Friday was my day to talk theology with Protestants it seems. A friend of mine who is starting an online ministry teaching people the Biblical secrets to success is married to a former Greek Orthodox woman who is now a born again like him. Though they did have their marriage blessed in her GO parish. Not sure how that happened, but I didn’t pry. Anyway, he has taken to watching EWTN because there isn’t a great selection of Protestant channels for him. He has really gotten into Father Corapi and loves to listen to the man preach.
I was telling him about a story Fr. Corapi tells about speaking in Peru and the reaction of a Protestant minister in the crowd when he called the Blessed Mother the most perfect of God’s creation. Cute story and Fr. C. tells it way better than me. But the point is that this friend of mine was it TOTAL agreement with the Church on this one. Apparently he has believed for some time, maybe always, that Mary must have been pure to be able to bear God to the world.
He apparently talked about it with a priest friend once who gave him a great quote:
“An impure womb, could not carry a perfect God.”
That does a great job of summing up the Immaculate conception I think. He even calls Mary the Blessed Mother too. I love that. I jokingly referred one day to being a statue-worshipping papist and he about fell out of his chair laughing. He said something that was approaching the Catholic position and I told him to be careful or he might be accused of being one. Since then he jokes about being a closet one or working on being one. I told him I am going to bring him a statue to worship when I go to Michigan to work a conference in April.
All in all, an excellent discussion with him. Friday was good.