Devotion to Mary is it ever "to much"

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TrueLight said:
What would be an example of Marian Worship?
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I can think of several. Invoking her to perform the confection of the eucharist, rather than the Holy Spirit or one of the other two Trinitarian persons would be one. Asking her for the remission of sins (not forgiveness, but remission) would be another. Also any sort of veneration which is not mindful that the saints are to be venerated because God dwells within them (making them gods by grace) would likely be another.
 
TrueLight said:
But not asking her to ASK for the remission of sins? That would be intercession, correct?
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Of course. Intercessory prayers are always ok. There’s a bit of a more in-depth answer, but it’s probably venturing off topic.
 
TrueLight said:
But not asking her to ASK for the remission of sins? That would be intercession, correct?
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There isn’t much point in that when we have confession. In confession we ask this directly of Christ.

I could see the possibility of someone alone, trapped in a gulag or a barren wasteland or lost at sea who would pray to saints in the hope that their prayers would soften the judgment of God (in addition to praying for help getting out of the mess). I would do this, but personally my first prayer and my last would always be directly to God, acknowledging my Creator and Savior and Judge.

🙂
 
jwinch2 said:
I have had people say on CAF that if we do not practice devotion to Mary we will go to hell because Mary will not vouch for us with Christ at our judgement. When I pointed out that this did not fall within Church Tradition on Mary, I was asked why I hate our Blessed Mother so much.
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That’s a shame. I guess the answer is yes, it can be taken too far.

But the vast majority of people with devotion to Our Blessed Mother are in the heart of the Church and centered on Christ. Please don’t doubt that.

-Tim-
 
TrueLight said:
No, I’m serious. Is there anything you could think of where you would say, “Don’t do that. Mary is not to be worshipped?”
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You would have to look inside someone’s heart and be able to read minds to do that.

-Tim-
 
I have no problem understanding that we can pray for God’s forgiveness through the intercession of saints. I ask for His mercy all the time outside of the confessional so asking any saint to pray for the same doesn’t seem odd to me at all. In the “Hail Mary” we ask our Blessed Mother to pray for us “…now and at the hour of our death”. To me, this implies that we are hoping that she will intercede for us with God and seek mercy upon us.

Seeking intercession in this way seems, unless there is something that I am missing, to be well within both Catholic and Orthodox Traditions concerning our Blessed Mother.
 
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TimothyH:
But the vast majority of people with devotion to Our Blessed Mother are in the heart of the Church and centered on Christ. Please don’t doubt that.
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Tim,

I have no doubts of that whatsoever. I believe those who do take things too far are in the minority.

Peace,
 
Perhaps in order to answer this question quantitatively we must ask some questions.

If we spend more time in prayer to Mary than God, does that mean we love her more?
Would Jesus and Mary want more time in prayer devoted to her?
What is worship?
How do we worship God?
How does it differ from veneration practically speaking?
How would I know if I was worshipping Mary as opposed to venerating her?
 
constantconvert said:
Perhaps in order to answer this question quantitatively we must ask some questions.

If we spend more time in prayer to Mary than God, does that mean we love her more?
Would Jesus and Mary want more time in prayer devoted to her?
What is worship?
How do we worship God?
How does it differ from veneration practically speaking?
How would I know if I was worshipping Mary as opposed to venerating her?
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Some of these questions don’t make sense to me. For me, there is no such thing as more or less time in prayer to Jesus vs Mary. For me, the question doesn’t make sense.

Sometimes Mary prays with me to Jesus. She kneels beside me, holds my hand, and says the words with me, sometimes allowing me to lead and other times taking the lead.

Other times I offer my prayer to Jesus through Mary. I offer my prayers to Mary for her to present to Jesus. I ask that if there is anything offensive in my words or my intent, to take take my prayers to the foot of Her Son’s Cross where they may be purified, and if there is anything good in my words or my intent, to take them to the foot of Her Son’s Throne where they may be an offering.

Sometimes I pray directly to Mary, asking from her what I would ask from Jesus, trusting that as the Mother of Our Lord she knows best how to approach her son and obtain for me what I truly need, or trusting that she knows best how to take the feelings of thanksgiving and love which I cannot really express in words and express them to Her Son in the way in which I want to but am unable.

And sometimes I pray to Jesus. Sometimes to God the Father, or the Holy Spirit, or God the Trinity. Sometimes I pray to my patron St. Augustine, or to Saint’s Bennedict, Fancis, Dominic, Josemaria, or my guardian angel, or St. Jude, or St. Joseph. And sometimes I try to just be still and listen, without saying anything at all.

How do we worship God? The same way Christ did. We nail ourselves to our crosses when they come to us. I can’t define it.

