God's love for you - 4th February
Catholic E: If Mary is not God then why do we pray to her?
Catholic B: Indeed she is not a 'goddess' and we do not worship Mary. Mary is a human. But we pray to Mary because we honour her as Mother of Christ and asking her to intercede on our behalf to Jesus.
Catholic E: But why do we need Mary's intercession since we can pray directly to Jesus instead, also Jesus is the one true mediator between us and God the Father?
Catholic B:
It is true we can pray to Jesus directly, yet it is not wrong to pray to Mary and other saints either, because the disciples and early Christians also pray for each other and with each other. Even St Paul encouraged this in his letter to Timothy and wrote 'This is good, and pleases God our Saviour'. And if we can ask other Christians on earth to pray for us, surely we can ask Mary and the saints too. And Mary, as Ven. Fulton Sheen said, "has some very special powers of intercession". Also pray to Mary is the quickest way to Jesus, as St Louis de Montfort explained: “...since we go to her only as the way by which we are to find the end we are seeking, which is Jesus.” Furthermore, asking Mary's intercession is like, as St Louis described, '...a peasant, wishing to gain the friendship and benevolence of the king, went to the queen and presented her with a fruit which was his whole revenue, in order that she might present it to the king. The queen, having accepted the poor little offering from the peasant, would place the fruit on a large and beautiful dish of gold, and so, on the peasant’s behalf, would present it to the king. Then the fruit, however unworthy in itself to be a king’s present, would become worthy of his majesty because of the dish of gold on which it rested and the person who presented it.' So we do need Mary. Keep in mind that Jesus would not refuse His Mother (from the story in Cana), and knowing that Mary is the most powerful Virgin (the Queen of Heaven and earth) and our loving, sweet Mother (whom Jesus has given to us from the Cross), we can confidently turn to Her as our Advocate to intercede for us.


