Consequences of not asking Virgin Mary for intercession

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sobino

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I have a question about
asking Virgin mary for intercession . Many protestants ask if you get less blessing from prayers addressed right to Jesus or Holy Trinity itself or you get more blessings to your life when you ask Mary for help. Are our intercessions to Mary compulsory in official teaching of Catholic Church or not? Are we losing something in our spiritual life when we do not pray to God through her?
Could you compare what is the practical consequence of a Christian who does not ask Mary for intercession?
 
sobino said:
I have a question about
asking Virgin mary for intercession . Many protestants ask if you get less blessing from prayers addressed right to Jesus or Holy Trinity itself or you get more blessings to your life when you ask Mary for help. Are our intercessions to Mary compulsory in official teaching of Catholic Church or not? Are we losing something in our spiritual life when we do not pray to God through her?
Could you compare what is the practical consequence of a Christian who does not ask Mary for intercession?
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There are no ‘consequences’ - it is optional to do.

Some similiar issues are being dealt with in the Apologetics area.
 
sobino said:
I have a question about
asking Virgin mary for intercession . Many protestants ask if you get less blessing from prayers addressed right to Jesus or Holy Trinity itself or you get more blessings to your life when you ask Mary for help. Are our intercessions to Mary compulsory in official teaching of Catholic Church or not? Are we losing something in our spiritual life when we do not pray to God through her?
Could you compare what is the practical consequence of a Christian who does not ask Mary for intercession?
Click to expand...
While the Church does not mandate that we personally seek the intercession of the Blessed Mother or any of the Saints, there definitely are practical consequences if one - even admitting the legitimacy of the practice - refuses to do so. (Note, though, the official liturgical awareness and practice of the Church regarding the Blessed Mother and the Saints - that should tell us something! 😉 )

Those who seek her intercession know that that her intercession and that of our brothers and sisters, the Saints, brings an ever-deepening awareness and love of God. Far from distracting us from love of the Most Holy Trinity, our unity within the Communion of Saints only fosters greater attentiveness to living faithfully in His Light. I very much like what “Fr. Mateo” wrote in “Refuting the Attack on Mary” (available through CAF): “I reassure anyone who cares: Devotion to Mary brings us closer to Christ and does the job more quickly than ignoring her does.”

Also, asking the intercession of the Saints is realistic humility. God hears everyone’s prayers; He does not thereby grant all that He hears - just as a human father hears all the child pleas of his offspring, but does not always grant them. God grants the prayers of the Just, since they are in a position to be heard and accommodated, their will already being in sync with His. The faithful on earth are quite aware (or should be!) that they are not as pure as the Saints in Heaven. Good Christians are not in a state of sin, but they realistically know they are far from being perfectly in sync with God’s will, but those in heaven are.

And we are human; which means that we are all in this boat together and not isolated individuals. It is therefore according to our nature created by God to do things together for a common purpose. It is our love for one another that impels us to pray for one another and to want others to pray for us. The Saints are our brothers and sisters who are in God’s Presence; but some people don’t like this interdependence.

The Christian Tradition from the beginning declares that the interest of the Saints in Heaven in our regard will be increased a hundredfold, because they will realize then more fully our needs and necessities. St. Jerome (350-420) is a striking witness to this fact. He writes:
“If the Apostles and martyrs, whilst still in the flesh and still needing to care for themselves, can pray for others, how much more will they pray for others after they have won their crowns, victories, their triumphs. Moses, one man, obtains God’s pardon for six hundred thousand men, and Stephen prays for his persecutors. When they are with Christ will they be less powerful? St. Paul says that two hundred and sixty-six souls were granted to his prayers, whilst they were in the ship with him. Shall we close his lips after death, and not mutter a syllable for those who throughout the world have believed in his gospel?” (Adv. Vigil, 6)
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Anything which comes to us from the Virgin comes (at its source) from God.

Many people today especially suffer from ‘individualism’ to varying degrees. Like anything else, trying to ‘go it alone’ (for WHATEVER reason) can have good, bad, or ‘indifferent’ results, depending on the person involved. Some people are by nature more solitary and would be ‘uncomfortable’ thinking they could not ‘do it on their own’. Some would find it ‘unnecessary’ to ask help of others. For some, the lack of comfort is a good and sufficient reason–God knows the person’s heart. For some, the lack of comfort or ‘necessity’ is all the more reason to submit in humility to asking others–again, though God knows the person’s heart.

So search your heart–not somebody else’s, but remember that, all other things being equal, both Scripture and Tradition in Church teaching have been strong in encouraging us to ‘work with others’.

In fact I find it quite interesting that while the Protestant places a much higher premium so to speak on being ‘part of a family’ at church services, and often speaks dispargingly of the Catholic as being stuck up, solitary, and ‘uninterested’ in his/her fellow Catholics during Mass. . .it is the Protestant who most strongly protests against the idea of ‘praying to saints’ or the need of anything other than ‘me and Jesus’; and who either feels ‘any’ human (like Mary) is ‘totally depraved’ and thus useless, or else ‘just as good as anyone else’ and therefore ‘unnecessary’, while it is the Catholic who most strongly feels a full, deep communion not ‘just’ with people today, but with all who have gone before us. . .who have a rich spiritual life exploring all the good things which have been written to us about the saints and view them as good role models, who feel that people living saintly lives can help US to live better lives for Christ, etc.
 
