Mary as Intercessor-Set me Straight

[pgepps]

I do think it’s helpful to point out that “intercession” is not essentially different from asking someone to pray for/with us, especially to those (like me) who are from a Protestant background, who were brought up to believe the expression “One God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” was a final argument against Catholic practices, including not only veneration of Mary and the Saints but also priesthood.

I was stimulated to reflection, though, by the poster who pointed out that dividing “intercessor” and “mediator” sharply is at best a partial (and at worst a potentially misleading) answer. It’s true, really, that many roles in which Christ is unique are nonetheless also ones which others to some measure share or participate in, isn’t it? Christ is the “only begotten” of the Father, but through His work we are made so many “children” of that same Father; Christ is the “propitiation” and “High Priest” and “foundation,” but we are also a “living sacrifice” and “kingdom of priests” (who have priests), and the apostles are also the “foundation.” Christ is uniquely what many become, in measure, through Him.

And we can possibly be still more specific about this “only mediator between God and man” text, can’t we? Christ Incarnate is the only perfectly competent mediator between God–the whole transcendent, eternal, Three-in-One being of God the Creator–and humanity as creature of that God. Christ has had a fully creaturely experience of life, death, and resurrection, yet being the Creator–none of us, including the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, have had all of that experience.

Yet all of us, most intimately the Blessed Virgin Mary, and then the Apostles, and then many other confessors and martyrs, have been invited into that life of Christ. Christ uniquely bridges humanity and Deity; others through and with Christ (crossing that bridge) intercede with Him. The Blessed Virgin’s especially intimate role in Christ’s life makes her incalculably more valuable to us “poor, banished children of Eve” than our closest chums today could be, as prayer partners.

 

[prettiefly]

“Prayer is powerful beyond limits when we turn to the Immaculata who is queen even of God’s heart.” - Saint Maximilian Kolbe

 

[Dorothy]

“Prayer is powerful beyond limits when we turn to the Immaculata who is queen even of God’s heart.” - Saint Maximilian Kolbe

How beautiful. I hadn’t known that St. Maximilian Kolbe said that!

 

[iohanne]

Thank you for the information. Why though do we have to get to the Father? Isn’t Jesus believed to be co-equal to the Father?

We are not trying to “get to the Father.” We are attempting to unite ourselves to Christ so we can be caught up in the inner life of the Trinity. Let me explain. For Christians, the Trinity is the source of infinite joy and infinite wisdom, of eternal dynamism and eternal rest. Moreover, it is a community of Infinite Persons and so a source of infinite love - the Father loves the Son and gives all that He is to the Son and the Son loves the Father and gives all that He is to the Father and they both love and give all that they are to the Holy Spirit and vice versa. Christians who are Trinitarians hold that salvation consists in being caught up in this inner Divine life which is the source of true happiness and joy and immortality. It is an ecstatic - ex-stasis, standing outside of the self - form of Divine Existence.

We Christians speak of “the Lamb that was slayed from the foundation of the world” and so we view the Cross as the “incarnation” so to speak of what Jesus as the Eternal Logos and Son and Third Person of the Trinity has done for all eternity - giving Himself eternally, wholly, infinitely to the Father in love and adoration and worship.

Christian activity here on earth is focused on cultivating this kind of ex-static existence and by doing so, one unites ones’ self to Christ. In one way of doing this, we have the Eucharist, in which we are united to the His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity at the ontological level. So we call this a “pledge of future glory” and a foretaste of Heaven and the age to come. It communicates to us the existence that is God’s by nature and ours by grace. Another way of doing this, we also unite ourselves to Christ by conforming ourselves to Him and imitating him - beginning to live out the Trinitarian life of self-gift and self-sacrifice here in this age. Finally, in uniting ourselves to Christ, he becomes our Mediator, in the sense that through Him we can be caught up in the inner life of the Trinity. If we unite ourselves to Him and His Sacrifice, we unite ourselves to His eternal self-gift to the Father. In the Trinitarian “dance” so to speak, He eternally offers up Himself as well as His Mystical Body/His Bride/the Church to the Father and we are literally “dipped” or “baptised” into God. Christian salvation consists of the Bridegroom returning at the beginning of the age to come and saying to His Bride, “Here at last is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.”

Mary, as you can see, has a very different role. She is an intercessor and therefore has the same role that all members of the Church have for one another.

 

[pablope]

It helps a little just need some clarifying.

The other poster said that the Saints go to Jesus to ask for mediation not to God.

1 Tim 2:1-2 - because Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), many Protestants deny the Catholic belief that the saints on earth and in heaven can mediate on our behalf. But before Paul’s teaching about Jesus as the “one mediator,” Paul urges supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. Paul is thus appealing for mediation from others besides Christ, the one mediator. Why?

1 Tim 2:3 - because this subordinate mediation is good and acceptable to God our Savior. Because God is our Father and we are His children, God invites us to participate in Christ’s role as mediator.

1 Tim. 2:5 - therefore, although Jesus Christ is the sole mediator between God and man, there are many intercessors (subordinate mediators).

scripturecatholic.com/saints.html