Why do Catholics pray to Mary more than Jesus?

[MichaelHowling]

The rosary.

And what do we see on this outwardly “mary worshiping” type of prayer…lol…it’s constantly pointing to Jesus! The very cent"er of the “hail mary” prayer is “Jesus”. And through the whole rosary is a continuous scripturally based meditation on the life of Jesus!

I’m glad you’ve come around… I truly hope you become a “mama’s gal”…she always, always puts us to her Son.

 

[Michael57]

Yes I do, I found a good website called rosary-center.org. It has everything you need, including all the mysteries.

There is a great website that prays the Rosary constantly, you can pray with, or you can have it lead your own prayer… linked HERE

It’s called “Come Pray the Rosary”. It helped me get in the habit of prayer.

 

[pablope]

In hierarchical terms, Mary (human) is higher than us, but infinitely lower than Christ (God and man).

Since the ancients understood their lowlinness in relation to God much better than we do, they naturally were attracted to the 100% human mother, whereby Christ could be accessed through her compassion and lowliness. Men knew they were lowly and unworthy. Mary was a human being, sharing in our lowliness. Yet she was also the Mother of God, and she had her son’s ear! Thus, many were instinctively drawn to approach God through His mother.

Today, man is arrogant. We don’t understand our own unworthiness in relation to God. Thus, for many, praying through Mary to Christ is not intuitive. But to men of the 1st and 2nd centuries, and later, it was just common sense. This Tradition has been handed on for 200 years. But that is why Protestants don’t don’t “get it”, because their theology and spiritual practices have their roots in the 15th century, rather than in the ancient Traditions of The Church.

Father…if you do not mind…I will borrow this post of yours as an apologetic answer to queries such as this…

 

[ahs]

I think the post that pablope just re-posted adrresses this nicely. I do believe, however, that Fr. meant to write “2,000 years” instead of “200”.

In hierarchical terms, Mary (human) is higher than us, but infinitely lower than Christ (God and man).

Since the ancients understood their lowlinness in relation to God much better than we do, they naturally were attracted to the 100% human mother, whereby Christ could be accessed through her compassion and lowliness. Men knew they were lowly and unworthy. Mary was a human being, sharing in our lowliness. Yet she was also the Mother of God, and she had her son’s ear! Thus, many were instinctively drawn to approach God through His mother.

Today, man is arrogant. We don’t understand our own unworthiness in relation to God. Thus, for many, praying through Mary to Christ is not intuitive. But to men of the 1st and 2nd centuries, and later, it was just common sense. This Tradition has been handed on for 200 years. But that is why Protestants don’t don’t “get it”, because their theology and spiritual practices have their roots in the 15th century, rather than in the ancient Traditions of The Church.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

It seams that Catholics almost always pray to Mary for intercession. I get that the intercession of Mary and the Saints is ok, but do catholics every just pray to Jesus. I personally never have prey for intervession it feels wired. In Catholicism whenever you see or hear anything about Jesus, Mary is also mentioned; and in my opinion she is given more attention than Jesus. I think it is fine to occasionally pray and honor her, but the amount of attention she is given seems like a little much. Especially since she was only honored in the bible a couple of times.

I don’t think that’s true, I definitely pray more to Jesus than Mary, to answer
the WHY question. You may just happen to take more notice of our calling
on Saints to pray for us. As far as attention, you might be only getting the
impression that we give more to Mary than to Jesus. You also may be get-
ting the impression that it’s too much because you’re a Protestant and are
thus not used to all the attention we give to Mary (which I’m sure isn’t more
than to Jesus). If you want to use the quantitative evidence to demonstrate
how important Mary is, fine, but you can’t then not do the same thing when
it comes to the Holy Spirit, who is also not mentioned as much. Catholics
are not so interested in “quantitative evidence,” for if we can show but one
passage from the Bible showing how important Mary is in the Christian life,
then that’s sufficient, though it’s a lot more than one. Did the Wedding at
Cana reveal nothing to you about Mary? How the time when Jesus was giv-
ing Mary to John to be looked after?

We Catholics do what we do because we believe that’s the way God wants
it. If you were to take off your Protestant tinted lenses, you would so easily
see how Mary, no matter how much attention is given to her, can never ever
overshadows her son, Jesus. That’s the problem, you’re looking at this from
the perspective of a Protestant.

If you give as much attention to Mary as a Catholic, but maintain a purely
Protestant view, that may be an awkward situation, so what you need is
the Catholic understanding of Mary (all of it, not just a little preview), then
everything will fall into place and make sense.

 

[JamesTheJust]

Thank you that did answer most of my question. Though I still don’t understand why she is prayed to more than Jesus and seems to come before Jesus. For example, the pope that got shot thanked Mary for his recovery, not Jesus. That just doesn’t seem right to me. Jesus shouldn’t have to share his glory with anyone. If I wanted to pray to someone or thank somebody it would alway be Jesus.

