Some Catholics and Mary

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Malia_Belen

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I know for the most part Catholics don’t worship Mary but ask her to pray for them. However, the part that still kind of irks me is that I still feel that this isn’t true in many cases. Sometimes, I’ll watch television and see a Catholic asking Mary to do something for them other than pray and other times it seems that some Catholics do all their praying to Mary/Saint and not to the God/Jesus/Holy Spirit.

So, I have two questions when does veneration become worship to a Catholic?
and two if I can come to understand that Mary does deserve special honors does that mean I would have to pray the rosary and the Hail Mary to become Catholic?
 
No Catholic worships Mary ever. You may beleive so due to prejudices implanted in your mind, but people who are very sincerly wrong about Catholic belief. But no Catholic ever worships Mary.
 
You are not required to pray the Rosary or say the Hail Mary to become Catholic. But I would of course recommend these gifts to aid you in your spiritual life because Mary’s intercession is quite powerful.

Marian devotion becomes idolatrous when the individual seeks her as “an ends” to their petitions or if she is praised as divine. Mary is not divine. All her merits are gifts from God. She is created. Compared to God, Mary is “less than an atom” as St. Louis de Montfort said. Sometimes if you hear someone call out to Mary without specifically saying “Mary please pray for me for this intention” what they are understanding with their heart is that Mary is going to do just that in response to the prayer. So, for instance, if I say “Mary, please obtain for me a holy wife,” I understand in my heart that what I am asking Mary to do is approach God on my behalf, as my “Advocate” as the Church calls her, and have Christ deliver the answer to the prayer. Christ is the final ends of all prayer. Not Mary. So while you may think you heard others praying to Mary other than for “prayer”, the person may well have only been asking for the same intercession in their heart.

I just got done writing a 17 page paper on the Advocacy of Mary for my master’s degree. If you would like to read it, feel free to let me know in this post or send me a PM! :o
 
Malia_Belen said:
So, I have two questions when does veneration become worship to a Catholic?
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Catholics never worship Mary with the worship of latria.
and two if I can come to understand that Mary does deserve special honors does that mean I would have to pray the rosary and the Hail Mary to become Catholic?
Click to expand...
You don’t have to but you will find that if you do your love of God grows. Besides you don’t have to be Catholic to pray the Rosary; anyone can.
 
There are three words used in this area:
  1. latria - this is the worship that is due to God alone.
  2. dulia - this is the special honor due to the Saints.
  3. hyperdulia - this is the special honor due to Mary, Mother of God (Jesus).
We are to immitate Jesus in our lives as best we can. Jesus never disobeyed any of the 10 Commandments, including “Honor thy father and thy mother.” He honored (hyperdulia) Mary, and so should we! The Hebrew word we translate into the Enlgish word “honor” is more akin to our word for “glorify” (but not exactly).
 
I’m sure that our devotion and love towards Mary is confusing to some Protestants. As a Catholic woman, I love Mary with all of my heart and think of her as my own mother. Mary said, “Do as He says”. She was the sinless vessel that brought Jesus into the world, so I love her. Catholics have a deeper understanding that Mary is the new Eve and also the arc of the new covenant. You may hear one of us call out to her to “help us” - but we fully understand that she can only intercede to her Son.

I will pray that you understand our devotion to Mary.

Many blessings to you.
 
Thomas Merton on Mary

Mary
When the angel spoke, God awoke in the heart of this girl of Nazareth and moved within her like a giant. He stirred and opened His eyes and her soul saw that in containing Him she contained the world besides. The Annunciation was not so much a vision as an earthquake in which God moved the universe and unsettled the spheres, and the beginning and end of all things came before her in her deepest heart.

And far beneath the movement of this silent cataclysm she slept in the infinite tranquility of God, and God was a child curled up who slept in her and her veins were flooded with His wisdom which is night, which is starlight, which is silence. And her whole being was embraced in Him whom she embraced and they became tremendous silence….it is the mission of Our Lady in the world to form this Christ of hers, this Giant, in the souls of men much as He formed Himself in her.

She brings them His grace, and His grace is his own life-giving presence. He is born in every man by Baptism, but we do not know it. He casts his shadow over the soul that first senses Him in the peace of contemplation; but that is not enough. At the summit of the mystical life, God must move and reveal Himself and shake the world within the soul and rise from his sleep like a giant.

