Your personal experience with praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary

[Lenten_ashes]

I appreciate all of you responding. I have heard from most of you about many miracles performed and much devotion directed to the Virgin Mary and to the Catholic Church as a result of praying the Rosary. These are powerful and interesting experiences.

I am convinced that the Virgin Mary is now, as a result of her unique relationship with Christ, the most exalted creature in all of Heaven and Earth. If our blessings in Heaven are based on our love for Christ, I think it undeniable that she would have by far the most blessings of all. Her loving influence at the wedding of Cana is a testimony to the power of her prayers.

However, my own personal experience - and my observations of other people - gives me pause. I do not want to make any hasty judgements, but I have been trying to pray to Mary for a few months and, as far as I can tell, have had some very mixed results.

There was one time when I was in Church and the congregation was singing to the Virgin Mary after we all consecrated our hearts to her. A Mexican man a couple rows behind me was singing with such love and devotion, it was touching. I was filled with appreciation for the way in which the man was so beautifully singing to the woman who gave birth to Jesus. I joined in singing, singing from my heart with Joy, and after we were done I saw the Virgin Mary in a whole new way. I looked up a statue of her that, up until that point, made her look gloomy and down, with a face that was not ugly or beautiful, but just a simple and regular womanly face. However, when I looked at her on this night, it would not be too much of an over-exaggeration to say that she ‘shined like the sun.’ She was not glowing with light, but she appeared so gorgeous and pure and beautiful. I was filled with admiration for her beauty and thought that, if this was a projection of her inner beauty, she must be filled with such an amazing and wonderful love.

But the last couple times I have tried to pray to the Virgin Mary I have experienced something different. Both times I tried to pray the Hail Mary I experienced what I believe were demonic attacks and greatly increased temptations and desires to give in to temptations. It would make perfect sense, if the Rosary is as powerful as the Church teaches it is, that demons would want to attack me and keep me from praying it. However, I had not prayed the Rosary for a while and was cautiously easing back into it with the belief that God would make my experience praying it an indication of His approval/disapproval of the practice. I have prayed several times asking for Jesus to show me whether or not praying the Hail Mary is idolatrous, and I think it is fair to say I have been serious and open-minded and sincerely attempted to be as objective as possible in my approach and assessment to this issue. So, on that basis, I had an expectation that, if praying to the Virgin Mary was blessed and holy, God would give me grace when I prayed it so that I would know it was of Him; and, if it was idolatrous and/or misguided, that God would allow me to feel the error of it by way of either removing some grace or allowing the enemy to attack me a little bit. Thus, due to the feeling of being attacked and the rise of temptations, I am concerned that maybe this practice is not something Jesus wants me doing.

To be fair, the results have not been entirely bad. The second of these two times, I did feel like my faith was more clear and pure, but temptations came that had not come in a while and instead of just brushing them off as foolishness I felt some desire to give in to them - and I ended up giving in. Of course, no matter what, I am the one to blame for my decision to give in to those temptations. Even if the Rosary is idolatry and spiritual adultery, as many fear, the decision to sin was my own. I want to be upfront about that.

I just have this idea that, since Jesus knew that I was saying the prayer with the intention of observing it’s effect on me spiritually, that the experience would have been more positive if it was something He wanted me to view positively.

I hope I have not offended anyone. I am not in anyway accusing anyone here of sin, or idolatry, or spiritual adultery, or anything like that. I understand that what is sin for one person may not be sin for another, due to personal conscience and other factors that effect morality and culpability. If my assessment of my experience is right, and I was engaged in sin by praying the Rosary, it could simply be that I was praying with the wrong heart. I admit that I find it difficult to pray to the Virgin Mary without feeling as if I am in some sense offering worship and placing her between Christ and I. Maybe this is the reason why the prayer has not worked for me, because I am not saying it correctly. I don’t know. All I know is that, despite my sin, I want to do whatever will please Christ and make me love Him more. If that is the Rosary, I want to pray it. But I am not sure how to move forward now from the position I am sitting in.

Not the least bit offended.

Thanks for sharing.

I’m a convert as well…and Mary was my biggest hurdle.

I’m still not a big rosary person, tbh. But I do ask the blessed Mother for her prayers fairly often.

Really, the rosary is just seeing Jesus through his mom’s eyes, in a sense. Different angle, Same Jesus we are drawing close to.

God bless you on your journey.

 

[David_Fortin]

I fell away from the Church in the early 90’s. To be honest, I didn’t have much faith then, and I didn’t really understand the teachings. My immediate family all fell away, my father, and sister turned to atheism. I joined the navy, and served in the submarine service. After my stint in the military I worked as a prison/jail officer, and then 11 years as a police officer. It was a running gag in the family,that I had a very tired guardian angel. I married a devout protestant women, who had me attend Baptist services with her. After 9 years of marriage, we adopted our son Andrew.