Take the following analogy:

My sister buys me a gift for my birthday from Amazon.com. I know that the source of this gift is ultimately Amazon, but I also know that without my sister’s efforts and money, it would have been much less likely for me to get this gift. So I would naturally, while acknowledging the gifts ultimate source, thank my sister for the gift.

The intercession of Mary and the saints is a stumbling block for many. I believe CS Lewis himself said it was one of the only reasons he didn’t become a Catholic (though I’m sure he would have if he were alive today). Be assured that God will aid you on your path if you let Him.

May the peace of Christ be with you,
James

 

[Matthaius777]

Listen up…I was a hardcore catholic who blindly without reason followed the tradition and one fine day the truth dawned upon me and I was set free…i call myself a christian period…did you even realise the nonsensical blasphemy you have written??? If not for her Jesus couldn’t have accomplished??? Really??? YOU IGNORANT NAIVE FOOL…Mary was nothing but a vessel chosen by God… period!!! She was designed for Jesus… understand this you need to read and understand the bible with its true interpretation and not read it with human understanding …and for that you have to be anointed by the holy spirit and only then will he reveal the truth to you.
Example - when the angel gabriel delivered the message to mary she said " “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant."

Let me ask you all the so called saints and mary herself? Did they pray to any other saints or prophets for intercession or for being a mediator? They were holy because the lived and walked in the spirit of God and hence they walked with God and was able to converse and have a direct relationship with God…and hence Gods spirit was upon them and so was his grace… But you people who walk in the flesh gratifying the desires of the flesh and hence you people consider yourselves unworthy to receive his Grace…and look for a mediator thinking that her prayers will do the trick??? YOU ARE MOCKING GOD …YOU ARE MOCKING THE CRUCIFIXION AND THE PASSION THAT JESUS SUFFERED ON THE CROSS…Jesus died on the cross for all sins of mankind past present and future…and hence no amount of your so called penance or goodwill will suffice to what Jesus has done for mankind…because the debt for us has already been settled…so no matter what you do doesn’t count…because of the crucifixion mankind is under the grace of God…which means…You don’t sit and self pity yourself on the sins that you have committed…you repent wholeheartedly and confess it to Jesus so that he will mediate for you to our Father God…and who convicts us of sin…its the Holy Spirit…It is because on lives in the flesh and not in the spirit which is why he thinks he needs a mediator and again the only advocate is Jesus as said in the bible…and once again before Jesus ascended into heaven he said " I will send you the helper {HOLY SPIRIT} to guide you in all ways and he will be with you till the end of time.
Again…When Mary went to Jesus at at Cana…asking him to perform a miracle…Jesus said “WOMAN WHAT CONCERN IS THAT FOR YOU?” And again my time has not come as yet…but the only reason he obliged to that was he was God and Man and he was righteous without sin and perfect in all ways so how can he show disobedience and hence which is why he obliged to mary.
By the way…Mary was not a virgin post the birth of Jesus…Joseph and mary had children post the birth of Jesus however none of them had any role to play and the bible clearly records the same…the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary is unbiblical."Matthew 1:25 " declares, “But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave Him the name Jesus.”
The word “until” clearly indicates that Joseph and Mary did have sexual union after Jesus was born. Joseph and Mary had several children together after Jesus was born. Jesus had four half-brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matthew 13:55). Jesus also had half-sisters, although they are not named or numbered (Matthew 13:55-56). God blessed and graced Mary by giving her several children, which in that culture was the clearest indication of God’s blessing on a woman…
when Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd proclaimed, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed” (Luke 11:27). There was never a better opportunity for Jesus to declare that Mary was indeed worthy of praise and adoration. What was Jesus’ response? “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” (Luke 11:28). To Jesus, obedience to God’s Word was more important than being the woman who gave birth to the Savior
DONT BE SHOCKED…BECAUSE WHEN I READ THE VARIOUS PASSAGES IN THE BIBLE…I WAS ASTOUNDED…AS WELL…
At the cross…except for the one apostle and mary magdalene and mary the mother of jesus everyone of them deserted him…none of his so called half brethren or any other apostles other than one was present and at the time when he was about to die and looking at the face of his earthly mother who was in remorse that cannot be explained in words or thoughts… is why Jesus decided that the apostle will be the son for mary and mary the mother for his apostle …for people to derive other meanings convenient to them is unacceptable and nonsensical…firstly understand how the roman catholic church came into existence…for that you need to dig deep into ORIGINS…THEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY…and then you will understand WHAT,HOW,WHEN AND WHY…THE BOTTOMLINE IS …ONCE YOU KNOW THE TRUTH ,THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE !!!

 

[Paul_Edwards]

Why do Catholics pray to Mary more than Jesus?

Why do Protestants pray to Martin Luther more than Jesus?

The answer is the same.

They don’t