Worship of Mary

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Just trying to get straight anwsers from Catholics instead of some website that just bashes you guys.Do you or do you not worship Mary. If yes, what about Jesus’ command in Matt. 4:10 to “Woship the Lord your God, and serve him alone”. If no, what about when the Vatican council II said “when she[Mary] is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son…” Please comment:D
 
Jesus_Freak_357 said:
Just trying to get straight anwsers from Catholics instead of some website that just bashes you guys.Do you or do you not worship Mary. If yes, what about Jesus’ command in Matt. 4:10 to “Woship the Lord your God, and serve him alone”. If no, what about when the Vatican council II said “when she[Mary] is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son…” Please comment:D
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Welcome to CAF. 🙂

This article explains the usage of “worship” well:
The word “worship” has undergone a change in meaning in English. It comes from the Old English weorthscipe, which means the condition of being worthy of honor, respect, or dignity. To worship in the older, larger sense is to ascribe honor, worth, or excellence to someone, whether a sage, a magistrate, or God.
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For many centuries, the term worship simply meant showing respect or honor, and an example of this usage survives in contemporary English. British subjects refer to their magistrates as “Your Worship,” although Americans would say “Your Honor.” This doesn’t mean that British subjects worship their magistrates as gods (in fact, they may even despise a particular magistrate they are addressing). It means they are giving them the honor appropriate to their office, not the honor appropriate to God.
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Outside of this example, however, the English term “worship” has been narrowed in scope to indicate only that supreme form of honor, reverence, and respect that is due to God. This change in usage is quite recent. In fact, one can still find books that use “worship” in the older, broader sense. This can lead to a significant degree of confusion, when people who are familiar only with the use of words in their own day and their own circles encounter material written in other times and other places.
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In Scripture, the term “worship” was similarly broad in meaning, but in the early Christian centuries, theologians began to differentiate between different types of honor in order to make more clear which is due to God and which is not.
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You can read the entirety of the article here:

catholic.com/library/Saint_Worship.asp

It’s good that you’ve come to Catholics for the answer. 👍
 
No we don’t. We venerate her as the greatest of God’s creatures that He brought forth out of nothing, preserved her from stain of sin (actual and original) to be the Mother of His Son.
‘Worship’ in older English means ‘honour’. As your ‘Your Worship’ for a title (archaic nowadays) in British courts for a judge.
 
No, we do not worship Mary. We honor and venerate her as the Mother of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. She prompts the faithful to come to her Son because she is the one through which He (the Incarnate Word of God) came to the world.
 
In addition to the excellent replies you have received so far, consider another word that even as short a time as 50 years ago meant something** completely different from what it is now held to mean.**

The word, of course, is “gay”.

Now, if you were reading anything from a newspaper to a novel, a book of prayers, a letter, ANYTHING AT ALL, before the great ‘kidnapping’ of this word, you would know that the use of ‘gay’ THEN meant ‘happy and carefree.’ You would not, I am sure, insist that a poet writting of ‘gay and careless rapture’ in say 1830 was using ‘gay’ to mean homosexual, because ‘gay’ today means almost overwhelmingly, ‘homosexual’.

So just because the word ‘worship’ as is understood by the overwhelmingly Protestant English-speaking world in AD 2011 to mean ‘that which is reserved to God alone’ does not mean that the word ‘worship’ meant that to the world 500 years ago. It didn’t.

If you are listening to the Flintstones’ theme song which ends with ‘We’ll have a gay old time’ and you can manage to associate ‘gay’ with ‘happy’ instead of homosexual, then you can listen to ‘worship’ written in a non-Protestant setting of many years ago and associate it with “honor and glory given to a worthy person” (as was the meaning THEN) and not insist it HAS to be the current ‘God alone’ definition.
 
We ask Mary to pray for us, and we honor her.

It’s stated in the Ave Maria

Hail Mary, full of grace.
Our Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Here is our Creed
(Apostles Creed)

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
Creator of Heaven and Earth
And in Jesus Christ
His only Son, Our Lord
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit
Born of the Virgin Mary
Suffered under Pontius Pilate
Was crucified, died and was buried.
On the third day, he rose again
He ascended into Heaven
and is seated at the right hand
of God, the Father Almighty.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Catholic Church,
the Communion of Saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.

When someone says Catholics pray to/worship statues, ask them if they have ever seen a Protestant group praying in front of a nativity scene… with statues. Are they worshiping the statues ? Of course not. Neither do Catholics.
 
It’s strictly an English thing. In Poland and other countries, they wouldn’t know what you were talking about. It all depends on how you translate the Latin *colo, colere, colui, cultus. *

It could mean “to cultivate, till, tend, take care of, pay respect to, honour, worship.” In any case it has to mean something different than the respect we pay to God.
 
