My husband and I are a little bit confused about this particular reference. It states that "When we pray to her, " (her being in reference to Mary, Our Blessed Mother,) “we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father…”
And there is another reference about praying to Mary.
As a catholic for 35 years and belonging to several organizations including the Legion of Mary…I never thought or knew that we as catholics “prayed to Mary”.
Intercession, asking to pray for us, and to supplicate.
Does anyone have any kind of insights that they would like to shed on this particular passage from the Catechism? Or where to get more information to help answer this question?
Thank you.
Talk of “praying with” her is a very recent development, and a very healthy one too. How did it come about ? At a guess, I imagine that it is a by-product of the liturgical renewal in the Church, one cause of which was the liturgical movement of the later 19th century (which is what gave us the reformed Liturgy).
Talk of “praying to” her is to be found throughout those documents of the Church which relate to devotion to the saints.
As to what “prayer to” the saints means theologically, it does not mean that we put our hope in them; for they are as non-existent without God as we are; “Without Me you can do nothing” is as much a fact for all the Blessed in heaven, as it is for any & all of us on earth. We put our hope in God, Who alone is “wonderful in His saints” - all Christian prayer is prayer to God; to God the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. So the “environment”, the setting, for “prayer to” the saints, is God Himself. (Compare St.Paul’s phrase “in Christ” - he uses it constantly, about 160 times. Christ is Someone we are “in”, & Who is “in” us; the same is true of the Father & of the Holy Spirit of God.)
So the saints are not Gods - “God” for Christian faith & doctrine (as well as for Jewish) is a word which cannot be put in the plural; for it is the Name of a Being Who is *ex hypothesi *absolutely Unique. And obviously there are no gods. The saints are God’s holy servants & beloved sons & daughters, just as we on earth are, & they are “sons in the Son”, the Unique Son, Who is Jesus Christ the Saviour & Lord. So they & we are even more entirely dependent on God than if God were a single Divine Person.
And all of this is as fully true of Mary the mother of God as of any other saint in Heaven - even more so. She is greatly able to assist us, because she is of all creatures in the universe the most dependent on God.
Prayer, whether to the saints, or with the saints, is difficult to describe properly because there is a rich variety of ways in talking of prayer to God; and because prayer to God is so hard to describe properly, it is difficult to talk about prayer & the saints without misleading people. Expressions such as “praying to the saints”, & “praying with the saints” (as well as “praying for the saints” on earth - for the Church is the assembly of the saints on earth) are perfectly valid; they describe different forms of our relation to the saints in Heaven.
FWIW, the saints do more than pray for us - apart from anything else, they are our companions in the service of God. Asking for them to do things for us, & having no relation with them but that, is rather like praying to God only so we can get things from Him.
Hope this helps ##
