Why is mary so important?

[LilyM]

Why so? Do not our actions speak louder than our words?

I understand that it is a little “scary” to hear Catholics speak this way - but Jesus Christ is the VINE- and we must abide in Him- or we perish!

Praying The Hail Mary (through it mentions the name of Jesus) - is to me more like gazing at the fruit of the VINE - instead of drinking the living and soul-preserving sap from the very VINE itself!

Therefore - for me; Praying to Jesus is way different - and much more important than praying *about *Jesus.

Please hear me. I am not being drastic - just real.

I love Jesus Christ with all of my heart, and nothing shall so occupy my time as to separate me from the closest possible communion I can share with him - even if it be an inch . . . or a millimeter.

Sorry to have to be so bold - But not even a prayer sanctioned by the Church will I allow to distance me from my Lord. I cannot bring myself to do it. I am a stranger in this evil world - like a man in prison: And I only have a limited amount of phone calls that I can make every day. Therefore, I want EVERY SINGLE ONE to be made to Jesus Christ my Lord.

Christ is my First Love and I desire him more than ALL. This is demonstrated in my prayer life - :yup:

I take serious objection to the implication that having one’s heart full of Mary somehow leaves less or no room for Christ - or for that matter the other way around, that having one’s heart full of Christ means one cannot also care deeply for Mary. Did Christ’s own devotion to her (surely unbounded as God’s devotion is) lessen one iota His devotion to the Father?

Remember that the human heart is a muscle - the more you exercise it in one area the more it is capable of in all areas. So our capacity for love is no less flexible - it certainly limited or finite as you seem to think.

Now think of the many saints who had the fullest devotion either to Our Lady or the Rosary - St Louis de Montfort, St Alphonsus Liguori, St Padre Pio, St Dominic - do you think these were in any way at all lacking in the ‘sap’ of the life-giving vine?

Is it not the contrary clearly true, that their devotion to Mary increased rather than diminished the fulness of Christ within them, since they imitated Him in this respect as well as others?

Did Our Lord not say that the FRUIT is what demonstrates the quality of the vine, and in fact determines whether it be allowed to live or is cut off? So we should indeed be concerned about the ‘fruit’ of our prayer, you are right.

But what makes you think that devotion Mary can or ever will do other than produce the same excellent fruit in us that she displayed herself in the Gospels, if we be capable of allowing it growth? She will give birth to Christ in us as she did in Bethlehem, she will teach us to be faithful handmaids or servants of the Lord as she was, she will teach us, as she did the servants of Cana, to ‘do whatever He tells you’ and so on.

She is the perfection of humanity - Jesus being Divine, He is much more than human, and we are incapable of being like Him in numerous respects. But we can no less fruitfully aspire to imitate Mary and can much more realistically hope to attain to her virtues, her glories and her heavenly reward. We certainly cannot do better than she, so why not seek her out as the rolemodel of the utmost that humanity can achieve in the spiritual plane?

 

[Peter_J]

Risen,

Well, the OP asks

Why in the does rosary do we say the Hail Mary more often than the Our Father and the Glory Be?

A slightly different question could also be asked:

Why is it okay to say the Hail Mary more often than the Our Father and the Glory Be?

Now, in my opinion, some of the responses the OP has received have provided some answers (not necessarily exhaustive) to this second question, but I don’t recall any of them going beyond this in terms of answering the first question. (Note that I’m not saying that there aren’t any such answers; rather just that I haven’t seen them here.)

 

[Peter_J]

P.S. I hope I don’t sound insensitive to your point of view. If you, personally, feel that you should say the Our Father more often than the Hail Mary, then I don’t think that makes you any less of a Catholic.

 

[JMJ_coder]

I resent the implication that having one’s heart full of Mary somehow leaves less or no room for Christ - or for that matter the other way around, that having one’s heart full of Christ means one cannot also care deeply for Mary. Remember that the human heart is a muscle - the more you exercise it in one area the more it is capable of in all areas. And our capacity for love is no less flexible - it certainly isn’t limited as you seem to think.

Think of the many saints who had the fullest devotion either to Our Lady or the Rosary - St Louis de Montfort, St Alphonsus Liguori, St Padre Pio, St Dominic - do you think these were in any way at all lacking in the ‘sap’ of the life-giving vine? Is it not the contrary true, that their devotion to Mary increased rather than diminished the fulness of Christ within them, since they imitated Him in this respect as well as others?

