Mary is the mother of Jesus, the Son of God; hence, Mary is the Mother of God. Mary made the most important decision in the world: she said "Yes!" to the will of God. She carried the Lord in her womb, gave birth to him, nursed him, and raised him.

Of course, metaphysically, the sheer notion of God becoming human is absolutely breathtaking. Imagine, if you can stand it, the very instant of the conception of the Lord in her womb. In that second, God broke into the world. BOOM, there he is, God With Us! And God in her. She is Mary, Mother of God, whom God chose. Any dribble about how God could have chosen "anybody" is hypothetical fluff. God could have saved our souls by making dogs vomit holy sausages. But the truth de-facto is that God chose to be born of a woman--of one woman, and no other, and that was Mary.

And she was no mere doorway to Earth, either. She also happened to be a compass, pointing to the Lord, saying "Do as he tells you." She also happened to be among his most precious gifts to the world, "Behold, your mother."

Catholics sure do love Mary. Not that others don’t, mind you, but from the outside looking in, it may appear that we take it to pretty high levels. No protest here! I love Mary greatly, not only because she was Jesus’ mother, but because (in a very real way) she is the spiritual mother of all Christians—indeed, of Christianity. Here’s some Bible and some early Church stuff: Eve is the “mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20). Paul writes that Jesus was the “new Adam” and contrasted him with the “old Adam” – it’s no wonder that the early Church made the connection and started talking about the “new Eve,” referring to Mary his mother.

More information about that at http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Faith/0506-96/article9.html

Ok, so if Mary is the “New Eve,” does that automatically make her the “mother of all the living”? Not quite. However, it helps that Jesus entrusts Mary to John, “the Beloved Disciple.”

“Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:25-27)

So in this sense we could say that Jesus gave Mary to John the disciple as his mother. However, we might also say (as the Church fathers have tended to say) that Jesus gave Mary as mother to all of his disciples. Here we have the springboard for a long history of positively gushing love by Catholics of Mary. It isn’t surprising, then, that she happens to have a lot of titles, appears in a lot of art, and is frequently the subject and object of our prayers and devotions.

Catholics keep in mind a very clear distinction between prayer, devotion (or veneration), and worship. Prayer is pretty simple and innocuous, really. It carries a sense of speaking and petitioning, and does not, as such, imply worship (which belongs only to God). Perhaps you have heard the old use of the word, “I pray you, leave me alone,” or some such expression. We pray to saints, and we pray to Mary; we ask for intercession (more on that later), we ask for relationship; we identify with these people who are legendary in their works and faith. In the Church, the gap between those of us on Earth (the “Church Militant”) and those in Heaven (“Church Triumphant”) is not one that precludes talking. It is not any different to talk idly to a favorite grandpa while laying awake in bed, even though he passed away weeks or months or years before.

Simply speaking, ‘veneration’ and ‘devotion’ are activities, parts of relationship with the saints in Heaven in which we celebrate their triumphs over evil. Simple logic: since all good things come from God, venerating the saints is praising God’s own glory, manifested in the lives of real people. We venerate saints for their faith, taking the form of fantastic works like feeding the poor, preaching the Word of God, etc. Similarly, some Catholics cultivate devotions for individual saints with whom they have a special relationship. A Marian devotion is a love relationship. I once heard that saying a Rosary is like giving Mary a bouquet of flowers.

Now, on to intercession. When intercession was first explained to me, I was rather disgusted by it, but I’ll share it with you: Sometimes you want to borrow the car. You’re not so sure you can ask Dad, because—ya—he’s got his principles and stuff. So instead you go to Mom, who’s got a soft sweet heart, and she goes and nags Pop to let you have the car. That’s “intercession.”

:P

I hate that example. It seems to get so bent out of shape if you figure that ‘Dad’ is perfect in mercy and justice, and really Mom doesn’t actually “change his mind,” or tell him anything he didn't already know. And don’t get me started on the sheer acquisitiveness of the whole sordid affair. I am convinced that this is not intercession.

The only way to get out of that example is by pulling yourself out of a “bargaining” mode of thought. That takes a little maturity. But once you do that, it is not so hard to imagine that our petitions before God are stronger *when we show our love for the great beloved of God.*

A better example is scriptural. Think of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, and his return, and how the father killed the fatted calf. Now, imagine his brother: spiteful, jealous, and dejected. It would be impossible for the jealous brother to enter into his father’s house until he renewed his love for the prodigal son. Imagine if the jealous brother said, “My brother, I love you, please help my unease, please speak to our father!” Here we have a prayer of intercession. The important thing is that the two brothers be united in love for each other and for their father.

Critics of the Catholic veneration of saints, and especially our devotion to Mary, usually say that we put “middle-men” between us and God when we would do better to approach God directly. But you see, we have already fallen back into the language of business and bargain. These people, the saints, are not middle management on floor 37. They are not “forwarding” our prayers to the Almighty. They are our brothers and sisters, for Christ’s sake, gone before us on the path of faith. God and his angels rejoice with the saints; why should we not do the same?

Praying to the saints and to Mary is a way of uniting ourselves with God, by uniting ourselves with those who are already with him. Clearly, if we reject them, we reject him. If we praise them, do we not also praise him? By asking Mary’s intercession, we imply that we know that God loves her very dearly—thus, it is not she that changes God’s mind, but rather God who sees into our hearts and who loves our love for his beloved. That’s how I believe intercession works, and that’s why I believe that intercessory prayer has a great power. Let’s look at the Hail Mary:

Hail Mary, full of Grace, The Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou amongst 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.

To a non-Catholic, this prayer might look like this:

ME ---praying to-----> MARY -------praying to-------> GOD

Hence, the concern about “middle-men.” But this confounds the issue. Actually, there aren’t enough lines in the world to diagram how the picture really looks, which is more like an incomprehensibly huge web, surrounding the relatively small triangle between me showing my love for Mary and God; Mary loving God and myself; and God loving Mary and myself (and everybody else!)

And thus we have the power of intercessory prayer. It is the power of Christ and his whole Church together, bride and bridegroom, for which absolutely nothing is impossible. Thus, sins are forgiven, sickness is cured, evil governments are overthrown, and the Kingdom of Heaven is piece-by-piece grafted onto this war-torn world. That is your intercession, and that is what the whole 'Mary' thing is about. So let us tell Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, that we love her dearly, and let us tell God that we love him and his mother dearly, and let us tell the saints that we love them AND their God AND their spiritual mother all dearly.

Amen.

-- Skoobouy (skoobouy@hotmail.com), April 01, 2003

Answers

That's beautiful, Skoob. Who could argue with it?

If I might add one thing, "Thus, sins are forgiven, sickness is cured, evil governments are overthrown, " ...wars are ended!

So nice to hear from you, as always.

Pax Christi.

-- Anna <>< (flower@youknow.com), April 02, 2003.

Skoobouy,

You lost me.

Mary was mortal as was Jesus; Hence, 'man'...

Keep it simple...

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), April 02, 2003.

How so? Could you elaborate? Did I confuse something?

-- Skoobouy (skoobouy@hotmail.com), April 05, 2003.

I like your perspective. As a Catholic convert, I must admit, that even thouggh I try, I've never really gotten all this "Mary" business. Your explanation is the best perspective I've heard.

-- Leon (vol@weblink2000.net), April 16, 2003.