Do Catholics have to pray to Mary?

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Your personal preferences are noted… your aspirations are noted… your pushing your personal views is also noted…

Please understand that my effort here has been to do the same thing you claim to be doing… raising your awarenesss of the differences between Church teaching and devotions.

I’ll stick with the Church’s teaching…
 
No, i’m not telling you how to pray and that devotions that I like are required of all… I’m not speaking for God the way you are and i’m Not conflating absolutes of the faith with personal devotions…
 
I never told you how to pray…never once directed this to you/your practices.

what is it about some here who turn everything into a self-looking glass?
 
With all due respect you did make direct comments to me about my practices… which I was quite taken back by … You said there is a fissure between my intellect and will, that my beliefs and practices (which you know nothing of) do not manifest themselves in loving, heartfelt actions… etc… please read back there are other instances as well.

This conversation is about whether or not praying to Mary is a requirement for Catholics … i’m shocked at how far off the rails we are now… but then again this is CAF.

Well wishes to you and your practices… I hope they are fruitful and that they bring you closer to God.
 
No I didn’t go back and show the full context. I don’t pay attention to any one’s name here.
 
Brendan_64 said:
Pope Francis recently said that it is “a great danger to faith, to live without a mother, without protection, letting ourselves be carried away by life like leaves by the wind.”
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  Catholic News Agency
Pope Francis: Where Mary is, ‘the devil does not enter’

At Mass in the Basilica of St. Mary Major Sunday, Pope Francis said that when we go through difficult times or have problems or worries, Mary is our shield, guarding our faith and protecting us from evil.
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Thank you for that post.
Pope Francis also said he prays 15 mysteries of the Rosary daily, and that it was Pope John Paul II’s example which inspired him to do so: Pope John Paul’s example inspired Pope Francis to pray Rosary daily.
 
You can’t pray to Mary, you can only pray to God. You can ask Mary’s intercession likewise with the saints, but praying to is reserved only for God
 
God_is_good321 said:
You can’t pray to Mary, you can only pray to God. You can ask Mary’s intercession likewise with the saints, but praying to is reserved only for God
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So if our prayer is said directly to Mary to tell her that we love her, what are we doing if not praying to Mary?
 
Prayer first admits of God’s presence. However, it looks like it’s permissible for Catholics to understand “pray to” in 2 distinct senses: Prayer addressed to God, and prayer addressed to Mary (and subsequent members of the Communion of Saints , and also the holy Angels [the prayer to St Michael would be another good example]) - the latter being prayer which is ultimately presented to God by our Blessed Mother (or the Saints or Angels addressed).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church [2680] says that "Prayer is primarily directed to the Father;it can also be directed towards Jesus. . . " and a little further [in 2682] “Because of Mary’s singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her.”

Yet we also find in the same Article the exact words “prayer to” our Blessed Mother mentioned:
[2675]“Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first “magnifies” the Lord for the “great things” he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused.”
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[2676]“This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria”
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It’s usually the words “pray to” Mary which seem to get our Protestant brothers and sisters all wrapped around the axle. And we might even concede a half point to the Protestant mindset if , going by strict definitions , we consider Father John Hardon’s definition of “prayer” taken from his Modern Catholic Dictionary -
PRAYER. The voluntary response to the awareness of God’s presence. This response may be an acknowledgment of God’s greatness and of a person’s total dependence on him (adoration), or gratitude for his benefits to oneself and others (thanksgiving), or sorrow for sins committed and begging for mercy (expiation), or asking for graces needed (petition), or affection for God, who is all good (love).
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. . . So it’s quite clear that prayer first admits of God’s presence.