Did Our Lord not say that the FRUIT is what demonstrates the quality of the vine, and in fact determines whether it be allowed to live or is cut off? So we should indeed be concerned about the ‘fruit’ of our prayer, you are right.

But what makes you think that devotion Mary can or ever will do other than produce the same excellent fruit in us that she displayed herself in the Gospels, if we be capable of allowing it growth? She will give birth to Christ in us as she did in Bethlehem, she will teach us to be faithful handmaids or servants of the Lord as she was, she will teach us, as she did the servants of Cana, to ‘do whatever He tells you’ and so on.

She is the perfection of humanity - Jesus being Divine, He is much more than human, and we are incapable of being like Him in numerous respects. But we can no less fruitfully aspire to imitate Mary and can much more realistically hope to attain to her virtues, her glories and her heavenly reward. We certainly cannot do better than she, so why not seek her out as the rolemodel of the utmost that humanity can achieve in the spiritual plane?

As the Church has taught through the ages - authentic Marian devotion is always Christocentric!

 

[LilyM]

As the Church has taught through the ages - authentic Marian devotion is always Christocentric!

- remember the wise men came to Bethlehem and found the child ‘together with his mother’. I think we will always find Him thus.

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

I’m not sure if the OP is more interested in knowing about the spirituality of praying the Rosary or more about why Mary is so highly venerated. I’ll try to approach from both angles.

I find that many people criticize the Rosary for allegedly emphasizing Mary. This reveals an ignorance on the part of the critic, because the Rosary is not about Mary at all. The Rosary is a contemplative prayer with ancient roots. But the bottom line is that we are supposed to meditate on 20 mysteries while we pray the various prayers. It is true that there are 10 Hail Mary’s, 1 Our Father and 1 Glory Be for each decade.They are used to help us “time” our meditation and to deepen the contemplation. But out of the twenty mysteries that we are supposed to be contemplating, EIGHTEEN of them are directly about Christ. Two of them are about Mary, but in reality those two are also about Christ, who in His Goodness, granted extraordinary Grace to His Mother. If one is just ‘babbling like a pagan’ and rattling off 10 Hail Mary’s and the other prayers without the contemplation then there is no value to the prayer. The Rosary is about contemplation, and the contemplation is on Christ Our Lord. It is NOT about the ratio of Hail Mary’s to Our Father’s.

As to why Mary is important. Well, as St. Louis de Montfort says: next to God, Mary is but an atom. We all are. We are nothing compared to God. But when we are united to Christ we become something more. We are part of the Body of Christ, after all. Mary is part of the Body as well, and in addition she was a special part of God’s plan of salvation. It was by His Will that she became the Mother of my Lord. And if I think of Him as my ‘brother’ as Scripture reveals, then I must think of her as my mother. If I think of Him as God, as has been revealed to us by the Church and in scripture, then I have to view her as the mother of God (not to be confused with creator of God, which she certainly is not). Mary is special because of who Christ is, I value her because of His place in my life, not the other way around.

 

[RisenAgain]

I take serious objection to the implication that having one’s heart full of Mary somehow leaves less or no room for Christ - or for that matter the other way around, that having one’s heart full of Christ means one cannot also care deeply for Mary. Did Christ’s own devotion to her (surely unbounded as God’s devotion is) lessen one iota His devotion to the Father?

What “devotion” of Jesus to Mary are you talking about?

No one said that having one’s heart full of Mary “means that one cannot also deeply CARE for Mary” - I said nothing of the sort.

All I said was that to me - I wish to devote my PRAYER LIFE to Christ alone - do you have a problem with that?

What makes you think that devotion to Mary can or ever will do other than produce the same excellent fruit in us that she displayed herself in the Gospels, if we be capable of allowing it growth? She will give birth to Christ in us as she did in Bethlehem, she will teach us to be faithful handmaids or servants of the Lord as she was, she will teach us, as she did the servants of Cana, to ‘do whatever He tells you’ and so on.She is the perfection of humanity - Jesus being Divine, He is much more than human, and we are incapable of being like Him in numerous respects. But we can no less fruitfully aspire to imitate Mary and can much more realistically hope to attain to her virtues, her glories and her heavenly reward. We certainly cannot do better than she, so why not seek her out as the rolemodel of the utmost that humanity can achieve in the spiritual plane?

