Conflicted feelings about Marian Devotion

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I want to say first that I truly do want to honor Mary more, because as Jesus gave her as a mother to the Church, I think of her as my own mother. And I want to be closer to my mother.

However, if I am completely honest with myself, I feel conflicted when I think of all the devotion given to Mary. I think I’m starting to understand the reason why; without her “Yes,” in response to the Angel Gabriel, we would not have Jesus, and we would not have salvation. I am trying to say my Rosary daily, and I want to become closer to Jesus through Mary.

The problem I always find is that I end up wondering, how will directing all of this praise to Mary help me become closer to Jesus? Sometimes, when I hear of Apparitions of Mary in certain places, I get this small moment of being rubbed the wrong way, I guess. And when I hear of her asking others to build churches in her honor, I feel even more confused, because I thought there were passages from the Bible about the sin of directing devotion to oneself instead of God.

Of course, I realize this is different for Mary than for any other human being. She was sinless, and the Mother of God, so she very rightly deserves veneration. Please don’t take this the wrong way and get snippy. I want to get closer to Mary, and thus get closer with Jesus. I just would like for someone to please patiently explain to me why so much devotion is pointed to Mary instead of directly to God Himself. I would very much appreciate it.
 
We praise and worship God alone.

We venerate Mary and ask for her intercession in our Prayers. Fatima is where God worked a great miracle, the miracle of the sun, on Mary’s behalf. St Joseph also appeared holding baby Jesus.

Mary did not work that miracle, God did. Mary does the Will of God, that’s all. But I bet she intercedes pretty heavily at times, on our behalf.

Mary has asked us to pray for peace and the conversion of souls.

It can get very confusing, especially where people claim unapproved apparitions and discuss those.
 
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Hi, and welcome. Perhaps it would help to understand that all Marian devotion does not point ‘to Mary instead of God" but rather "to God through Mary’.

God did not have to come to us born of a woman. But He did. And He doesn’t change. It’s hard to explain because we are used to thinking in ‘time’ but God didn’t just come down to Earth, live 33 years on earth, and go back to Heaven 'for the rest of His days".

Look at the Mass. At the Mass we are mystically present at the very same Last Supper and the very same Death on the Cross and Resurrection. They didn’t happen “once in time” and cease, they exist both in time and ‘beyond time forever’.

Same with Christ being conceived, carried, and given birth to by Mary. It wasn’t a one-time thing. It’s ongoing.

So God, if you will, is 'always in Mary", and Mary is always ‘containing God’. The Old Testament spoke of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies which was contained in the Ark. The Ark was holy because of what it carried. Mary is holy because of Who she carried. All devotion given to Mary is because of who Christ is-- the Son of God and son of Mary. And so all devotion given to her (of course not the newer Protestantized definition of ‘worship’, for there is only one ‘Latria’, only one worship in that sense, and that is to God alone), is because she is the Mother of the Lord, who freely chose that and all the trials as well as the joys thereof.

Does that help?
 
She is your Mother, she wants to help you get to heaven.
It’s not much more complicated than that. Ask her to pray for you in your various needs.
 
Just think about the results of devotion to mary.there are thousands of miracles that can be attributed to her and saints intercession.some of those who benifitted were not even catholic nor christian.there is a marian shrine in india,whose devotees include thousands of hindus,muslims,buddhists .they keep visiting her shrine ,as she is well known there as a powerful intercessor to god!
 
On the Cross, Jesus told John “Behold your Mother”. She is the spiritual Mother of us all. Pray to her, she is always listening.
 
Yes, this really does! I know truly that people do not worship Mary when they venerate her; it’s just my own wrong way of viewing it that is getting in the way of fully handing myself over to Marian devotion. But I will pray to her about it for help, definitely! All of these replies have helped, so thank you!
 
I’m trying to remember any apparition where Mary specifically asked that a church be built “in Her honor”. She frequently asks for a church or chapel to be built, but She does that knowing the building will be used to worship Her Son, not Her.

