Is Mary equal to God and Jesus?

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Should we love and worship Mary as much as we love and worship God and Jesus? Is she equal to them as far as perfection, holiness, omniscience, etc. goes? I know that’s a really stupid, basic question I should know the answer to as a Catholic, but I don’t.
 
Obsidion said:
Should we love and worship Mary as much as we love and worship God and Jesus? Is she equal to them as far as perfection, holiness, omniscience, etc. goes? I know that’s a really stupid, basic question I should know the answer to as a Catholic, but I don’t.
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Answer to all questions is no. Mary holds a place of high honor in the Church, but only God is worshiped.

For more information check out:

Immaculate Conception and Assumption
Mary: Mother of God
Mary: “Full of Grace”
And especially Tim Staples’ recent book Behold Your Mother
 
First, you’re not stupid. Don’t worry about asking ‘stupid questions’. 🙂
Now the answer is that Mary, while she is our Mother and the Queen of Heaven, and is God’s most perfect creature. . .is not God.

We only worship God. . .and by worship, since it has been redefined, narrowed done, and obfuscated by nonCatholics as well as Catholics into meaning, to the average person in AD 2015 “that which is offered to GOD ALONE”, then obviously, in that sense we do not, never did, and never will worship Mary.

Because there are many older works of literature (Catholicism being nearly 2000 years old) which were written when the word ‘worship’ meant “worth’” only (which is why British judges are still referred to as ‘your Worship’ when obviously nobody worships them), you will sometimes see those works talking about worship of Mary and the saints. But they never did and never will mean “that worship which is given only to God acknowledging Him as our sole Creator, Judge, and Almighty Lord”. Never did, never will.

So we love Mary. . . but we will always love God 'more". And loving Mary as our mother does not take any ‘love’ away from God.

Think of it this way. If you love your mother and your father, does that mean only ‘half’ your love goes to mom and half to dad? that loving two means you are taking love from the other? Of course not.

So to be cut-and-dried here:
No Mary is not equal to God, that is, Father, Son, and Spirit. They are God; she is a creature like us.
Do we love and worship her as if she were God? No, we never did and we never will.
Do we love her as our Mother (but not our Creator)? Yes.
Do we honor her for saying ‘yes’ to God and being the mother of God? Yes.
Do we call her blessed and give her ‘worth’ (but not worship in the sense of thinking SHE is God because she is not) just as we acknowledge the worth in all human creatures? Yes.

Hope that helps.
 
Obsidion said:
Should we love and worship Mary as much as we love and worship God and Jesus?
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No.
Is she equal to them as far as perfection, holiness, omniscience, etc. goes?
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No.
I know that’s a really stupid, basic question I should know the answer to as a Catholic, but I don’t.
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Maybe you should study your catechism. Here’s a word-searchable version so you can hone in on the topics you feel you need instruction in.
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
 
Tantum_ergo said:
First, you’re not stupid. Don’t worry about asking ‘stupid questions’. 🙂
Now the answer is that Mary, while she is our Mother and the Queen of Heaven, and is God’s most perfect creature. . .is not God.

We only worship God. . .and by worship, since it has been redefined, narrowed done, and obfuscated by nonCatholics as well as Catholics into meaning, to the average person in AD 2015 “that which is offered to GOD ALONE”, then obviously, in that sense we do not, never did, and never will worship Mary.

Because there are many older works of literature (Catholicism being nearly 2000 years old) which were written when the word ‘worship’ meant “worth’” only (which is why British judges are still referred to as ‘your Worship’ when obviously nobody worships them), you will sometimes see those works talking about worship of Mary and the saints. But they never did and never will mean “that worship which is given only to God acknowledging Him as our sole Creator, Judge, and Almighty Lord”. Never did, never will.

So we love Mary. . . but we will always love God 'more". And loving Mary as our mother does not take any ‘love’ away from God.

Think of it this way. If you love your mother and your father, does that mean only ‘half’ your love goes to mom and half to dad? that loving two means you are taking love from the other? Of course not.

