All Graces Come Through Mary

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TuAutem said:
Mary is the PERFECT CHRISTIAN. When asking yourself any question about what her prayer can or cannot do, if the person of Mary obscures things for you, just replace it with that. “What can the prayer of a PERFECT CHRISTIAN obtain from God?”

Well, if said Christian really is perfectly Christian, then logically, her will is 100% attuned to God’s will. If that is so, then anything she asks of God will be, by definition, 100%, what God wants. Otherwise she would be imperfect in her love for Christ.

Therefore, anything she asks of God will be granted by God, and anything that she does not, will not be. Not because God answers to her, but because she answers to God. She could not, as a perfect Christian, ask of God anything he did not wish to grant–if she did, her will would not be in accordance with God’s.

This is not some idolatrous Mariolatry–it is simply the inescapable logical consequence of saying that Mary wants what God wants.
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None of this really answers the question though. THe OP wasn’t asking if Mary could be a vehicle for Grace in some way, but if all graces come through her.
 
Catechism of the Catholic Church
969 “This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. . . . Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”
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scborromeo.org/ccc/para/969.htmscborromeo.org/ccc/para/969.htm
 
Mary’s will is the same as Jesus’ will. There is no conflict. She would not “block” some grace that Jesus would allow.

Peace,
John
 
Luke_K said:
And through Mary’s parents we got Mary, and through her grandparents we got her parents, etc. all the way back to God creating everything. I don’t see how Mary giving birth to Jesus necessarily means all graces come through her, any more than Mary’s parents giving birth to Mary means all graces must also go through them before they get to us.

And what does it even mean to get grace through another person before it gets to us? 🤷
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Any person who fulfills the will of God in his life, who leads a holy life, manifests grace, or God’s love, into the world. Mary, as a perfect example of someone who fulfilled the will of God fully in her life, is “full of grace” and therefore manifests God’s grace in her very being. Grace is present to us in many ways, but the light of the world, the Christ, did come into the world through Mary’s fulfillment of God’s will in a perfect manner, thus grace did come to us through Mary’s free action and willingness to serve God in perfection. No doubt, grace came to Mary through the love of God, manifested in the love of their family, through Mary’s parents. All of us can be vehicles of God’s grace, but Mary is the most perfect example, other than the Savior himself, of one who had fulfilled that role.
 
I can’t vote because none of the answers is correct.

The Church teaches Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces. We are talking about supernatural workings of God The Father here. The only thing we need to know about supernatural matters is what the Church has taught traditionally.

Next step is Faith. We either accept the Marian Doctrines or we don’t. If we don’t, we do not have the Faith. It’s as simple as that.

Discussing it if fine. Asking questions in order to understand what the Church teaches is fine. A confirmed Roman Catholic questioning the Dogmas and Doctrines of the Church is not fine.
 
_L said:
But still the question remains, HOW does she deliver them?
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If you can’t find the answer to such questions in Church teaching, then you won’t find it anywhere.

Our human minds can’t comprehend it all. We have to have Faith.
 
Bluegoat said:
None of this really answers the question though. THe OP wasn’t asking if Mary could be a vehicle for Grace in some way, but if all graces come through her.
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By definition, though, if the Perfect Christian’s prayer be 100% in accordance with God’s will, then it must match up, 100%, to God’s graces. Because, if it did not, there would be a more perfect accord with divine will that did. If so, her accordance with God would thus be imperfect.

Yet in Scripture and Tradition we read that God desires in the Church an ideal spouse, one perfectly in accord with Him. Therefore, this perfect love between Bride and Bridegroom must exist. And, the Church teaches, we see this exemplified in the Blessed Virgin Mary.

All graces, then, come from God alone. But, if Mary’s will be perfectly in accord with God’s, as the Church teaches it is, then no grace comes from God (its sole originator) that Mary does not also desire. (Otherwise, we would in effect be saying that Mary wants something God does not, which is false.)

All graces, then, do come through her, inasmuch as she desires and approves them, and perhaps even petitioned for them. All graces, though, originate and are granted by God alone. Our Lady neither gives, nor would desire to give, any grace that was not of God, as I’m sure everyone who voted #1 on this poll would be quick to agree.

JohnMPhilomena’s post just above makes the same point I am trying to make in far fewer words.
 
TrueLight said:
…]my heart is aching right now, because I fear I may have misunderstood Catholicism all along. I see Catholicism as a Christian religion based on Christ’s sacrifice…]I do not see Catholicism as a Marian religion, through whom everything passes and eventually ends up with Christ…]
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If your heart is aching it is because you know that all glory must go to God. Mary may have a higher place than us, but she is not even a grain of sand compared to God. Catholicism is about Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross so that we may live. Without Jesus Christ there is no Church. Not all glory to Christ went through Mary; however, all glory given to Mary (if the person giving her glory understands that it is all for Christ) ends up going to Christ.

Remember this passage:[BIBLEDRB]John 2:3-5[/BIBLEDRB] Jesus may not have planned to perform miracles that night, but he was persuaded by His love for Mary.

There is a lot more on Mary than can be said in one post so

[SIGN]If you are a reader at all, True Devotion to Mary is a book written by a Catholic saint that explains what Mary should mean to us Catholics.[/SIGN]

The Catholic Church acknowledges that Mary dispenses the graces that God gave to her. She is “full of grace”, but only because God fills her with it, not because she is the source of grace.
 
