Prayers to God, Prayers to Mary

Prayer to souls in heaven, especially Mary, does not usurp the authority or role of Jesus. Nor is it worship as due to God alone. It actually manifests God's designs. Scripture depicts God fathering a family, not creating a race of mere servants. Adam was the first son of God (refer to Luke's geneology) and God assigned him to be the steward of creation, but by his rebellion he lost that sonship (sonship means eternal dwelling with God) for himself and all his descendants (because we can't inherit what our parents don't have) . But God had a salvation plan and that plan resulted in Adam's rebellion being undone by Jesus' obedience (even to the point of death on a cross). Now every person can become adopted into God's family as His son or daughter (aka "justified"). This is how we gain entrance into heaven. (Otherwise we will be relegated to eternal separation from God.) We are now a big family, whether toiling on earth or triumphant in heaven. In a healthy family, siblings interract and help eachother. That's what it is when we pray to the saints in heaven. They are our elder siblings. Those such as the Apostles, for example, are currently greatly rewarded in Heaven for their service and obedience while on earth. They are some of God's greatest creatures, because they so cooperated with His grace that they accomplished great things. Since God glorifies them, He is pleased when we honor them because we are only acknowledging and honoring God's own handiwork in men (as opposed to the man's own inherent qualities, which are shabby).

Non-Catholic Objections to Praying to Heaven-Dwellers:

Objection 1) Scripted prayers to Mary use allegedly worshipful terminology.

(Note: historically the term "worship" has had a slightly different meaning than we commonly use it today. While we most commonly use it to mean worship of God as due to Him alone, it used to mean also merely honoring when it was in the context of creatures, as opposed to context relating to God. In my commentary I will use "worship" in our modern sense of "as due to God alone".)

Let's take a closer look, and compare with a prayer addressed to God Himself.

Here are a couple Marian Prayers... (Many can be found at http://www.marypages.com/PrayerstoMary.htm)

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,
The 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.

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, To thee do we send up our sighs, Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, And after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Amen.

At first glance those two prayers maybe can be perceived as worship. But looking closer reveals there is no idolatry or worship of a false god in them...

The "Hail Mary" is mostly directly from Scripture. "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women" is Luke 1:28.  "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb" is Luke 1:42.  "Holy Mary, Mother of God", while not a direct quote, is implicit in Scripture... She is holy, since she is in Heaven. She is the Mother of God because Jesus is God (ie Luke 1:43). The remainder of the prayer is asking her to pray for us. All of us earthly Christians request prayers of eachother. It's no different to seek a sibling in Heaven to pray for us.

The "Hail Holy Queen" is simply another petition for Mary to pray for us. The phrases used in the prayer to describe her are not worship, but acknowledgement of God's grace working in and through her. (That's what God can do to and through any meager human who cooperates with His grace.) She is "holy Queen" because her son is the King. (Scripture depicts that in the Davidic dynastic tradition the queen of the kingdom was the king's mother, not a wife. David's kingdom was the Kingdom of God (aka Kingdom of Heaven) manifested on earth. Jesus is heir to David's throne and is the King of Heaven. Therefore, the present queen of Heaven would be His mother, Mary.) This is not ascribing to her divine power or characteristics. She is not treated as if she is the source of grace and salvation... only One is that and He is Jesus Christ. She is implored as "our life, our sweetness, our hope". This is in the context of  her role in God's salvation plan, as the human gateway through which God Incarnate entered the world. Jesus came to us through her and if it weren't for that, she'd be just another human creature, not the mother of God. She has no inherent value beyond what any other human creature has. But by God's grace and her willing cooperation she has been glorified by God Himself. We obey Him when we honor her.

She is called an advocate and intercessor. That's not worship. Even you or I can be an advocate and an intercessor, if we pray for someone else. (There is only one true Mediator, but there are many intercessors. Intercessor = one who prays for another. Refer to 1Timothy 2:1. Paul exhorts people to intercede for others.) We then have "eyes of mercy" when we do so, because it's a merciful act, to pray for someone.

This prayer (as well as all Marian prayers) is not to be a replacement for prayer to God. We pray worshipfully and petitionaly to God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit, but we also seek others (in this case, Mary in heaven) to pray for us. Someone who prays to Mary and the Saints, to the exclusion of praying to God Himself, is violating Church teaching and God's designs, and should stop praying to them entirely, concentrating on God alone, until their priorities are adjusted.

Now, by way of comparison, let's take a look at a prayer addressed to God Himself, a prayer from the Catholic Mass, called The Gloria...

Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will. 
We praise you, 
we bless you, 
we adore you, 
we glorify you,
we give you thanks for your great glory, 
Lord God, heavenly King, 
O God, almighty Father. 

Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.

For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High, 
Jesus Christ, 
with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Now THIS is worshipful and adoring of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit as the THE SOURCE of all grace and salvation!!! The Gloria exemplifies the worship and adoration Catholics give to God alone. No other being receives such worship and adoration from Catholics! Saints are venerated and angels are honored but none of them are worshiped as God is duly worshiped.

Compare any Marian prayer to The Gloria. You will find that Mary receives great veneration and honor, but not worship as due to God alone. This means that someone's contention with this practice is only whether it is "biblical" to pray to bretheren in Heaven at all. Which leads us to Objection 2...



Objection 2) Contact with the "dead" is prohibited in Scripture.

That is true, mostly. The story of Saul is an example of what this directive prohibits: seeking to glean supernatural (actually, preternatural) information from a source other than God, such as spirit. Saul didn't have an answer from God so he went to a witch to bring up the spirit of Samuel. This is the kind of contact with the dead which is prohibited by Scripture. (Today, this includes tarot cards & ouija boards & "fortune tellers"). But a Catholic praying to the souls in Heaven is nothing like this episode. We pray to the saints to get them to add their prayers to our own prayers to God, not to acquire supernatural information. It's no different than when I ask my fellows on earth to pray for me.


Objection 3) Departed souls can't hear us, they're "asleep" until the final judgement.
This concept of "soul sleep" is false doctrine. Those who have died in the friendship of Jesus are consciously enjoying the heavenly benefits of membership in God's family (or soon will be, after their individual purging of imperfections). Scripture depicts them actively worshiping God (Rev___) and witnessing earthly events (Heb 12:1).


Objection 4) Catholics kneel or bow in proximity to a statue or image of Mary as they pray for her intercession. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, God prohibits making graven images or bowing to them.

The critic of this Catholic practice feels that it is worshiping an idol (which is unarguably prohibited). But kneeling or bowing to someone is not de facto worshipful. Many societies today feature bowing as a sign of respect, and that's not worship. Scripture also features bowing as a way of honoring (Jacob bowed to Esau, etc.). Our Critic might point out how in the New Testament when a man (Peter or John) bowed to an angel, the angel said "don't do that!". However, the context of those pericopes shows that the man was bowing to worship, not merely to honor.

Related to this Objection is the charge that the Catholic Church deleted the 2nd Commandment (which prohibits making idols) and rearranged the numbering to get back to ten commandments. This is just plain bogus. The fact is, Scripture does not give us the numbering of the Commandments. It just tells us what all the Commandments are. The two numbering schemes in question (Protestant & Catholic) go back to Origen & Augustine. Most Protestants/Evengelicals/Bible-Christians & Eastern Orthodox Christians use Origen's enumeration. The Catholic scheme is Augustine's numbering. (Most Lutherans also use Augustine's numbering, which makes sense since he was an Augustinian monk before his revolt.) The details supposedly deleted by the Catholic Church are fleshed out in the Catechism section on the 10 Commandments.


Additional Information...

Saints: Holy Siblings
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/sts.html

Mary, Holy Mother
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/m.html

Mary, Ark of the Covenant
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/ma.html

Communion of Saints
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/any-friend-of-god-is-a-friend-of-mine


The Woman clothed with the sun: ( Ap. 12)  by Bernard J. Le Frois

Marian Typology in the Fathers and the Liturgy  by Bernard Capelle

The Passover Feast: Catholics Celebrate It with Every Mass

Exodus 12 features God instituting the Passover Memorial Feast. It was to be annually celebrated for ever.
14 And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.

There's no indication that this commandment was ever abrogated or superseded (as were Works of the Law such as the bloody animal sacrifices and circumcision).

The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) depict Jesus, at the Last Supper (a Passover feast), transforming/perfecting the Old Covenant Passover event in order that it be carried over into the New Covenant, thus enabling Christians of all time to keep God's directive to celebrate it forever. Jesus, the true Lamb of God (John1:29), changed bread & wine into His flesh & blood for the participants to eat because the Passover rules required them to eat the sacrificial lamb. (Notice, there is no mention of a baby sheep or goat in the Upper Room. This is because Jesus is Passover Lamb for this and all future Passover feasts.) He also commanded and empowered the Apostles to perform this same miraculous conversion, with His words "Do this...". Those Apostles handed on this empowerment to their successors so that we today, nearly 2000 years later can still obey God's directive and celebrate the Passover (in the Mass, the Eucharist), transported into the Upper Room on that night, to commune physically with the Lamb. In John 6 Jesus says "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." This reflects the Passover requirement of the people of God to eat the sacrificial Lamb (truly, not symbolically). If the Lamb was not eaten, death would ensue. When we partake of the Eucharist, we eat the Passover Lamb presented in the Upper Room and are preserved from death, spiritually, and sometimes physically, as miraculous healings have occurred through the ages by the agency of the Eucharist.

