Is it wrong to imagine only Jesus when praying to God and that I say more Hail Marys then Our Fathers?

Catholic Living Spirituality
#1

Hello, sorry I have another random question to ask.

I know that to have the best understanding of God, you need to recognise him as the fullness of the Holy Trinity. However, it’s easier to understand him, by reflecting on Jesus. When I think about God and pray to Him, is it okay to just imagine Jesus? Or would this be wrong as it’s not considering the fullness of God?

Also, is it wrong that by saying the rosary, I would be praying more to Mary than to God? I really like Mary, especially after reading about her apparitions, but I don’t want to unknowingly be worshipping her.

Thanks for reading these weird questions!

#2

The microcosm cannot grasp the macrocosm because it is too vast. The image that our unit minds can grasp is another unit being who serves as a model for spiritual life. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus is pointing the way to the macrocosmic mind of God and is the tangential point between the macrocosm and the microcosm. I feel by using Jesus as a personal model and a focal point, we can attain Christ consciousness. It is the perfect consciousness for the human model because it has attained all of the possibilities in the human state. In it all potential is actualized on this earthly plane so it becomes the prototype of being for the Christ conscious mind. It admits and supports the idea that there are varied upward paths to God’s pure consciousness, and the diversity in different world faiths diminishes as one approaches Christ consciousness. Evolution and all spiritual paths lead to God’s pure consciousness.

#3

Something tells me that you haven’t really answered Thyme’s questions.

#4

It can take a while to understand this, but we worship Jesus through Mary. So, when we pray the Hail Marys, we are worshipping Jesus through the prayers of His Mother.
Perhaps a visual image can help. In the rosary mysteries, we have the Nativity of Our Lord, for example. In that mystery, we meditate on the Christmas scene and its meaning. Mary is prominent - but Jesus is always central. The same with the Presentation. Mary is presenting Jesus in the temple. So, we ask Mary to help us worship Jesus.

As for the Trinity - when you focus on Jesus (which is perfectly fine) you’ll start to remember His life and then His relationship with the Father and the Spirit. So, it will all work together eventually. But Jesus came to give us that clear image of the Godhead, so focusing on Jesus alone is certainly a good reference point. After a while, the persons of the Trinity will be joined in unity (you won’t think of Jesus as being alone, but always with the Father and Spirit).

It’s interesting because the rosary is very similar. After a while, you’ll never think of Mary as ever being alone – but she is always focused on Jesus. And like the Nativity, Jesus is not alone but He honors His mother. We honor Jesus by doing the same.

#5

Thank you. That’s a really good answer. I never thought of the Hail Mary and rosary in that way. I think it’s great God chose to reveal himself in human form. He probably did it so that we could understand him better, so your answer makes complete sense.

Thank you. :slight_smile:

#6

Is not God One?

Harry

#7

In terms of imagining Jesus when we pray, there is something we should keep in mind that I learned from The Screwtape Letters (by C.S Lewis). The book is written as a collections of a demon to his nephew on how trap a man in his sins and ultimately bring him to hell.

Here is Mr. Screwtape’s advice to his nephew in terms of prayer:

“You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improvement of his composite object, and to keep it steadily in his imagination during the whole prayer. For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers `Not to what I think thou art, but to what thou knowest thyself to be,’ our situation is, for the moment, desperate.”

God is bigger than what we can imagine, and if we can only pray with the image of God in front of us, then ultimately we will be praying to the image, not to God.

#8

I’ll turn it around and say thanks to you for understanding what I said. :slight_smile:

#9

I’ll just suggest that Jesus Christ Himself is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15) – so we should and do pray with the image in front of us.

#10

Yes, in a communion of three Persons.

#11

The three divine Persons are inseparable. When you pray to one, you are praying to the three. When you receive Jesus in the Eucharist, the Father and the Spirit come to live in your heart as well. The book Divine Intimacy says that “everything done by the Trinity ‘ad extra,’ that is, outside the Godhead, is the work of all three divine Persons.”

I hope that helps with the first question.

#12

Of course, Icons are an aid to prayer and a “window to heaven”, but, in context, what CS Lewis was talking about is that we can never really see God. If we limit ourselves to praying to that image, and don’t see God as something bigger and truly intangible, then we separate ourselves from Him.

#13

Yes, true. If we don’t see God as something bigger than a piece of wood with some paint on it, then we’re not making much spiritual progress. :slight_smile:

#14