Don’t get this thing too backwards now . . . easy there.

I respect Mary - she is truly blessed. But in order for us to bear the spiritual fruit that she bore as a faithful woman of God - we must be tapped into the same VINE as she was: and that VINE is CHRIST!

Mary has no virtue accept that which she receives from the merits of Christ - and this is official church teaching. Mary is not to be contemplated in her OWN virtues - but she is only to be contemplated in the virtues of Christ. Mary is not sinless or virtuous on her own - and therefore if we are to be like her- we do not go to her; but to the source and fountain of which she drank. That source and fountain of all virtue is Christ Jesus.

If Mary points us to Christ - then let us run to Christ!

 

[Ignatius]

MOTHER OF GOD

Mary or Maria is rarely called just by such name in Orthodoxy - because like in Catolicism, her role in our Salvation is so important - that we realize that she is Mother of God - so we mostly call her that and pray very often that she will help us to be closer to her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Not to understand Mother of God is not to know who is Jesus Christ. We have not rosary but Akafists to Mary with many greetings too:

Hail, O you, through whom Joy will shine forth!
Hail, O you, through whom the curse will disappear!
Hail, O Restoration of the Fallen Adam!
Hail, O Redemption of the Tears of Eve!
Hail, O Peak above the reach of human thought!
Hail, O Depth even beyond the sight of angels!
Hail, O you who have become a Kingly Throne!
Hail, O you who carry Him Who Carries All!
Hail, O Star who manifest the Sun!
Hail, O Womb of the Divine Incarnation!
Hail, O you through whom creation is renewed!
Hail, O you through whom the Creator becomes a Babe!
Hail, O Bride and Maiden ever-pure!

Magnificent. Thank you brother.

 

[Peter_J]

Don’t get this thing too backwards now . . . easy there.

I respect Mary - she is truly blessed. But in order for us to bear the spiritual fruit that she bore as a faithful woman of God - we must be tapped into the same VINE as she was: and that VINE is CHRIST!

Mary has no virtue accept that which she receives from the merits of Christ - and this is official church teaching. Mary is not to be contemplated in her OWN virtues - but she is only to be contemplated in the virtues of Christ. Mary is not sinless or virtuous on her own - and therefore if we are to be like her- we do not go to her; but to the source and fountain of which she drank. That source and fountain of all virtue is Christ Jesus.

If Mary points us to Christ - then let us run to Christ!

If I may quote Screwtape:

We have quite removed from men’s minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples. You would think they could not fail to see the application. You would expect to find the “low” churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his “high” brother should be moved to irreverence, and the “high” one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his “low” brother into idolatry.

• Screwtape Letters, Chapter 16

 

[RisenAgain]

If I may quote Screwtape:

• Screwtape Letters, Chapter 16

I don’t get it.

 

[churchcamefirst]

What “devotion” of Jesus to Mary are you talking about?

No one said that having one’s heart full of Mary “means that one cannot also deeply CARE for Mary” - I said nothing of the sort.

All I said was that to me - I wish to devote my PRAYER LIFE to Christ alone - do you have a problem with that?

Don’t get this thing too backwards now . . . easy there.

I respect Mary - she is truly blessed. But in order for us to bear the spiritual fruit that she bore as a faithful woman of God - we must be tapped into the same VINE as she was: and that VINE is CHRIST!

Mary has no virtue accept that which she receives from the merits of Christ - and this is official church teaching. Mary is not to be contemplated in her OWN virtues - but she is only to be contemplated in the virtues of Christ. Mary is not sinless or virtuous on her own - and therefore if we are to be like her- we do not go to her; but to the source and fountain of which she drank. That source and fountain of all virtue is Christ Jesus.

If Mary points us to Christ - then let us run to Christ!

Sorry but I don’t like the ton**eof your posts here about the Blessed Mother. **You sound like a Protestant who just thinks “Mary was just a conceiver”… I love the Blessed Mother (and that is what you should be calling her as a Catholic, not just Mary as if she is just a girl next door). There have been countless miracles attributed to Our Lady, tell me you do not believe in the Apparitions of Our Lady? Do you believe in Fatima? Lourdes? Guadalupe?

