Thank you, and thanks for the link.
By no means do I want to offend anyone and I hope it didn’t come across that way. My Protestant mind doesn’t understand the Catholic concept of honoring Mary. No offense. Maybe in time, and with prayer, I’ll understand.
Mary is in a very real sense, our mystical connection to the spiritual Church.
How do we understand this?
In Gen. 3:15 we see from the very beginning that God gives Mary a unique role in salvation history. God says “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.” The phrase “her seed” is not seen elsewhere in Scripture. The Scriptures begin and end with the woman battling Satan. This teaches us that Jesus and Mary are the new Adam and the new Eve.
In John 2:4 and 19:26 Jesus calls Mary “woman” as she is called in Gen. 3:15. Just as Eve was the mother of the old creation, Mary is the mother of the new creation. This woman’s seed will crush the serpent’s skull.
Isaiah 7:14 and Matt. 1:23 tell us a virgin will bear a Son named Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” Luke 1:35 tells us the child will be called holy, the Son of God. Mary is the Mother of the Son of God, or the Mother of God (the “Theotokos”).
In Luke 1:43 Elizabeth says Mary is the “Mother of my Lord” which is the equivalent of “Holy Mary, Mother of God”. Jesus is a divine person, and this person is God. Mary is Jesus’ Mother, so Mary is the mother of God.
Luke 1:28 states “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” These are the words spoken by God and delivered to us by the angel Gabriel. When Catholics recite this verse while praying the Rosary, they are uttering the very words of God. The phrase “full of grace”. This is a unique title given to Mary, and suggests a perfection of grace from a past event.
Mary is not just “highly favored.” She has been perfected in grace by God. A few verses down, Luke 1:42 says “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.” The phrase “blessed are you among women” really means “you are most blessed of all women.” Luke 1:48 says Mary prophesies that all generations shall call her blessed, as Catholics do in the “Hail Mary”. Gal. 4:4 - God sent His Son, born of a woman, to redeem us.
By calling Mary co-redemptrix, Catholics are simply calling Mary “the woman with the redeemer.” Mary had a unique but subordinate role to Jesus in salvation.
I would also like to add nowhere in Catholic teaching is there anything that directs Catholics to worship Mary. Catholics do not ‘worship’ Mary, we do however venerate her.
Venerate means To regard with respect, reverence, and heartfelt deference.
One of the 10 Commandments is “Honor your Father and your Mother.” One honors their father and mother and respects them. Catholics do so for their parents, and for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Worship means the reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or sacred object, which we do not accord to our parents. We pray “to” Mary in the old sense of the word. In Elizabethan English they would say "I pray thee…… It is a pleading to a person of dignity.
The Hail Mary says “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus! Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”
We are first “praying the scriptures”, and second, we are asking Mary to pray for us to the Lord even as I might ask a living Christian to do. For “the prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
I’m not trying to offend anyone. I’m only looking for honest answers not a condescending reply.
I don’t know and it depends on the preacher. One preacher mentioned her several times and cried when he talked about her at Jesus’ crucifixion. He said Protestants don’t honor Mary enough. I agree, but I can’t tell my pastor, or other preachers, to give more sermons about Mary.