From The Ascent of Truth

More here:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/11/18/book-recommendation-the-ascent-to-truth-by-thomas-merton/

In Christ,

dj
 
I, too, found Catholic devotion to Mary hard to understand, when I became Catholic. I think for a lot of protestant converts to the faith, Mariology is the last hurdle to be overcome. For some it is a stumbling block which must be overcome first. For me, I had come to believe that in the truth of the Catholic Faith as a whole (and I think the Faith stands or falls as a whole), and I had made the decision to enter the Church; but I just planned to leave out the Marian devotions, with which I wasn’t comfortable. I was given a rosary by a Catholic couple, but I felt really wierd about praying it.

But in the end, Our Lady won my heart. I remember a particular occasion, I had been badly hurt by close friend and I was really upset, even crying, and I went to pray and I was really drawn to the rosary. And I prayed it, and I really felt the nearness of God, Our Lady and the Saints in a really deep way.

Since then the rosary has held a special place in my heart. In spite of outward appearance, as one goes deeper into the mysteries of the rosary, it is revealed as a deeply Christological prayer, to the point that I don’t really consider it a Marian devotion. We pray with Mary, but the focus is totally on the the life and works of Christ. I find that rosary is the glue, which holds my prayer life together, which I could never have imagined before.

So my advice to you is this. If you are thinking of entering the Church, then you must have come to believe in the Church’s teachings, and particularly the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The most important thing is that you come to the point where you can receive Our Lord in the Eucharist. So if you can assent to all the Dei Fide (necessary for salvation) teachings of the Church, including, of course, the Immaculate Conception of Mary & her bodily Assumption into Heaven, then my advice is take the RCIA course in a good parish and come on over to the Church and receive Jesus. Don’t worry about devotion to Mary or the rights or wrongs of other people’s devotion to Mary. Come and receive Jesus and I can guarantee you that in the fulness of time you will come to love his blessed mother also.
 
Malia_Belen said:
I know for the most part Catholics don’t worship Mary but ask her to pray for them. However, the part that still kind of irks me is that I still feel that this isn’t true in many cases. Sometimes, I’ll watch television and see a Catholic asking Mary to do something for them other than pray and other times it seems that some Catholics do all their praying to Mary/Saint and not to the God/Jesus/Holy Spirit.

So, I have two questions when does veneration become worship to a Catholic?
and two if I can come to understand that Mary does deserve special honors does that mean I would have to pray the rosary and the Hail Mary to become Catholic?
Click to expand...
Hope this helps:

thetrailhome.blogspot.com/2008/03/few-thoughts-on-mary-and-great-cloud-of_27.html
 
Malia_Belen said:
So, I have two questions when does veneration become worship to a Catholic?
and two if I can come to understand that Mary does deserve special honors does that mean I would have to pray the rosary and the Hail Mary to become Catholic?
Click to expand...
To me, veneration would become worship if one thought she was equal to God, which she is not; she is an intercessor. & no, you don’t have to pray the rosary & Hail Mary to become Catholic. I am a convert & now I regularly say rosaries & Hail Mary’s; she is a great intercessor & can bring us closer to Jesus.
 
Malia_Belen said:
I know for the most part Catholics don’t worship Mary but ask her to pray for them. However, the part that still kind of irks me is that I still feel that this isn’t true in many cases.
Click to expand...
How could you possibly know this. Would’nt you have see into their hearts? Last I checked, only God can do this.
Sometimes, I’ll watch television and see a Catholic asking Mary to do something for them other than pray and other times it seems that some Catholics do all their praying to Mary/Saint and not to the God/Jesus/Holy Spirit.

So, I have two questions when does veneration become worship to a Catholic?
Click to expand...
Never. Veneration is never worship in the way you are using the term worship.
and two if I can come to understand that Mary does deserve special honors does that mean I would have to pray the rosary and the Hail Mary to become Catholic?
Click to expand...
No
 
davidv said:
How could you possibly know this. Would’nt you have see into their hearts? Last I checked, only God can do this.

Never. Veneration is never worship in the way you are using the term worship.

No
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I don’t know this… that’s why I said “some Catholics” and “I feel”…I never said I know. I came here so that someone could explain it to me.

Also, how could you possibly know that this isn’t the case since as you’ve said only God can do this.
 
Malia_Belen said:
I don’t know this… that’s why I said “some Catholics” and “I feel”…I never said I know. I came here so that someone could explain it to me.

Also, how could you possibly know that this isn’t the case since as you’ve said only God can do this.
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Whether or not there are Catholics who go too far in their Marian devotion should never stop you from practicing beautiful, authentic Marian devotion. Never let the sin of your neighbor keep you away from Christ.
 