Honestly, these questions don’t make sense to me. I’m not saying you are wrong for asking them just that for me, God is an abiding presence in my life, something I can feel every moment of every day, a visceral experience, and prayer is a state, not an action and therefor cannot be quantified.

-Tim-
 
I will probably not be too popular with this answer, but yes, I do believe that some people, some of the time, can and DO go way overboard with their devotion to Mary (or any of the other saints for the matter.)

Do I think that is common? NO
But it does exsist. I was told I was not “Catholic” if I did not pray the Rosary exactly as it was given to us by Mary at Fatima. I have been told that if I do not pray the rosary, God will not hear my prayers. I have been told that without Mary’s intercession, there is NO WAY I can ever acheive heaven. And I have been told that I, as a sinful human being, have NO RIGHT to approach God or Jesus without going through Mary first.

All of these things came from a group at a parish I was involved in. It turned a lot of people off, and eventually the group was “disbanded” as an “official” ministry of that parish. A couple of the more “hard-core” members used this as an excuse to stop attending Mass because the pastor “hated Mary”, which, of course, was not true. What he was seeing, and tried to correct, was a series of very serious misunderstandings about the Blessed Mother, and he was met with nothing but resistance. Some people will believe only what they want to, no matter how misguided or wrong they are.

All of that being said, I am very happy for all of you who have such deep devotions to Mary, and that you have seen the graces that come through that devotion in your own lives. I do not have a very deep devotion to Mary, and have never had one. It does not mean that I do not have a very rich prayer life, or that I see Mary as unimportant. It means, that, for me, I don’t find any particular reason to go through Mary, I have a wonderful relationship with Jesus, and feel very comfortable going straight to him, or his Dad! 😉

The best advice I ever received-
Pray as you can, not as you can’t! What matters is that you pray! 😃
 
It seems to me that “True Devotion to Mary” has been elevated to the status of scripture or Church dogma. Is that how development of doctrine works?

I love Teresian spirituality (she speaks to me) and she is a Doctor of the Church, but does that mean her description of the “Interior Castle” is scripture? Will I fault someone if they adopt another Catholic spirituality, let’s say St Catherine of Siena’s “Jesus as the Bridge” Does it not all lead to Christ? Does it mean every single thing said in St Teresa’s and St Catherine’s books are absolutely correct? One thing I love about St Teresa is that she often prefaces her writings, by saying that is her understanding and she asks for correction if she is wrong.

So because one Saint wrote about the True Consecration to Mary, is that dogma? Must anyone who has a devotion to Mary do a True Consecration? Are they doing something wrong if they do not?

I don’t think because a Saint’s writings is pronounced well and good means that folks have to treat it like the deposit of faith.
 
Oneofthewomen said:
I will probably not be too popular with this answer, but yes, I do believe that some people, some of the time, can and DO go way overboard with their devotion to Mary (or any of the other saints for the matter.)

Do I think that is common? NO
But it does exsist. I was told I was not “Catholic” if I did not pray the Rosary exactly as it was given to us by Mary at Fatima. I have been told that if I do not pray the rosary, God will not hear my prayers. I have been told that without Mary’s intercession, there is NO WAY I can ever acheive heaven. And I have been told that I, as a sinful human being, have NO RIGHT to approach God or Jesus without going through Mary first.

All of these things came from a group at a parish I was involved in. It turned a lot of people off, and eventually the group was “disbanded” as an “official” ministry of that parish. A couple of the more “hard-core” members used this as an excuse to stop attending Mass because the pastor “hated Mary”, which, of course, was not true. What he was seeing, and tried to correct, was a series of very serious misunderstandings about the Blessed Mother, and he was met with nothing but resistance. Some people will believe only what they want to, no matter how misguided or wrong they are.

All of that being said, I am very happy for all of you who have such deep devotions to Mary, and that you have seen the graces that come through that devotion in your own lives. I do not have a very deep devotion to Mary, and have never had one. It does not mean that I do not have a very rich prayer life, or that I see Mary as unimportant. It means, that, for me, I don’t find any particular reason to go through Mary, I have a wonderful relationship with Jesus, and feel very comfortable going straight to him, or his Dad! 😉

The best advice I ever received-
Pray as you can, not as you can’t! What matters is that you pray! 😃
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Amen sister… what a beautiful post. Thats my experience too. Actually I used to have much more devotion to Mary and was quite peaceful about it, until I started to notice the exaggerations, as I perceived them… eg. I met people who were caught up in private revelations etc, and they tried to pass their certain spirituality on to others, indicating that theirs was most pleasing to God. The rosary and fatima-spiritualities have been used like that to be pulled down over people’s head.
I admit somewhere along the line I just got like an allergic reaction to it, and I get easily provoked by it now… I recall once having a wellmeaning lady telling me I ought to pray to Mary and work on my relationship with her. I said, naa its okay, Im fine… and she looked at me and said very loudly: "BUT IT’S YOUR MOMMY! Also I met a priest that made marian masses… not respecting that some in the parish Church might not share his intense Marian devotion. I felt great discomfort and felt like a very odd Catholic when I went to his masses… I once took a protestant friend with me who was forever scared away because it happend to be one of those masses where even I couldn’t sing along with the songs.
 