Catholics love Mary because Christ loved His mother.
Catholics love Mary because she was the first to love Christ.
Catholics love Mary because she loves us.
Catholics love Mary because as Mary said, “From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me.” Luke 1:48-49

Catholics love Mary because Christ in his love and mercy has given us His Mother because He understands how much we need a loving mother.

No. We do not worship Mary. We worship Christ who loves us and who loves His Mother.
 
Jesus_Freak_357 said:
Just trying to get straight anwsers from Catholics instead of some website that just bashes you guys.Do you or do you not worship Mary. If yes, what about Jesus’ command in Matt. 4:10 to “Woship the Lord your God, and serve him alone”. If no, what about when the Vatican council II said “when she[Mary] is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son…” Please comment:D
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The answers you’ve gotten above about the meaning of “worship” are definitely correct. But please note that Lumen Gentium, the Vatican II document you’re quoting from, was not even written in English in the first place. It was written in Latin, and the Latin text of the passage you quoted (see here, paragraph 65) says “dum praedicatur et colitur, ad Filium suum Eiusque sacrificium atque ad amorem Patris credentes advocat” (in a more current translation, “as she is proclaimed and venerated, [she] calls the faithful to her Son and His sacrifice and to the love of the Father”). The word in question is colitur, so you might as well read the entry on colo (the base form of the word) from the excellent Lewis & Short Latin dictionary. As you’ll see, it is quite broad in meaning, with the meanings applicable here being in the nature of “to honor, respect, revere, reverence, worship.” In Church Latin, colo is generally used in the sense of “venerate, reverence,” while adoro (“adore”) is the verb used to express the worship due to God alone.

Incidentally, this is why in reading about the Church you will occasionally see references to things like “the cult of a saint.” As Wikipedia explains relatively well, “cult,” from the Latin cultus which is another form of colo, simply refers to veneration, respect, and reverence. The meaning “a group of wackos” is much later, although this does not stop people who stumble upon this terminology for the first time from from exclaiming “See! Even Catholics themselves admit they are a cult!”
 
Thank you for coming to the faithful, and not doing as so many of your contemporaries have done. incidentally those other site that just bash us, yeah they never bothered to do what you have done by coming to us. they heard it, believed it, started a site teaching it. and so on in that fashion over and over and over. so now, as a measure of penance on behalf of your brethren, you must start a protestant website, defending this issue on our behalf.🙂
 
We do not worship Mary.

Here is a great video about Mary from a Catholic perspective:
youtube.com/watch?v=kUdYeYy3NQA
She is the Christian’s Living Ark of The Covenant.

It will help to clear up a lot of questions you might have.

Also, do a search on this forum as there is a lot of talk about Mary and what role she plays in the Catholic Church. You can visit my profile page and look up my posts to find some of them more easily.

Thank you for asking, and welcome to the forums!
 
Incidentally, with respect to the all the people saying “we do not worship Mary” – it depends on what the meaning of the English word “worship” is. In the older sense, in which it means to reverence and venerate, we do worship Mary. In the more current sense in which it basically means “to treat as a god,” we do not. Whatever English word you choose to put on it, Catholics aren’t confused about this issue and do not consider Mary to be divine or worthy of the respect due to God alone. (Now, granted, in a church of 1.2 billion followers you will find someone who is wrong, confused, or heretical about anything if you look hard enough, but obviously that is not what we mean here.)

The problem with making a simplistic statement that we “don’t worship Mary,” of course, is that it will turn up in old translations that we do worship Mary. As Tantum Ergo pointed out above, though, this would be like reading “he was a very gay man” in a book from 1880 and saying “See! Even his biographer admits that he was homosexual!”

Ironically, while the word “worship” has gone from a relatively general term to one referring only to supreme regard you can have toward something – so that in modern speech you would only ever use it to talk about our reverence of God – “adore” has gone the other way. In religious writing “adore” traditionally referred to the reverence we give to God, but nowadays people say “Oh, I just adore puppies!” or “Isn’t that dress adorable?” So the Gloria, speaking to God when it says “We praise You, we bless You, we adore You,” loses quite a bit of meaning. But you would be committing the same mistake if you thought “we adore You” here was intended to mean roughly “we think You’re pretty cute” as people commit when they take an old text’s “we worship her” to mean “we believe that she is a god.”
 
We venerate her as the greatest of God’s creatures that He brought forth out of nothing, preserved her from stain of sin (actual and original) to be the Mother of His Son.
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Stuart - stated beautifully. Thank you! 🙂
 
Below is a response I composed some time back on another thread. Hopefully it will help you as well.