Thanks everyone. I really do find my self quite interested in the Catholic faith. However, there is a lot that I still find difficult to understand especially the way Catholics feel about Mary. I can see how it might be ok to honor her.

Scooby: I liked the way you explained it about how Jesus followed the ten commandments and so he honored his mom like we all should. That clicked with me for some reason.

Marco: That was great how you explained that real Catholics understand that they are only asking Mary to pray for them. They just sort of use a short cut instead of saying “Mary please pray for me about…” Do I understand this correctly?

Thanks Servant and Djeter for the links and thanks everyone else (davidv, krntogo, crown of thorns, shannin, chester, crazzeto) for answering.
 
I’m glad you were able to come to a realization of our beliefs on this issue! Cheers 🙂

I hope eventually you too will come to venerate the Holy Mother, truely she is a Mother to the Church (Jn 19, will post below). She’s here to care for us, and advoate our needs to our Lord. May sound corny, but I’ve always had a special place in my heart for her, as my mother put her picture in my room when I was a child. Because of this, I actually never ran to my parents when I was scared a monster might come and get me, I figured with the Holy Mother there to watch over me, if one tried she would just ask our Lord to come and protect me from them. Anyway, now that I’ve made a fool of my self with that childish story, John 19 :o
26 When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. 27 After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.
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From Apostolic times, the Church has always taught that in this story, we are the Apostle whom Jesus loved (in addition to the fact that John was literally there).
 
Malia_Belen said:
Thanks everyone. I really do find my self quite interested in the Catholic faith. However, there is a lot that I still find difficult to understand especially the way Catholics feel about Mary. I can see how it might be ok to honor her.

Scooby: I liked the way you explained it about how Jesus followed the ten commandments and so he honored his mom like we all should. That clicked with me for some reason.

Marco: That was great how you explained that real Catholics understand that they are only asking Mary to pray for them. They just sort of use a short cut instead of saying “Mary please pray for me about…” Do I understand this correctly?

Thanks Servant and Djeter for the links and thanks everyone else (davidv, krntogo, crown of thorns, shannin, chester, crazzeto) for answering.
Click to expand...
You’re in my prayers. Many blessings.
 
Malia Belen,

There is a wonderful book on the Blessed Virgin Mary called Hail, Holy Queen, by Dr. Scott Hahn. I would highly recommend it 👍

You can read some of the book here.

God bless you on your journey,
ZP
 
crazzeto said:
No Catholic worships Mary ever. You may beleive so due to prejudices implanted in your mind, but people who are very sincerly wrong about Catholic belief. But no Catholic ever worships Mary.
Click to expand...
I’m sorry Crazzeto, but I don’t think you can make that statement. You can say that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach worship of Mary and you’d be correct. You can say that Catholics are not supposed to worship Mary and you’d be correct. You can say that any Catholic who worships Mary is in serious error and needs to be corrected and you’d be correct. However, you cannot definitively say no Catholic worships Mary because to do that you would have to know the other people’s heart and you simply do not know that. On the other hand, the original poster cannot state that any Catholics do worship Mary either for the same reasons.
 
MarcoPolo said:
You are not required to pray the Rosary or say the Hail Mary to become Catholic. But I would of course recommend these gifts to aid you in your spiritual life because Mary’s intercession is quite powerful.

Marian devotion becomes idolatrous when the individual seeks her as “an ends” to their petitions or if she is praised as divine. Mary is not divine. All her merits are gifts from God. She is created. Compared to God, Mary is “less than an atom” as St. Louis de Montfort said. Sometimes if you hear someone call out to Mary without specifically saying “Mary please pray for me for this intention” what they are understanding with their heart is that Mary is going to do just that in response to the prayer. So, for instance, if I say “Mary, please obtain for me a holy wife,” I understand in my heart that what I am asking Mary to do is approach God on my behalf, as my “Advocate” as the Church calls her, and have Christ deliver the answer to the prayer. Christ is the final ends of all prayer. Not Mary. So while you may think you heard others praying to Mary other than for “prayer”, the person may well have only been asking for the same intercession in their heart.

I just got done writing a 17 page paper on the Advocacy of Mary for my master’s degree. If you would like to read it, feel free to let me know in this post or send me a PM! :o
Click to expand...
But, don’t you think it is a bit dangerous to drop the asking for prayer from a one’s speech? I think that would make it easier to cross the line into actual worship. I’m not saying that this does cross the line, in and of itself, because worship is what happens in the heart and not with the lips. However, I think that a person who stops using the words the ask Mary to pray for them is coming dangerously close to worship even if they are not worshiping and that this danger should be avoided.
 
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