I remember I saw an interview of a priest who is an exorcist in Vatican. He said that sometimes when he mentioned the name of Jesus, the devils in the possessed person wouldn’t respond or identify who they were to the priest, but when he called the name of Mary, the devils identified themselves.

This is not to say that the Satan does not afraid or respect Jesus, this is to say that Jesus wants to honor His Mother by allowing that way.

It would be the same way when you ask Virgin Mary for intercession. Jesus wants it that way many times too!
 
I once heard Fr. John Corapi speaking on his devotion to Mary. He said if someone told him that they’d rather go directly to Jesus, he would tell them to go on ahead and do that. Fr. Corapi will go to Jesus through Mary, and see who gets there first. His point was that to go through Mary is the swiftest and surest way.

Betsy
 
baltobetsy said:
I once heard Fr. John Corapi speaking on his devotion to Mary. He said if someone told him that they’d rather go directly to Jesus, he would tell them to go on ahead and do that. Fr. Corapi will go to Jesus through Mary, and see who gets there first. His point was that to go through Mary is the swiftest and surest way.

Betsy
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I would be curious where the Church teaches going directly to Jesus is the slower, inefficient way.
 
We go to Jesus, in going through Mary, more “swiftly” only because Jesus Himself chose Mary as His ‘way’ to us, and ours to Him. He is the way, she is the gate. That choice remains. . . God does not change. It remains the most ‘direct’ route if you will because God Himself chose it. But the word ‘swiftness’ does not mean that somebody ‘gets to Jesus’ 5 nanoseconds FASTER in going through Mary’ as though we were in some kind of race.

But it is not an ‘either/or’ situation. It is not a question of going to “Jesus alone” OR going to Mary, then Jesus. Going to Jesus through Mary is always about Jesus above all. Certainly we do not go to Mary 'instead of" Jesus, but only and above all to bring us to Jesus. It is her greatest delight to bring us to Him.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
We go to Jesus, in going through Mary, more “swiftly” only because Jesus Himself chose Mary as His ‘way’ to us, and ours to Him. He is the way, she is the gate. That choice remains. . . God does not change. It remains the most ‘direct’ route if you will because God Himself chose it. But the word ‘swiftness’ does not mean that somebody ‘gets to Jesus’ 5 nanoseconds FASTER in going through Mary’ as though we were in some kind of race.

But it is not an ‘either/or’ situation. It is not a question of going to “Jesus alone” OR going to Mary, then Jesus. Going to Jesus through Mary is always about Jesus above all. Certainly we do not go to Mary 'instead of" Jesus, but only and above all to bring us to Jesus. It is her greatest delight to bring us to Him.
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We’ll all be surprised to find out even when we pray straight to Jesus, Mary is the one who intercede for what we pray. 😉
 
water said:
We can only wait and find out; in the mean time, personally, I think as it is true so that I will always come to the Lady for help.
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Just had an amusing vision - as I often pray only to Jesus or the Father directly - of Mary diving like some soccer goalie to catch my prayer.
 
Eilish_Maura said:
Just had an amusing vision - as I often pray only to Jesus or the Father directly - of Mary diving like some soccer goalie to catch my prayer.
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A goalie tries to catch the ball from the opponent who does not want the ball to be catched by the goalie. 😃 Virgin Mary is no goalie, She is the goal net.
 
water said:
A goalie tries to catch the ball from the opponent who does not want the ball to be catched by the goalie. 😃 Virgin Mary is no goalie, She is the goal net.
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Praying to Jesus and the Father directly – naw the description would be more like the goalie - with the other two being the net.
 
Eilish_Maura said:
Praying to Jesus and the Father directly – naw the description would be more like the goalie - with the other two being the net.
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I can’t make out the word “naw” in your post. If you meant Blessed Virgin Mary is the goalie, and God is the net, then it is likely to mistakenly consider her as blocking people from reaching to God?

The goalie never wants the ball touch the net. Mary is not the goalie. 😃 – we have enough imagination.

PS: I miss the soccer field. I used to play soccer all the time. 😃
 
water said:
I can’t make out the word “naw” in your post. If you meant Blessed Virgin Mary is the goalie, and God is the net, then it is likely to mistakenly consider her as blocking people from reaching to God?

The goalie never wants the ball touch the net. Mary is not the goalie. 😃 – we have enough imagination.
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Less the literal soccer use but more to the idea of having to get a ‘hand’ on what is trying to go into the net.
 
Eilish_Maura said:
Less the literal soccer use but more to the idea of having to get a ‘hand’ on what is trying to go into the net.
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a person with perfect union with God knows his role perfectly. Isn’t Blessed Virgin Mary this person? What do you think?
 
water said:
a person with perfect union with God knows his role perfectly. Isn’t Blessed Virgin Mary this person? What do you think?
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There are no ‘consequences’ for not asking Mary for intercession.

If you believe otherwise then please show where the Church OFFICIALLY teaches this and explain why the Church has not made it mandatory.
 
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