TuAutem said:
By definition, though, if the Perfect Christian’s prayer be 100% in accordance with God’s will, then it must match up, 100%, to God’s graces. Because, if it did not, there would be a more perfect accord with divine will that did. If so, her accordance with God would thus be imperfect.

Yet in Scripture and Tradition we read that God desires in the Church an ideal spouse, one perfectly in accord with Him. Therefore, this perfect love between Bride and Bridegroom must exist. And, the Church teaches, we see this exemplified in the Blessed Virgin Mary.

All graces, then, come from God alone. But, if Mary’s will be perfectly in accord with God’s, as the Church teaches it is, then no grace comes from God (its sole originator) that Mary does not also desire. (Otherwise, we would in effect be saying that Mary wants something God does not, which is false.)

All graces, then, do come through her, inasmuch as she desires and approves them, and perhaps even petitioned for them. All graces, though, originate and are granted by God alone. Our Lady neither gives, nor would desire to give, any grace that was not of God, as I’m sure everyone who voted #1 on this poll would be quick to agree.

JohnMPhilomena’s post just above makes the same point I am trying to make in far fewer words.
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No, I’m afraid that doesn’t follow. If the head of the family doles out cash to the family members, even if his wife always agrees with him and wants him to do it, it doesn’t come from her if he is doing the doling out.

The only way to say it all comes from her would be if he handed all the cash to her to give out.

So far, I haven’t seen anyone here so bold as to say that, though that is the implication of saying all Grace comes through Mary. IMO its an innovation and not really doctrinally sound.
 
Withholding Grace is not of God,how could this be of the BVM? You do this through your own free-will. God does not wish you to fall out of grace. That is not even in the equation.

To save our souls we have an obligation to keep the faith. This is not a blind or vague concept. In fact Faith is very well defined.

Faith is an infused supernatural virtue that each of us have received at the moment of Baptism. However we have an obligation to preserve this virtue. We have an obligation to preserve our faith.

The basis of our salvation is our faith. It is impossible to please God without Faith. Faith alone is obviously not enough, yet the Faith is absolutely necessary for our salvation. If our faith is lost through our own free will we cannot be saved unless we re-gain the faith.

St Thomas points out that a heretic really doesn’t have the faith. Otherwise he would accept everything that God teaches. Because he choose’s to accept this or that dogma, he has only a kind of opinion which in many ways may agree with the Articles of Faith.

However because a heretic rejects some Dogmas his belief is not based on faith. Where-as a man/woman who believes everything God teachs is TRUE because the faithful soul knows that God who is all Holy cannot tell a lie. And God who is all knowing cannot be mistaken.

Many of us as Catholics “think” we can go good on our own. Or any good we have in not through the grace of God. It would be easier to live without oxygen, than to be Good without Grace. We depend on Grace for any goodness we have instant to instant.

Now to relate this to Catholic teaching and to the BVM, you would have read the other thread #133 and Pope Benedicts August 2011 homily which is a couple posts before.

However this is the paradigm the CC teaches. Should you follow another Moral Model I cannot know. I also am not trying to connect two different paradigms since I find this one correct. So in essense we have a couple different ideas going on here.

Peace
 
Luke_K said:
I don’t see how Mary giving birth to Jesus necessarily means all graces come through her, any more than Mary’s parents giving birth to Mary means all graces must also go through them before they get to us.🤷
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You never will see how because grace from God is a supernatural act.

Some things simply require Faith.
 
jmj1984 said:
You’ve nothing to fear, you haven’t misunderstood the catholic faith 🙂

The Catholic faith is based on Christ, if we honour Mary it is only because she is the perfect ‘guide’ so to speak that leads to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. What exactly is it that troubles you? Perhaps I may be able to resolve your fears?
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I want to thank everyone for the current and future responses.

I guess I can’t tell what is flowery language and what is a genuine belief that “without Mary, we can do nothing.” I am not saying anyone said those words specifically, but this is what I am feeling.

When you look at the CCC which is what most Catholics read, there is definitely a section on Mary, but it is not so Mary-Centric. I thought the CCC was a good summary of Catholic belief. Now I’m not so sure.
 
Even Marian spirituality is not Mary-centric. It’s all Jesus-centric. Jesus is the end of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin. As Saint Louis said: God alone!
 
At_Trent said:
Discussing it if fine. Asking questions in order to understand what the Church teaches is fine. A confirmed Roman Catholic questioning the Dogmas and Doctrines of the Church is not fine.
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Maybe you can clarify the difference between questioning to understand and questioning dogma and doctrine.
 
TrueLight said:
Maybe you can clarify the difference between questioning to understand and questioning dogma and doctrine.
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Asking what the Church teaches is fine. Asking to have it explained is fine too, but don’t expect laity on forums to have any better answers than the Church documents and the writings of Saints.

Those who are not confirmed Catholics will tend to question certain Dogmas and Doctrines. Some of these Doctrines and Dogmas are easy to understand and some are not so easy. Those that can’t be fully understood must still be believed and accepted. That is where faith comes in. It’s the next step.

We have to ask ourselves, “do I think I have the mental capacity to understand all that is supernatural ?” There are 3 answers to that. 1 - No, I don’t. 2 - Yes, I do. or… 3 - I don’t believe in the supernatural.

Anyone who answers 2 will never submit fully to faith, and 3 ? They have no faith.

I think true Roman Catholics must answer # 1.

jmo
 
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