I have led a truly sinful life, addicted to porn, violence, and hatred. I’ve always tried to be a good man, but always felt like I was drowning in sin. I continued to attend church with my wife, and son, but it never felt “quite right”.

I decided to go to confession, I sobbed like a baby. Afterward I sat in the pew looking at Mary, thinking “There is the most beautiful creature God ever created!”. I looked at Joseph and was struck with the thought “Here is the example of the perfect adoptive father!”

I purchased a rosary, and several books on Catholic prayers. I started praying the rosary in my patrol car, in the early morning hours. It was like a rocket was attached to my spirit!
I got a new position that allows me to attend Mass every Sunday, My wife and I have been blessed in more ways than I can count, and even lust for the porn is gone!

I pray the Rosary usually twice a day, Once in the morning before work, and once in the afternoon. My wife and I are having our marriage blessed by the Church, and I hope to have my son Baptized. My wife is thrilled by my conversion, but she is still a Baptist at heart, and unsure of the Catholic church. I have no intention of back-sliding

 

[Lost_Sheep]

I used to pray to the Blessed Mother a lot and always saw her as my one “portal” to Heaven.

Not so much anymore. I have all but totally lost faith in prayer because it does no good. Not for me, anyhow.

 

[Nelka]

I love praying to Mary.

I remember one time I was at work and my wife was in a bad mood with me, as I cycled home I asked Mary to bring peace to my wife and or home. When I got home it was like the end of a thunderstorm where you can hear a distant rumbling moving away and things were fine.

 

[fisherman_carl]

You are not the only one who has had trouble with asking for the intercession of the Saints. I know Catholics who have this problem. Including myself which even though I am Catholic I would say that I had very little Catholic formation growing up and was mostly formed a lot by other Christian sources that were not Catholic. You could say I grew up an ecumenical Catholic that didn’t know his own faith tradition that well. Imagine, a Catholic who didn’t know his own religion. Is that so unusual? Ha. (It wasn’t all bad though. I did have a relationship with Jesus.)

Now, I went through a similar thing to you and so have many others you can read about here and hear testimonials about. For instance, Mark Shea’s testimony is very powerful in which a girl’s skin was spontaneously regenerated through asking for Mary’s intercession. You can see why people get excited about Mary when things like that happen. I would encourage you to hear Mark Shea’s testimony. You can watch it for free on YouTube. Similarly, Roy Schoeman’s testimony is highly recommended listening to on YouTube and he has a powerful witness about Mary in his life.

Now, let me ask you, if so many people have been led by God to accept Mary as their spiritual Mother and to ask her for intercession so much so that the Church calls it a good and pious practice then would God contradict himself by saying it is wrong for you to do it? That would not make sense would it? That would bring about confusion right? And where does confusion come from? The devil right? A spirit of confusion comes from him because he wants to keep you from those graces in your life. Ultimately, he wants you to give up into hopelessness and despair.

I realized in myself that objections to the intercession prayers were really brought about by my conditioning then anything. How I saw Christianity based on what I had learned from all these various sources. It goes back even unto how salvation was presented to me. Really it is about my internal belief about salvation. We were saved through Jesus only. Not Mary. Why would I want to pray to Mary when I could pray to Jesus? It has taken me awhile to adjust my thinking and to have a deeper understanding of both salvation and the communion of saints. And I am still learning.

So be patient with yourself. It takes time for us to change our thinking and come to a new understanding about the world around us. New insights take time to come to us. We need to be patient with ourselves. If you don’t want to pray the rosary right now you could pray other prayers. The rosary is not an obligation. And, There are also lots of resources for you to learn more about the intercession of the saints. I recommend Patrick Madrid as one good source of information. The fact that you are asking this question makes me wonder though if you were feeling drawn to the rosary but are just uncertain about it. Sometimes our mind can play tricks on us and get in the way of hearts. This may be one of those times where you just have to do it and allow the understanding to come later. God bless.

 

[TaylorDonBarret]

I appreciate all of your responses. I am going to come back in a couple days and re-read them all before I respond. One thing I would ask, if I may, is that for those of you who are experiencing a closer and closer relationship with Jesus Christ through praying the Rosary, would you mind also praying for me? As long as you are able to do it with a good conscience, a clear distinction between Christ the only God, Creator of all things, and the Virgin Mary, who is the most exalted of all creatures due to her unique relationship with Jesus, but still a creature nonetheless. I would like to be there, where I could pray that way effortlessly without falling into idolatry. If it is God’s will, of course. And I think it is, despite the mixed and uncertain experiences I have had. Thanks again.