While praying to saints and angels has become a fairly common expression , technical language leans more in favour of the expression of invoking them – again from Modern Catholic Dictionary :
INVOCATION OF SAINTS. Asking the saints for assistance in temporal or spiritual need. Its basis is the intimate communion that exists between the blessed in heaven and the faithful on earth. The saints are invoked in order to obtain their intercession before the throne of God, and this corresponds to the familiar practice on earth of asking people to pray for us. Since the more holy a person is, the more effective his prayers, the saints in heaven are extraordinarily powerful intercessors with God. It is a matter of divine faith, implicit in Sacred Scripture and explicit in Catholic tradition, that the faithful may profitably invoke the saints in heaven. According to the Second Vatican Council, “It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven…It is most fitting that we love those friends and co-heirs of Jesus Christ who are also our brothers and outstanding benefactors, and that we give due thanks to God for them, humbly invoking them, and having recourse to their prayers, their aid and help in obtaining from God through His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, our only Redeemer and Savior, the benefits we need” (Constitution on the Church, VII, 50).
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But our Blessed Mother is more. She is Queen of Angels, Queen of Saints . She has been given to us as a true mother. . . a Heavenly Mother. St Louis de Montfort in his book True Devotion to Mary says that (paraphrase) ,“With one sigh, the Blessed Virgin Mary can mobilize all the forces of Heaven.” She truly is Virgin most powerful because our Blessed Lord’s Sacred Heart is perfectly attuned to her Immaculate Heart… Jesus has given us a Mother whom we can run to even if we have sinned :“Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
Once we discover the tenderness of our Blessed Mother, most of us try to make her a part of our daily life, a part of our earthly pilgrimage. The Holy Trinity is greatly glorified in her.
 
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NeedImprovement said:
But our Blessed Mother is more. She is Queen of Angels, Queen of Saints . She has been given to us as a true mother.
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This is true. Mary is not just ‘another saint’, she is much more that. I do not get why any Christian (Protestants included) would wish to minimise her role and view her as almost just another saint. Why?
 
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You can ask her intersession, praying to is like worship, which we can be only done to God. You can tell Mary you love her, but you don’t need to pray to her to do that(it’s actually better not to)
 
NeedImprovement said:
It’s usually the words “pray to” Mary which seem to get our Protestant brothers and sisters all wrapped around the axle.
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It actually bugs a fair number of Catholics as well…i think the intent gets lost in the common understanding of the word “pray”… I like the way the mass says it in the Penitential Rite - “I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God”… super clear and an accurate portrayal of what actually happens… we ask Mary and the other saints to pray for us.
 
lonegreywolf20 said:
Even so, the church says we are not required to pray to Mary,…
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Where does the Church say that we are not required to pray to our Mother?

Pope Francis (like Pope Paul VI, for example, before him) states that: “If one wants to be a Christian, they have to be Marian”

(Note that I’m not referring to specific devotions at this time, but simply to an active love relationship with Our Mother, expressed in the unique way from one’s heart)

One of the purposes of Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church was to outline our duties toward Our Lady.

Vatican II states:

The entire body of the faithful pours forth instant supplications to the Mother of God and Mother of men that she, who aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers, may now, exalted as she is above all the angels and saints, intercede before her Son in the fellowship of all the saints, until all families of people, whether they are honored with the title of Christian or whether they still do not know the Saviour, may be happily gathered together in peace and harmony into one people of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...s/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html
 
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Brendan_64 said:
This is true. Mary is not just ‘another saint’, she is much more that.
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Right. Doctors and saints of the Church note that God Himself is not capable of exalting a creature more than He does by making that creature His Mother. We need to contemplate that. As Pope Pius IX himself says in an extremely authoritative document, Mary approaches as near to God as is possible for a created being. He says that under God we cannot imagine a greater holiness than Our Lady. And this Mother of God is our Mother!
 
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I have been told by my priest that we are not required to pray to Mary per the church. It is always recommended to do so, but never a requirement.

I have asked on another Catholic forum a couple years back and they verified that it is not a requirement to do so. When looking online I have found nothing that states we are required to do so, encouraged, but not required.

When going to confession (which I haven’t done in a while since my kid’s mom whom divorced me forbids them from stepping foot into a Catholic church and per the divorce decree she has final say on matters of religion, so I haven’t been to mass in a long while as I have them every weekend and was given permission not to attend by my priest because of that reason) I ask for another penance when I am given Hail Mary’s to do and the priest will give me other penance to do.
 
If it is the case that we are required, then I will have to rethink staying in the catholic church as I will not pray to Mary or the saints. I pray to God and Jesus, no one else nor will I ever pray to anyone else in the future!
 
Do you know what I mean if I say that I “pray to” Mary? What the Church teaches is that there is a union of Mary and Jesus in the work of our salvation, but that Jesus is God and that Mary is a creature who is also saved by Jesus, and is completely dependent on His grace. Jesus on the Cross gave Mary as Mother to every single human person so that she could foster our union with Him. Now I realize that some people have psychological impediments which can be challenging. I had a friend who was abused by her mother and found it hard to trust Mary. But Marian devotion can be as simple as a slight movement of the will toward our Mother.
 
I replied to your post in my last post, but forgot to make it a reply specifically to your post.
 
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