Why pray to Mary or anyone other than God?

[Stepson]

Hope you know I meant it as a compliment, as I consider myself one.

Jon

I have always looked forward to your (name removed by moderator)ut and can’t wait to read it when one of a blogs that involves Lutheranism pops up. I have not put a label as to my feelings. I have only wanted to see things for the truth whether it is comfortable or not. I guess that comes from being a former cop of over a decade.

If you had to define an evangelical catholic what would it be?

On a side note from one Lutheran to another, my family is down in Monterey for a vacation. We just got back from Mass at the Carmel Mission. I always wanted to go to a mass at one of the California’s historic missions. I have to admit it was a really good experience. Very revenant and peaceful. I could have closed my eyes and felt as if I was listing to a Lutheran service. I do love traditions. A British general in WWII summed up what I feel about traditions, “Traditions are a handrail to hold onto in troubled time.”

 

[Good_Fella]

I am not Catholic by practice or belief and I intend absolutely no disrespect with my question and am seeking an honest answer.
I will admit I could read any number of books on the subject and I am sure that there is a thread on the subject somewhere. I would much rather engage in good conversation with somone or any number of someones who believe and practice this method of prayer.
I am at a loss and have for a number of years wanted to understand, not criticize, what it is I don’t understand. I am not saying I will ever agree, however, I would deeply appreciate an understanding. I came upon this sight researching details as to the “putting together” of the Bible and found it to be a wonderful resource.

If I may make one request could all validating scripture come from the current KJV so that I may be able to keep up.

Thank you and God Bless!

By praying to Mary, we are in fact supplicating her patronage and conveying our petitions to God through her maternal intercession. Because of her closeness to God, as the Mother of his divine Son, we believe there is a better chance of the Father answering our prayers in recognition of her merits (Jas 5, 16). The apostle Paul, who laid the foundation of the theology of human mediation in and through Christ, exhorted us to pray for one another (1 Tim 2, 1-4), he himself asking others to pray for him so that he would not fail in his apostolic ministry (Eph 6, 18-20). When we “pray” to Mary, we are in fact asking her to pray for us in support of our prayers to the Father, who already knows our needs. This form of Marian devotion is consonant with Scripture, so traditionally there is nothing wrong with it. It is part of the deposit of faith: Scripture and the Apostolic Tradition of the Church. Since Christ mediates for us before the Father in his sacred* humanity*, the faithful may participate in his mediation by right of friendship with God as his adopted sons and daughters (Gal 4, 4-5).

Indeed, we are called to be stewards of divine grace (Eph 3, 2; 1 Pet 4, 10-11) as physical channels through our prayers and sacrifces in association with our Lord, the principal Source of all grace, but not in coordination with his merits because of his divine nature. Devotion to Mary, the Mother of our Lord, began in the nascent church of apostolic time (Lk 1, 42-45) and has developed and matured through the centuries by the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Jn 16, 12-13), the principle Subject behind the dynamic and unveiling transmission of the Apostolic Tradition, who leads the Magisterium (Divine Teaching Office) and the lay faithful in all truth until the end of time. Luke certainly acknowledges the budding traditional belief of the Judeo-Christians in the efficacy of Mary’s mediation of divine grace to God’s people. Her* voice * is honoured by the Father because of her divine motherhood which was merited at the Annunciation by her faith working through love (Gal 5, 5-6).

Jesus addresses his mother as Woman in affirmation of her motherhood of the new creation in Christ. In the same breath, from the cross, our Lord calls Mary “mother” when speaking to John to signify that she is the spiritual mother of all his disciples in the new order of creation (Jn 19, 26-27) replacing our biological mother, Eve, through her divine maternity (cf. Gen 3, 15). As the new Eve, Mary is our advocate (advocata) who presents our petitions to the Lord. This divine mystery is beautifully elaborated by the early Church Father, Irenaeus of Lyons, who was a disciple of Bishop Polycarp, he himself being a disciple of John (the transmission of Apostolic Tradition by apostolic succession). Jesus desires that we supplicate Mary, the maternal caretaker of our souls, now that he has made her our Mother, who is concerned for our salvation ( Jn 2, 2-5).

“You are glorified in the assembly of the holy ones, for in crowning their merits you are crowning your own gifts.”
St. Augustine

PAX :heaven:

 

[norab62]

Why pray to anyone at all?
FTFU

 

[campeador]

Portion of the St. Dymphna Novena:

It is you we honor and worship, all-powerful and all-merciful God, when we venerate your saints. Our many sins, faults, and failings keep us ever conscious of the need for the help of the blessed.

In the example of your saints, we find greater reason to trust completely in your goodness. By imitating their example and calling on them, we can surely count on their aid in our needs.

In these nine days of prayer in honor of St. Dymphna, we seek, most loving Father, your grace and favor. Through Christ our Lord, we ask it. Amen.