 

[LilyM]

What “devotion” of Jesus to Mary are you talking about?

The devotion with which He entrusted Himself to Her so completely as a helpless child, dependent upon her for everything.

The devotion with which He ‘was subject to’ her after she found Him in the Temple - and remember God never does things by halves, so His subjection was complete - and not just for a few years until His earliest opportunity to leave home either, but until He was 30!

The devotion with which He gave her and John to each other with almost His last breath. That wasn’t for John’s benefit - John had a living mother, who obviously cared deeply for him (she asked Jesus to put John at His right hand in the Kingdom, remember) - it was for Mary’s.

THAT devotion to Her - which didn’t conflict at all with His devotion to the Father upon whom He was ALSO utterly dependent, to whom He was ALSO utterly subject and so on.

All I said was that to me - I wish to devote my PRAYER LIFE to Christ alone - do you have a problem with that?

That word ‘alone’ should be a great big red flag for any Catholic. Notice all the big Protestant errors are ‘alones’ - ‘scripture alone’, ‘faith alone’, ‘grace alone’ - and there’s a name for yours too - ‘me-and-Jesus-alone’.

We are a BODY - HIS body - HE is the head. The head NEVER communicates with any body part, nor any body part with the head, except that some of the other body parts are also necessarily involved. A hand or eye must communicate with the head (or brain if you will) VIA another body part - the central nervous system. And likewise the head sends messages back through the same additional body part.

In spiritual terms Mary is ‘mediatrix of all graces’. Just as Jesus Himself came to us through her, so EVERY gift that He gives comes to us through Her hands, and likewise everything we offer to Him comes to Him through her.

If Mary points us to Christ - then let us run to Christ!

Your imagery is way off. Mary isn’t merely a signpost pointing us to Christ - she is both the road we travel to get to Christ AND the vehicle in which we travel towards Him. And the map and compass without which we don’t know where we’re headed. And more besides.

We’re lost without her - hence her title ‘Star of the Sea’ (being that she guides us to Heaven the way the stars used to guide sailors on their journey).

Look, you really need to study up on the ‘Communion of the Saints’ and what it actually means. Where have you been in Mass all those times when the prayers mention ‘all the saints, on whose constant intercession we RELY for help’.

In other words they (and she especially) aren’t merely optional extras in our spiritual life - their intercession is a necessity without which God’s help does not come to us. Like it or not, realise it or not, we are in fact reliant upon them.

This is the teaching of the Church, which we assent to under the term ‘the communion of Saints’ every time we say the Creed.

At least learn what it is that you are called on to believe - and show some long-overdue gratitude to Mary for all that she has done for you in spite of your stubborn insistence that it was all your own prayers that achieved everything.

 

[churchcamefirst]

To get to Jesus, is to go through The Blessed Mother.

 

[Peter_J]

I don’t get it.

Really? I thought it would be pretty clear.

Basically, I don’t think that the difference between someone who says the Hail Mary a great many times and the Our Father only a few times, and someone who says the Our Father a great many times and the Hail Mary only a few times, is a crucial or “essential” difference.

Also, please note that the weak brother / strong brother thing cuts both ways.

(Perhaps rather than quoting The Screwtape Letters, I should have simply referred everyone to Romans 14.)

P.S. I don’t plan to participate on this thread much further – it seems to be turning into something that I don’t want to be a part of. Blessings,

 

[GailMac]

Dear Risen Again - you state:" Sorry to have to be so bold - But not even a prayer sanctioned by the Church will I allow to distance me from my Lord. I cannot bring myself to do it. I am a stranger in this evil world - like a man in prison: And I only have a limited amount of phone calls that I can make every day. Therefore, I want EVERY SINGLE ONE to be made to Jesus Christ my Lord.

Christ is my First Love and I desire him more than ALL. This is demonstrated in my prayer life "

Well, then I’m going to be “bold” myself. Please take this to heart. In reading your posts I find you precariously close to leaving the Church. I have no idea what occurred in your life that places you in such a position, but you do skate very close to the edge. You’re halfway out the door man. I only hope you can sense this. You cannot be Catholic and exclude Mary from your prayer life.