Official Marion Teachings

All of the following comes from the DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH which is one of the source documents for the CCC. I believe it will offer a good summary and clarification of the Church’s doctrinal teachings on Mary.
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

In Paragraph 54 of this Dogmatic Document, the position of Mary in the Church is clearly stated as one, “who occupies a place in the Church which is the highest after Christ and yet very close to us.

Paragraph 53 contains the following statement about the Honor accorded to Mary.
“Wherefore she is hailed as a pre-eminent and singular member of the Church, and as its type and excellent exemplar in faith and charity. The Catholic Church, taught by the Holy Spirit, honors her with filial affection and piety as a most beloved mother.”

Paragraph 56 contains this interesting statement, “Thus Mary, a daughter of Adam, consenting to the divine Word, became the mother of Jesus, the one and only Mediator.

Para 60, even more clearly and forcefully says, “There is but one Mediator as we know from the words of the apostle, “for there is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all”. The maternal duty of Mary toward men in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power. For all the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men originates, not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on His mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it. In no way does it impede, but rather does it foster the immediate union of the faithful with Christ.

Para 62 contains a passage, used in the CCC and referred to by some protestants as evidence that Catholics worship Mary: “Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix." This statement is, however followed in the dogmatic constitution by this:
“This, however, is to be so understood that it neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one Mediator.”
Furthermore, in the CCC the very next para, 970 includes much of what is contained in the Dogmatic Constitution Para 60 shown above and is clear that Mary’s mediation, or intercession, is not separate from Christ.

Paragraph 62 goes on to say, “For no creature could ever be counted as equal with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer. Just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by the ministers and by the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to His creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.
The Church does not hesitate to profess this subordinate role of Mary. It knows it through unfailing experience of it and commends it to the hearts of the faithful, so that encouraged by this maternal help they may the more intimately adhere to the Mediator and Redeemer.
Finally I’d like to address the fact, and it is a fact, that some people within the Church tend to overdo Marion devotion. Para 67 says, “But it exhorts theologians and preachers of the divine word to abstain zealously both from all gross exaggerations as well as from petty narrow-mindedness in considering the singular dignity of the Mother of God.
Thus when anyone sees such writing or hears such statements from a member of the Church, even a Priest or Bishop, it can be understood that such statements are outside of the boundaries of Church teaching.

Frankly I could go on quoting from this Official Document of The church and a source document for the catechism, but it would be far better for anyone wishing to understand the Real teachings of The church to go the Linked document on the Vatican Website and to read it for themselves.

Suffice it to say, none who do will find anything in it that declares Mary equal to Christ, or that She is to be worshiped.

Peace
James
 
=Jesus Freak 357;8041982]Just trying to get straight anwsers from Catholics instead of some website that just bashes you guys.Do you or do you not worship Mary. If yes, what about Jesus’ command in Matt. 4:10 to “Woship the Lord your God, and serve him alone”. If no, what about when the Vatican council II said “when she[Mary] is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son…” Please comment:D
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NO Catholic DO NOT Worship Mary!

We honor her as the most unique and BLESSED human being in the history of the world. MADE perfect by God inorder to merit being the VERY MOTHER OF GOD.

Look here at the MOST frequently prayed Marian Prayer then READ the Bible passage I have included.

Hail Mary FULL of Grace, The Lord is with thee.
Blesed are you among women and BLESSED in the fruit of your womb Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God
PRAY FRO US SINNERS NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH… AMEN!

NOTICE that in its entiretly EXCEPT for the final petition; it is completely Biblically grounded. 😉

It is accurate to say that we “Pray to Mary” BUT FAR MORE ACCURATE to say that we pray THROUGH Mary and Saints who are in God’s Presence AND ADD THERE OWN PETITIONS TO OURS!

Luke 1:26-35 Douay Rheims Bible

26 And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth 27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women 29 Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. 30 And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. 31 Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever 33 And of his kingdom there shall be no end.
34 And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?
35 And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

AMEN = I DO BELIEVE!

God Bles you,
Pat
 
In the Orthodox Tradition, Blessed Virgin Mary is not worshiped but venerated. Its a subtle difference
 
Your religion states “Born again” so I am assuming (correctly?) that you also have many similar beliefs and practices of evangelical Christians.
I am giving you a link to a good website that states the Catholic position of many things (including Mary) for evangelicals.
Mary in the Bible
Also, if you notice on the right and left hand sides there are tons of links for anything you might be wondering about.

All of the answers here have been wonderful. Listen to them. And thank you for coming to us to know what we believe and practice! 👍 I wish more people were like you!

In Christ through Mary,
Nevermore
 
The answers posted so far are excellent!

JesusFreak: Thank you for being open minded and for coming to us to hear our side of things. Thank you! 👍👍👍
 
The proof is in the Mass. If veneration of our Holy Mother seems too much for some, then the worship of our Lord in the Mass is way too much for them…
 
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