Paul supports the Real Presence of Jesus in the form of bread & wine in Ephesians 5:30-32 " For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

Paul is saying that in the marriage covenant the man & woman become one flesh (they partake of eachother in a physical, material way and each belongs to the other). He lets us know that our covenantal relationship with Jesus also includes sharing in a physical, material manner. In the marriage covenant it is achieved through sexual union, in the covenant with Jesus ("The new covenant in my blood") it is achieved through the ritual He instituted at the Last Supper. Today it's called Eucharist or the Mass.

By participating in the Mass, Catholics obey God's directive to celebrate the Passover memorial feast instituted in Exodus 12. Those who do not participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are not keeping the Feast (as Paul says in 1Cor5 "... Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast,...") and are hence not being obedient to God because they are not celebrating the Passover as directed.

For more Scriptural support of the reality of Jesus in the Eucharist check these out:
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/4cp.html
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/ech.html

The Bible and the Mass:
http://www.salvationhistory.com/studies/courses/online/the_lambs_supper_the_bible_and_the_mass

Church Fathers on the subject:
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/realp.htm

Eucharistic Miracles
http://home.sprynet.com/~bryaneadm/miracles.htm
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/eucharistic-miracles-evidence-of-the-real-presence


P.S.:
Non-Catholics wonder why they are not allowed to participate in the Catholic Communion ceremony. One reason is that they do not share all the Catholic beliefs. Participating in the Communion ritual implies that one agrees with the doctrines of those with whom one is communing. If  a person participates in Communion when he is not really "in communion", he is making a liar out of himself or the congregation with whom he's, superficially, communing.
A couple other reasons...
1) God commanded (Exodus12) that only those who were full members of the family could participate (ie all the males had to be circumcised, even servants who wanted to participate) in the Passover celebration.
2) To participate without believing in the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated host is to bring God's judgement upon oneself. As Paul put it: "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." 1Cor11:29.  So, when the Christian is disallowed to participate, their Catholic friends are actually protecting them from God's wrath. Be grateful, my friend.

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Other notes on Scriptural indications for the idea that the consecrated Bread and Wine ARE the Flesh and Blood of Jesus...

OT pre-figurements:

Genesis: Abraham & Melchisedeck

Ezekiel 39: vv 17-19, God describes how His people will eat worthy flesh and worthy blood (as opposed to pagans' sacrifices of flesh and blood of inferior creatures), of the sacrifice He will provide (which is fulfilled in Jesus, the Lamb of God, given to us to eat via the Last Supper).

"eat" someone's flesh, "eat up" someone: Scriptural context...

Psalm 27 "eat up my flesh" means to persecute, destroy.
Greek OT uses "fagit" (root fago, to eat/dine)

John6 Jesus uses fago, then switches to trogo, to emphasize actual feasting on His flesh

Jesus was taken literally because in Jewish cultural/language context, to eat someone's flesh in a figurative way is to persecute or slander them. Jesus could not, therefore, have been speaking figuratively (ie, to mean "consume my teachings"), but literally. That's why He switched to trogo, in order to stress His point that we must literally eat His flesh (which He made available to us one year later when He gave bread, saying "Take THIS and eat it. THIS is my body." This fulfills His statement in John 6 where He said "The bread I will give is my flesh.").

In John 6, Jesus was not speaking symbollically. To use the phrase "eat my flesh" symbolically, Jesus would have been saying "insult, slander me". That is the way the phrase was used in the Jewish culture of that time and place: to insult, to slander, or otherwise do ill to someone. Scripture demonstrates this symbolic use of the the phrase "to eat" someone...

Psalm 14 & 53 (similar psalms)
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

Psalm 27
2 When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

Galatians 5
14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

The miracles of multiplication of the loaves Jesus performed (where He "gave" bread) were prior to Him saying (John 6) "the bread I will give is my flesh" (note the future tense "will")... the next time He "gave" bread was the next Passover a year later, the Last Supper...  the miracles of multiplication foreshadowed the Eucharist by providing more than enough bread for all who partook of it. The "leftovers" implies the infinite servings of Jesus' glorified Flesh available to feed all people of all time. (Some folks object to the doctrine of the Eucharist on the basis of Jesus' human Body being a limited thing as ours are, but Jesus' glorified body is not constrained by this universe's natural laws, never mind the fact that Jesus is a divine person (having human nature AND God nature, and so He is infinitely powerful and can make His Flesh superabundant.)