 

[Good_Fella]

A British general in WWII summed up what I feel about traditions, “Traditions are a handrail to hold onto in troubled time.”

The trouble actually starts by letting go of the handrail. Arius and Martin Luther are case points in history.

Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.
2 Thessalonians 2, 15

“However, here too they [Arians] introduce their private fictions, and contend that the Son and the Father are not in such wise in accord with Apostolic Tradition] ‘one’ and ‘like’, as the Church preaches, but as they themselves would have it.”
St. Athanasius, Orations 3,10 (c.A.D. 350)

Even in Protestantism there are different “traditions”. For instance, orthodox Presbyterians believe in the importance of infant baptism, while evangelical Baptists reject this practice for their own theological reasons. The irony is that this disparity in thought is the result of appealing to the Bible alone apart from the Apostolic Tradition of the Catholic Church handed down in time by the very practice of baptising infants from the beginning. And since Protestants are severed from the historic Christian faith and reject tradition as a medium of divine revelation, they naturally reject the Church’s Marian doctrines and devotions. Scripture is the objective rule by which to guage our traditions, but in itself it is formally insufficient as a medium of explicit divine revelation, which explains why Presbyterians and Baptists disagree with each other over the nature of baptism. Scripture must be interpreted in light of Apostolic Tradition, of which it is a result of, by the teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium) which has authoritativey listed the canon of Scripture.

Protestants may argue that Marian devotion did not belong to the traditions of the Chucrh in the time of Paul. They would argue in the same vein if it hadn’t happened that the apostle wrote about the celebration of the Eucharist. His letters are occasional pastoral documents aimed at rectifying abuses committed by the members of particular communities with regard to faith, morals, and church discipline. He may have written a letter on the subject of Mary if there had been abuses in Marian deotion. Paul preached much more than he had actually written.

PAX :heaven:

 

[Good_Fella]

This morning the reading from Acts 17 focused on Paul at Mars Hill in Athens. The city had many idols devoted to various gods or representations of god.

As I heard the scripture a question crossed my mind. At church, with its altars to Mary and often to other saints, how different was that from what Paul found in Athens? I was especially impressed by verse 29, which reads in part that "we ought not to think that God is like gold, silver or stone, graven by art or man's hand."

But Catholics do not believe that God is incarnated in the person of Mary - represented in statues of her; nor do they believe that Mary is a goddess. The altars and shrines dedicated to Mary are in honour of her divine motherhood and pre-eminence in the order of grace among the saints. Elizabeth showed deference to Mary when she asked her cousin: “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Since we are sentient beings by nature, we construct altars and shrines to express how we feel and what we believe. Consider these relics as works of art through which God intends to reveal the truth of a divine mystery. Altars and shrines have a lot to say about the hidden mysteries of the Christian reality and our spiritual relationship to God. Art, and liturgy as well, are unwritten mediums of divine revelation that belong to the deposit of faith as essential parts of sacred Tradition: through which God’s deeds are made manifest by the spoken word of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of true believers; through whom the voice of the Spirit becomes concrete in the form of a religious expression that serves to bridge the gulf between the sacred and the profane and between the transcendent and the immanent.

“He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”
John 16, 14

*“We today also remain near you, O Lady. Yes, I repeat, O Lady, Mother of God and Virgin. We bind our souls to your hope, as to a most firm and totally unbreakable anchor, consecrating to you mind, soul, body, and all of our being and honouring you, as much as we can, with psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles.”
St. John Damascene, Homily 1 on the Dormition [ante A.D. 749]

“Even if we make images of pious men, it is not that we may adore them as gods but that when we see them we might be prompted to imitate them.”
St.Cyril of Alexandria, On Psalms 113 (115) [ante A.D. 444]*

I do have some concern, already expressed, that Catholicism can be unduly influenced by paganism, and perhaps especially when it comes to Mariology and the veneration of saints. The line between reasonable and reliable faith and superstition is thin - and am I too sensitive to crossing that line?

The rite of baptism originates from the pagan mystery religions. Yet our Lord was willing to be baptized by John in the Jordan river in order to “fulfill all righteousness”. Since apostolic time, Christianity has incorporated pagan religious elements in the life of the Church by assimilating only those items that prefigure the new Covenant between God and humankind. Certainly neither Jesus nor John were unreasonable and superstitious.

I suspect we’re all involved in a lot of well-meaning guesswork when it comes to the ultimate ‘truths’ in this vast and mysterious universe.

There is no “guesswork” involved in discerning and affirming what has been divinely revealed through the deposit of faith in the life of the Church by the agency of the Holy Spirit. Or at least the articles of our faith and established forms of religious devotion are not the products of pure speculation. Our Lord promised to be with his bride, the Church, until the end of this age. Thus he assured his apostles:

“I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.”
John 14, 18

PAX :heaven: