I’m having a hard time with this catholic notion. How can this idea be justified from the Bible?
The idea of asking the holy ones to intercede for us before God with their prayers is biblical and it’s apostolic. The Old Testament reveals that God’s servants can in some capacity intercede on behalf of his people. Such figures include Abraham (Gen 18: 22-26), Moses (Exo 32: 30-32), Jeremiah (Jer 42: 1-5), and David ( 1 Chron 21: 17, 26-27).
In the New Testament Christians are exhorted to pray for one another, which clearly shows they weren’t expected to believe that they could receive graces from God only by praying for themselves directly to the Father isolated from the Church ( cf. Jas 5:16) Intercessory prayer, as a form of human factual mediation, was encouraged by the apostles. Indeed, the apostles themselves mediated on behalf of the Church by their prayers and asked members of the community to pray for them (cf. Col 1:9; 2 Thess 3:1). Couldn’t the apostles have only gone into their own rooms and directly pray to the Father on their own behalf? They could have, but they didn’t because the apostles believed in the power of human intercessory prayer.
John assures us that we can receive our Lord’s grace through Mary’s intercession. This is one of the important lessons the evangelist teaches to the Christian community in his narrative of the wedding feast at Cana. Jesus performed his first miracle, which inaugurated his ministry, through the merciful solicitation of his mother. Our Blessed Mother’s intercession did in a sense serve to dispense the grace of our salvation. Our Lord’s hour had in fact arrived, since the start of his ministry was overshadowed by the shedding of his Precious Blood represented by the element of wine. Mary served our Lord as a steward of his grace at this event. Her solicitation on behalf of the wedding guests, who stand for those who attend the wedding feast of the Lamb in the Apocalypse, is a demonstration of the power of human intercessory prayer. And it signifies the great mediatory influence Mary holds as the mother of our Lord in God’s plan of salvation. All Mary had to say was
“They have no wine” for our Lord’s hour to arrive. It was only this most important miracle Jesus had performed through the mediation of his mother.
Not unlike Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, and Paul, Mary is a factual mediator in God’s plan of salvation that calls for human collaboration in the divine initiative. But Mary’s role is greater than that of the others. For the Mother of our Lord is more closely linked to the event of salvation by virtue of the Incarnation. The Word was made flesh through Mary’s free consent to be the mother of the Messiah. Her Divine Maternity marks the uniqueness of her mediation on our behalf. And it’s because of her close personal relationship with Jesus as his mother that she wields the most powerful intercessory influence with our Lord in the order of grace.
Mary is the Mediatrix of all Grace because by her humble ‘Fiat’ she gave us Grace Himself: our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Jn 1:16-17). For no other reason did Jesus postpone the arrival of his hour until his mother should accordingly solicit him to perform his first miracle and begin his ministry under the shadow of the cross. Jesus honoured his mother’s request at the wedding feast because she consented to bear the Source of all Grace who would redeem the world. For the same reason our Lord and Saviour grants the requests of his Blessed Mother in heaven on our behalf. The graces we receive through Mary’s prayerful intercession originate from the Father and are given by the Holy Spirit in conformity with the divine will of the Son that is one with the Father.
God does not channel his graces only through the mediation of Mary. You misunderstand the quote. Every true disciple of our Lord “should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Pet 4:10). For all of Christ’s true disciples are “stewards of God’s grace” (Eph 3:2). We share our grace according to our gifts or calling. Peter and Paul served to channel God’s grace through prayer and sacrifice as apostles. Their ministries embodied a form of factual mediation in God’s plan of salvation. Jesus does not wish to save us all by himself (Sola Christu). Paul insists that we are all partakers of his grace (cf. Phil 1:7) because he himself is a “minister of grace” (Eph 3:7).
Mary had served as a type of minister of grace while on earth, and she still does in heaven by praying for us in the Communion of Saints. But Elizabeth asks: “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me” (Lk 1:43)? That’s because Mary, the Mediatrix of all Grace, brought us the Source of All Grace, for which reason she was created perfected in grace (Lk 1:28). She mediates a fullness of grace unlike any grace we have received “according to the measure of the gift in Christ” (Eph 4:7) and is not ours alone, but ours to share. By petitioning Mary we become partakers of the fullness of grace she has received. No other saint has the intercessory power she has to unite us with her divine Son.
“With the Mediator you are the Mediatrix of the world.”
Ephraem (A,D. 373)