Remember that Mary is “Gebirah” – a Hebrew word that means “Mother of the King”. In David’s time, no one could approach the King without being commanded to appear. Anyone else would be struck down on the spot by the guards, unless the King touched you with his rod/staff/scepter. (Remember that “He shall rule with a rod of iron.”) If people had a request to make of the king, they would approach the mother of the king – gebirah. She would present the request to the king, and in a tradition so old as to be law, if it was in the king’s power to grant it, he must grant it. We see this at the Wedding Feast at Cana, where Jesus protested that it was not yet His time, yet Mary simply told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do, and Jesus fulfilled the request. As Christians, we no longer need an intermediary to address King Jesus, yet the role and rights of Gebirah have never been revoked or abolished.

You may want to consider reading “St. Louis de Montfort’s Way: Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary” (available online at Fish Eaters.) A number of his meditations deal with this very topic. After reading them, you should consider making the Consecration. I can vouch as to the wonderful effects it produces.
 
By loving Mary we are loving Jesus.
Mary takes all matters to her adorable son Jesus.
It’s always “to Jesus through Mary”.
She doesn’t want it any other way.
To me it seems extremely simple, then again I was raised to love Mary and treat her as I would a loving mother.
It never, never takes away from Jesus to venerate Mary. He’s happy when we’re nice to His Mom. If you took a bouquet of flowers to someone’s mom, and she told her son, “Look at this beautiful bouquet I got from so-and-so today,” what loving son is going to say, “How dare they?! The nerve! I’m the only one who’s supposed to get flowers around here!”
 
You cannot be devoted to Mary without coming closer to her Son. Impossible. Her purpose was to bring Jesus to us, and now it is to lead us to Him. Just that simple.
 
History shows that devotion to Mary helps prevent people from feeling that Jesus is all God, and that His humanity is just a disguise or a ghost; and from feeling that Jesus is only a great human teacher or prophet, and that His divinity is made up; or that Jesus is angelic or a demigod.

There are a lot of beautiful theological reasonings about this, and a lot of beautiful devotional reasons as well. But there seems to be a mental slot for “the bestest most perfect human teacher I know” in a lot of sects, and usually it is filled by a religion’s founder or by a king or celebrity. In Islam, it’s Mohammed who is “the Perfect Man,” and whose every deed is regarded as a model. (Including rather terrible stuff like slavery or marrying kids younger than puberty, which as a consequence can never be stamped out because The Perfect Man was fine with them.)

Groups that weren’t enthusiastic enough about Mary, like the Arians, shoved Jesus into the slot for “the bestest most perfect human teacher I know,” and said He wasn’t God. Other groups (like today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses) thought that Jesus was an angel or a divine emanation/demigod. (Usually these decided that their founder was the Bestest Human.)

The interesting thing is that, without the popularity of Mary and even with Jesus understood as both God and Man, you would have expected that St. Peter, St. Paul, the popes, or the local Christian rulers would have occupied the Bestest Human slot. The popes or emperors could have turned into something like Pharaoh for the Egyptians, the demigods who make the world work with their ceremonies.

But even though popes are often popular and the Christian emperors had plenty of pomp, being spiritual or temporal leader has never been felt to be something higher than Mary’s position… except sometimes, in places where devotion to Mary was denigrated.

So I would say that Mary’s privileged position is a protection against heresies of Christology and Trinitarian theology, but also against worshipping human power figures and taking their model of life too far. That’s a side effect and an awfully utilitarian way of looking at a simple love for our spiritual mom, but it is something we see again and again.
 
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She is your Mother. Ask her to help you to love Jesus more perfectly.
Blessings.
 
Perspective: With a partial exception for Saint Joseph, Mary lived ten times longer in her Son’s presence than any other human being - by Divine design. From virgin womb to virgin tomb, absorbing holiness from being in that Presence 24/7. There is a reason for that. Something to ponder in our hearts, just as Mary herself did.
 
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And to piggyback on that thought…thin about it: She was the first person to receive Eucharist. Literally. And, I might add, with St. Joseph in the hands.

God bless you.
 
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