Are conservative Catholics over-emphasizing Mary?

[garysibio]

Gary,

Ask Fr. Mitch, he will tell you. The Immaculate, Perpetual Virigin Mother of God is the sign spoken of in the Apocalypse.

To her, Jesus has reserved these “final” times in which we live. The triumph of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart.

The vision of St. John Bosco: The one tall tower with the Eucharist on top and the sign: Salus Credentium and another smaller column with the Theotokos and a sign that says: Auxilium Cristianorum.

Over emphasize. …I think not.

You’ve missed my point. I’m not talking about denying the RCC’s teachings. My problem is with those who ignore Jesus.

 

[Holly3278]

No, conservative Catholics do not over-emphasize Mary. In fact, sometimes I think we don’t emphasize her enough.

 

[losh14]

So I beleive the question really is what is a sound devotion to Our Blessed Mother Mary?
The way I understand it is, we have to have a sound devotion to our Blessed Mother Mary in order for it to lead us to Jesus Christ.

I’ll preface this with one more question - why have a devotion to Mary?

Please do not get me wrong. I do agree with St. Louis that devotion to Mary is necessary, simply and solely because it is a way of reaching Jesus perfectly, loving him tenderly, and serving him faithfully.

Why can we not reach Jesus perfectly? Montfort gives us these points in paragraph 25:
God the Holy Spirit entrusted his wondrous gifts to Mary, his faithful spouse, and chose her as the dispenser of all he possesses, so that she distributes all his gifts and graces to whom she wills, as much as she wills, how she wills and when she wills.

What is his rationale for this? None given. It is proof by assertion. He teases that he could offer proofs such as Father Poiré’s “Triple Crown of the Blessed Virgin” but it appears that work has been lost to history. After Montfort, we see profound influence in Popes such as Leo XIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II, through whom the vast majority of Marian doctrine has come. This means that this role of Mary in salvation is relatively new in the Church.

If you look back at the early doctors, you do not see such accolades universally poured upon Mary. While John Damascene and Ephraim of Syria trumpet Mary’s intercession, Augustine limits it. Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, don’t even mention Mary outside of Scripture. But where Montfort cites Augustine or Irenaeus he takes them in a different character than those I think the authors themselves intended. I was astounded to find that Paul VI had misquoted Irenaeus, but it turns out he took the interpretation wholesale from Montfort.

I’ll be honest, I can only read so much of Montfort before it strikes me as so much blasphemy. Louis gives lip-service to Christ but the entire focus of his True Devotion is Mary, going so far as to say there are true and false kinds of devotion to Mary. He reinterprets Scripture to point it towards Mary. He even presumes things that the writers of Scripture themselves did not know. His writings are novel - neodoxy - even he says so:

My heart has dictated with special joy all that I have written to show that Mary has been unknown up till now

If God gives Mary all graces to dispense as she wills, then why do we need God?
If Mary perfectly conforms her will to God’s so that her will and the Will of God are indistinguishable, then why do we need Mary? Does she cease to be a separate being? As such, does Montfort allow us to move from hyperdulia to true worship as far as Mary is concerned?

And why does Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, Uncreated and Eternal, need a distributor for the Grace of which He is the Source?

My honest opinion is this: Marian devotion, rightly practiced, isn’t devotion at all but co-worship with Mary of Jesus. Mary should never be the target. She kneels as the handmaiden, and we kneel alongside her but not in front of her. The dogmas are taken out of proportion in practice.

To say Mary is Queen of Heaven because she is the mother of the Son is one thing. To say that she commands armies of angels is quite another.

To say that Mary is mediatrix of all graces because Jesus Christ, the source of all Grace, was born in flesh through Mary’s body is one thing. To say that Mary has been appointed with special powers of distribution in Heaven is quite another.

To say that Mary is co-redemptrix in the same way that all who share the Gospel and exhort to a living faith in Christ are co-redeemers is one thing. To say that one cannot reach Christ without Mary in the current sense - not just that Mary is necessary for Christ’s birth but directly for every sinner’s individual redemption - is quite another.

 

[losh14]

I have studied a lot of Marian material and have not found the church in error as far as official doctrine is concerned. But there seems to be a body of Catholics who have moved away from the original teaching of Marian devotion being an aid to a better understanding of God and his Son the Holy Spirit and the Church to something bordering on for want of a better word worship!

I see it as well, and it causes me much disturbance. Mary is more and more seen as being at cause rather than being at effect, as all created beings are at effect while God alone is at cause.

 

[losh14]

 If  we here on earth alive can pray for one another interceding for one another asking Christ to help ourselves and others  then why can't the Church Alive in Heaven can't do so.

This is an excellent passage from the C.E. But how do we get from :

But in the second way we pray to the holy angels and to men, not that God may learn our petition through them, but that by their prayers and merits our prayers may be efficacious. Wherefore it is said in the Apocalypse (viii, 4): `And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel’"

And:

if we imitate the Blessed Virgin we will gain to see the Blessed Fruit of her womb Jesus Christ.

To Montfort’s assertions (from The Secret of Mary):
P7: Mary alone found grace with God for herself and for every individual person
P10: God chose her to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all his graces, so that all his graces and gifts pass through her hands…she gives the graces of the eternal Father, the virtues of Jesus Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit to whom she wills, as and when she wills, and as much as she wills.
P23: God ordinarily imparts his graces to men through Mary. Therefore, if we wish to go to him, seeking union with him, we must use the same means which he used in coming down from heaven to assume our human nature and to impart his graces to us. That means was a complete dependence on Mary his Mother, which is true devotion to her.

See, there is a profound difference between asking Mary to pray for you, and seeing Mary as sole distributor of graces.

Satan fell rejecting our Blessed Mother Mary.

I disagree. Satan’s fall preceeded Mary’s own conception - to believe what you say, Mary must have pre-existed the fall.