GraceDK said:
Well didn’t you say that all graces come through Mary?
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I said so, if it matters.

That Mary has been given command of the treasury of Grace won by Her Son on the Cross and that she distributes that grace to us according to her will, which is always in accordance with her Son’s will, is a long held belief in the Church.

Some may disagree, or state that it is not dogma so they are not bound by it, and that’s fine. But many do believe this, and many popes and saints have taught it. There is no doubt that God can and does distribute grace directly to man, but Mary as the Mediatrix of Grace, often stated as Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace to indicate that the ordinary way for us to obtain grace is through Mary, this has been a long standing and widely held belief within the mainstream Roman Catholic Church.

And it’s OK if some don’t agree with this. That is fine. Really it is. I’m not calling them a heretic, or questioning their love for God, or bringing into question their salvation. I have strong devotion to Mary because I believe my conversion from an extremely sinful way was due to Mary who decided to convert me, because it is Her Son’s will that all be converted.

And so I have given my life to Mary my Queen as a way to serve Jesus my King. That’s all. It is what I have done. That’s all.

-Tim-
 
TrueLight said:
It seems to me that “True Devotion to Mary” has been elevated to the status of scripture or Church dogma. Is that how development of doctrine works?

I love Teresian spirituality (she speaks to me) and she is a Doctor of the Church, but does that mean her description of the “Interior Castle” is scripture? Will I fault someone if they adopt another Catholic spirituality, let’s say St Catherine of Siena’s “Jesus as the Bridge” Does it not all lead to Christ? Does it mean every single thing said in St Teresa’s and St Catherine’s books are absolutely correct? One thing I love about St Teresa is that she often prefaces her writings, by saying that is her understanding and she asks for correction if she is wrong.

So because one Saint wrote about the True Consecration to Mary, is that dogma? Must anyone who has a devotion to Mary do a True Consecration? Are they doing something wrong if they do not?

I don’t think because a Saint’s writings is pronounced well and good means that folks have to treat it like the deposit of faith.
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No one is required to consecrate themselves to Mary, it is not Gospel. I think you know that. It is pious act and a way to draw closer to Jesus, that’s all. I recommend it for those who are so inclined.

At the same time though, I think there was a time in Catholicism during which, if one had asked if Mary was Mediatrix of Grace, or even Mediatrix of All Grace, the vast majority of Catholics would have said, “Of course” and would not have lifted an eyebrow.

I think Catholicism has lost something over the past years. If there has been any influence on the Church from non-Catholic sources in the past fifty years, and if there has been anything lost in the time since the 60’s, it is definitely in this area. There seems to be a downplay of Mary to a certain extent, and maybe even a certain hesitation at outward devotion because of how it might apear to other who are not so inclined.

If architecture, liturgy, music, and reverence have suffered, then Marian spirituality has right along with it. The loss of Marian spirituality is the one area where I agree with traditionalists. Marian spirituality is something which we had, something which was quite normal and widely accepted even by those who did not practice it, and something which we have lost to a certain extent. And I think we are worse for its loss.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
No one is required to consecrate themselves to Mary, it is not Gospel. I think you know that. It is pious act and a way to draw closer to Jesus, that’s all. I recommend it for those who are so inclined.

At the same time though, I think there was a time in Catholicism during which, if one had asked if Mary was Mediatrix of Grace, or even Mediatrix of All Grace, the vast majority of Catholics would have said, “Of course” and would not have lifted an eyebrow.

I think Catholicism has lost something over the past years. If there has been any influence on the Church from non-Catholic sources in the past fifty years, and if there has been anything lost in the time since the 60’s, it is definitely in this area. There seems to be a downplay of Mary to a certain extent, and maybe even a certain hesitation at outward devotion because of how it might apear to other who are not so inclined.

If architecture, liturgy, music, and reverence have suffered, then Marian spirituality has right along with it. The loss of Marian spirituality is the one area where I agree with traditionalists. Marian spirituality is something which we had, something which was quite normal and widely accepted even by those who did not practice it, and something which we have lost to a certain extent. And I think we are worse for its loss.
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You aren’t the only one to have noticed.
Excellent post, by the way. I agree with it completely. :sad_yes:
 
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