I will share with you a simple formula - where He is she is and where she is He is. Love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and devotion to her does anything but pull a person away from love of Christ. All devotion to her draws the devoted closer to Christ. Where she is He is. She leads us to her Son. When we pray to her, she brings our prayers to her Divine Son as offerings on our behalf. She is after all, the Queen-Mother and has the King’s ear!

Since it is apparent that you feel Mary a distraction from Christ, I would say that only means something else in your life is distracting you, but it wouldn’t be Mary! The blessing she is to all the faithful only speaks contrary to you and everyone who has devotion to her in his or her heart knows this. Somehow you’ve lost her as your Mother. You’re in an orphaned state. I suggest you pray and talk to a priest soon. Meantime I will pray for you.

Peace,

Gail

 

[RisenAgain]

Your imagery is way off. Mary isn’t merely a signpost pointing us to Christ - she is both the road we travel to get to Christ AND the vehicle in which we travel towards Him. And the map and compass without which we don’t know where we’re headed. And more besides.

Wow - seems like you have confused Mary with the Holy Spirit . . .

We’re lost without her - hence her title ‘Star of the Sea’ (being that she guides us to Heaven the way the stars used to guide sailors on their journey).

Wow - seems like you have confused Mary with Jesus Christ . . .

 

[Peter_J]

I don’t plan to participate on this thread much further – it seems to be turning into something that I don’t want to be a part of.

Case in point, this statement from GailMac to RisenAgain:

In reading your posts I find you precariously close to leaving the Church.

 

[churchcamefirst]

Wow - seems like you have confused Mary with the Holy Spirit . . .

Wow - seems like you have confused Mary with Jesus Christ . . .

If anyone is confused RisenAgain…it is you.

 

[LilyM]

Wow - seems like you have confused Mary with the Holy Spirit . . .

Wow - seems like you have confused Mary with Jesus Christ . . .

Not one iota of confusion here, thank you very much. Both the Holy Spirit AND Jesus Christ are GOD - they are our destination.

Mary is an essential part of the journey, she is the path that takes us to the destination, and all the other things as I have said. She is not the destination herself, and it’s surprisingly easy not to confuse a path with its destination y’know.

I think you’re confused about what paths and maps and all the rest of it actually do. You do understand, do you not, that without paths etc it is either very difficult or, in a lot of cases, actually impossible, to GET to one’s destination? WITH them it is at least immeasurably easier? So it is, if we stick with Mary she will take us more easily and speedily and safely to Christ than anything we can devise without her.

And if I’m confused, RA, then so is the Church - IT has granted her the title ‘Mediatrix of all Graces’, which connotes exactly what I said. IT has specified that prayer in the Mass about how we rely on her and the other Saints interceding for God’s help. I didn’t make these things up on my own y’know.

 

[Robert_in_SD]

I know Mary is Jesus’s mother, but why in the rosary are their

53 hail mary’s, and only 11 prayers to God? (If that is not counted correctly, sorry, tryin my best here.

There are ten Hail Mary’s to be stated while contemplating the particular mystery related to the life of Christ. When saying the Apostles Creed and Our Father, there is no act of deeper contemplation. It seems appropriate that while contemplating Christ one should also be calling to His mother to join her prayers to ours. It seems equally appropriate that between contemplation of those mysteries, one should direct adoration and petition to God. (Our Father, Glory be, Fatima Prayer, etc.)
Christian Knight:

I mean, isn’t Jesus more important than Mary, since he is the one that died for our sins, not Mary?

Of course Jesus is more important. But the number of Hail Mary v. Our Father prayers in the rosary does not contradict this understanding. Again, it must be understood that the mysteries of the rosary are at the heart of the prayer. The recitation of the Hail Mary prayer (in place of the original 150 psalms as one poster already noted) is proper veneration in context of the deeper contemplative prayer taking place when the rosary is properly prayed.
christian knight:

Just wondering, this is not a catholic bashing thread, this is a question cause I do not see why pray to Mary more then to Jesus.

None taken. As I’m sure you see, the prayer is much deeper than mere recitation. A greater understanding of the rosary on your part will help alleviate your “prayer-counting” objection. (an objection commonly made by those who know only the oral part of the prayer, but do not understand the deeper aspects.

Peace,
-Robert