"Hail Mary? Why Not Hail Jesus?" (Article Looks at Why Catholics Don't Simply Pray to Jesus.)

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It is through the Holy spirit and Mary that the world was brought to Christ, and still so it is.
 
There are huge amounts of prayers we say directly to Jesus. And our greatest prayer of all, the Mass, is all about Him .
 
Because Elizabeth said “Hail, Full of Grace” to Mary. We are simply quoting Scripture.
 
Actually the Eucharist is not just about Him, it IS Him, the very gift of His body and blood poured out for us.

Also, the Lord’s Prayer was taught to us by Jesus. That’s why it’s called the “perfect prayer,” from God to God in the words of God. Perfect!

Deacon Christopher
 
Point taken and thanks. But i was meaning the whole celebration of the Mass. We often get accused of over emphasizing Our Lady. I was just trying to convey that at Mass with the Liturgy of the Word, the prayers of consecration, the responses, the creeds, the Prayer of the Faithful, etc. being all about Jesus and invoking or praising Him and of course the Father and Spirit to emphasize that we Catholics don’t just pray to Mary. And of course our belief that we receive Him body, blood, soul, and divinity is the summit of all that. Guess I worded it wrong or I’m off in my terminology.
 
Praying to Mary or the Saints is no more complicated than the concept of Communion. Our Church is a Communal Church. We ask for the intersection of Saints, because as fellow humans, they can help us humans to connect with God. End of story.
 
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Camehome4john6 said:
We often get accused of over emphasizing Our Lady.
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Yes, and the criticism is both silly and Johnny-come-lately.

Until the Reformation, no one disputed or thought there was anything improper about the hyperdulia given to the Mother of God. No one. Even Luther himself spoke of the glories of Mary.

It only became vogue very recently, and with no logical reason to do so. She is the greatest Christian to ever live, and the best example to emulate.

Son, there is your Mother…
Deacon Christopher
 
I often think that starting to say the rosary again softened my heart and brought me back into the CC. She will ALWAYS lead her children to her Son.
 
It’s so easy to look at things and say I would have done this differently… it sort of makes us into “gods”.
We often try to minimize the things and ways of God. From the beginning he created everything from nothing. He could have created millions of people with all that clay, but no… he created Adam and then he created Eve and there was the fall in the garden of Eden… Adam and Eve wanted to have the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil (thanks a lot, I say to them–but I see that I am exactly like them when I too WANT to know good and evil, sin). After all this they were banished from the garden. Adam and Eve had to subsist by the sweat of their brow and Eve would bring forth children in painful labor…
It is so easy to forget the miracles of creation, mountains, waterfalls, clouds, rivers, deserts… and one most basic miracle, the miracle of birth. He gave us Mary to draw our thoughts back to the beginning, back to his miracle of birth. He could have delivered Jesus to us in a million ways… on a space ship, on a ray of sunlight, in a thunder storm… to name a few. Mary tells us not to forget where we came from… Jesus humbled himself though he was God… Thank you, Blessed Mother, for giving Jesus to us in the flesh. Thank you for leading us to your son and the son of God!
Besides, “Hail Mary” is the direct quote from the angel to Mary who was to become the mother of Jesus to fulfill God’s redemptive plan…
 
A Catholic can be a perfectly good Catholic and never utter a single Hail Mary prayer… it is a private devotion that some choose and some pass on.

It is true that at times, Catholics have fallen in to disordered devotion to Mary. Soon to be Saint, John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote quite eloquently on this subject.

That said, I always encourage people to pray to God with Mary and the other saints all the time
 
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The actual translation of “Hail Mary” is more like “Hello Mary.” Hail is like an honored greeting when translated… that’s why when we Roman Catholics pray the Hail Holy Queen in Latin it’s translated to “Salve Regina.” “Salve” being a Latin word for hello. check it out in google translate!
 
One Our Father for every 10 Hail Marys surely implies, not that Mary is 10 times more important than God, but that one Our Father is worth 10 Hail Marys. 🙂
 
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