through the Word of God, the Bible and I was awakened, aroused and caused to ‘flee from wrath to come’.

Like the Thessalonians of old, I “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come,” 1Thessalonians 1:9-10.

Dear reader, if you do not know the Saviour as your own, heed the verses I have quoted for you and follow Mary’s example and make the Lord your Saviour.

Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
17th October, 2024