So to be cut-and-dried here:
No Mary is not equal to God, that is, Father, Son, and Spirit. They are God; she is a creature like us.
Do we love and worship her as if she were God? No, we never did and we never will.
Do we love her as our Mother (but not our Creator)? Yes.
Do we honor her for saying ‘yes’ to God and being the mother of God? Yes.
Do we call her blessed and give her ‘worth’ (but not worship in the sense of thinking SHE is God because she is not) just as we acknowledge the worth in all human creatures? Yes.

Hope that helps.
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Yes it helped very much! Thank you! 🙂
 
You may hear Mary referred to as Queen of Heaven, but this is not an equal status with God. Jesus is still her Lord and God. An example of such a relationship is between the ancient King Solomon and his mother. She was his mother, and held the title of Queen Mother, but her son, Solomon was her king and ruler of Israel.

Mary is still a human body and soul only. She does not have a divine nature. We do not worship her (it’s important to point out that the definition of the word worship has narrowed a lot since the 1800s and early 1900s to be to God alone). Jesus gave her to us as a spiritual mother, and she loves and prays for us all, but everything she does is done in Christ. She bows and worships him like we do.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
First, you’re not stupid. Don’t worry about asking ‘stupid questions’. 🙂
Now the answer is that Mary, while she is our Mother and the Queen of Heaven, and is God’s most perfect creature. . .is not God.

We only worship God. . .and by worship, since it has been redefined, narrowed done, and obfuscated by nonCatholics as well as Catholics into meaning, to the average person in AD 2015 “that which is offered to GOD ALONE”, then obviously, in that sense we do not, never did, and never will worship Mary.

Because there are many older works of literature (Catholicism being nearly 2000 years old)

Hope that helps.
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Nearly 2000 years old? I thought the CC started with Christ and is a little over 2000 years old.
 
Faith1960 said:
Nearly 2000 years old? I thought the CC started with Christ and is a little over 2000 years old.
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Actually the Church itself was established during Christ’s public ministry (Matthew 16:18) and was “christened” (for lack of a better word) at Pentecost which all happened sometime between AD 30 - 35.
 
Obsidion said:
Should we love and worship Mary as much as we love and worship God and Jesus? Is she equal to them as far as perfection, holiness, omniscience, etc. goes? I know that’s a really stupid, basic question I should know the answer to as a Catholic, but I don’t.
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I was told by my Catechist that after our resurrection on the Last Day, the God will make us all “equal” to Him in some meaning of that term. And allegedly, Jesus “sitting at the right hand of the Father” in the Creed means exactly that.

So, considering Mary IS already resurrected and glorified bodily, she can be, with strong circumspection, called “equal to God” in some respect.

Although we do not confess that She “sits at the right hand”, like Jesus does, but we call Her “Queen of the Angels”, “Queen of the Heaven”, etc. Of course, Her Queenship is dependant on Jesus, but it is a true Queenship, nevertheless.
 
JurisPrudens said:
I was told by my Catechist that after our resurrection on the Last Day, the God will make us all “equal” to Him in some meaning of that term. And allegedly, Jesus “sitting at the right hand of the Father” in the Creed means exactly that.

So, considering Mary IS already resurrected and glorified bodily, she can be, with strong circumspection, called “equal to God” in some respect.

Although we do not confess that She “sits at the right hand”, like Jesus does, but we call Her “Queen of the Angels”, “Queen of the Heaven”, etc. Of course, Her Queenship is dependant on Jesus, but it is a true Queenship, nevertheless.
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I think this may have been presented incorrectly. What I think your catechist was getting at is that we are co-heirs of and share in Christ’s own sonship. This was part of God’s plan, to share his divine nature with us. He shares it with us in every communion with those of us here on Earth. But this is God’s divinity, not our own. I guess I can see where your catechist got the word equal, but I feel like the word could be misleading.
 
There is much excellent (name removed by moderator)ut in this thread to help. I like this description given by a priest many years ago:

Mary can be likened to a pane of glass, no smudges (no sin) that allows the pure Light of the Blessed Trinity to shine through.

By herself she is nothing without God, but highly privileged. She had to be a woman of great faith and she suffered much watching her Son die and understood that it was for love of us. She is a great intercessor for us; when she sees us she sees Jesus and desires what is best for us.

Our Blessed Mother is the perfect disciple of her Son.
 
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