Our Lord‘s Incarnation, His earthly life, suffering and death on the Cross, His resurrection, ascent to Heaven and sending of the Holy Spirit, the Word, the sacraments and all the riches of the Church – all that, and only our present imperfection to show for it? The potential for salvation is there, the actualization our job with the help of grace, but the accomplished work itself, the wholeness of the redeemed creature, destined not to exist until the end of time? But for Mary being who the Church says she is, that would be the status of things, and in that case Christ could hardly have been talking to us mortals when He said on the Cross, „It is finished.“
Mary is Christ‘s saving work brought to full fruition, not just for the Blessed Mother herself, but for our sake. Devotion to her is devotion to Christ‘s design for creation as a whole. In this sense she is „our hope“, as the Salve Regina prayer says – the embodiment of what we are meant to be and hope to become, the toehold of redeemed creation in the created reality we know. And when we ask for her intercession and that of the saints, we acknowledge that we don‘t participate in this redeemed creation as individuals trying our hardest to be good, but as cells staying connected to where the life is.
So even if Marian devotion isn‘t where you stand now, it is still an important aspect of where we as Christians are headed, and there‘s no such thing as a „right to“ opt out of it. If asking for her intercession in private prayer doesn‘t resonate with you, find some other way to get close to the Blessed Mother. Then the idea of „having a right to“ this or that in the Church will begin to grate on your ears, unless something like valid sacraments is at stake.
