Hi Allie, you recently reblogged a post in which criticisms of Catholicism are rebutted by someone - would you mind if I, a protestant, could ask you some questions? I've never asked any of my irl Catholic/Orthodox friends for fear of treading on toes - I don't find the pro-praying to saints argument convincing or reassuring at all: it hugely bothers me that Catholics pray to other people than God, perhaps bc I can't separate worship and prayer (this is going to have to have a part 2, haha)
and I can’t understand veneration of Mary (or any non-Jesus person, but particularly Mary, because Jesus himself said “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” He himself said that! When told his family were there to see him! And in Timothy 2:5 it says that there is one God and one mediator between God and men: Jesus Christ? I’m sorry if this is coming across as aggressive, I’m just very confused and have been for ages!
Hi Waltermeadows, I want you to know that you’re not coming off as aggressive in the least bit. This is a very good question, a very understandable question (I often am in awe of my Protestant followers for continuing to give me the time of day, believing what they do of Catholic worship—thank you all so much for hearing me out), and one I’m happy to answer to the best of my ability.
When discussing the Catholic view of saints, it is highly important to consider them, not as ghosts, not as abstractions, but as living members of the Body of Christ. Every saint in Heaven once walked the Earth, as you and I do now. The only difference between you and a saint is that the saint is more advanced in the service of Christ; the saint has gained what we on Earth can merely strive for. The saint, who lives in Christ, is more alive than you and I are.
I have yet to encounter a Protestant who finds any difficulty in the idea of praying for others, whether family members, friends or complete strangers. In such prayer, which is fundamental to the life of the Church, we intercede with God on behalf of these others, effectively saying, as Mary and Martha said of Lazarus, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill.” Not only do all Christians make such prayers for others, the Christian frequently asks them of others, on his behalf; “pray for me” is a common refrain among the suffering. And when we feel our own prayers to be insufficient, do we not also seek out others—older than us, wiser than us, having more faith than us—in particular, sensing somehow that their intercession will strengthen something which is lacking in us and that, knowing God better than we do, they will access His heart in some way that may be lost to us? This can hardly be strange, for many stories of divine healing in the Gospels tell not only of the cure but of the faith of the messenger. How much faith did the servant of the Centurion have? I do not know; I am prepared to guess that he, being a gentile, had none at all. The faith of the Centurion, a greater faith than any in Israel, is sufficient to touch the very heart of God on behalf of the servant.
It is easy for us to accept this story, and to understand that the Centurion is not a mediator in competition with Christ, but a man who has recourse to the Mediator on behalf of another. Of the saints in Heaven, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning asked, “Shall they love us less because they have now power to love us more?” If we do not fear to ask those on Earth to intercede for us with God, we should fear still less to speak to those who have been united with Christ for eternity, who live in the light and the love of the God to whom we pray. Heaven is not a state of retirement or of inactivity, but of incredible motion: St. Therese of Lisieux, with faith enough for dozens of Centurions, declared that her greatest mission would begin after her death: “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower of roses.”
And this is where I get to Mary.
The Gospel of Luke gives us a brief and beautiful story which is too frequently misunderstood. As Jesus speaks, a woman from the crowd cries out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” Jesus replies, in most English translations, with the word “rather”: “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” (Luke 11:27-8) Read in this way, the scripture is a stumbling block for many who wish to understand the significance of Mary: does it not seem as though Jesus is saying that Mary is not blessed? But she is blessed, according to the angel, who called her “full of grace,” and told her “the Lord is with you”; according to her cousin Elizabeth, who said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”; according to Mary herself, who asserted that “all generations will call me blessed”; according, I would argue, to anyone with a grain of sense, for if any mother may fairly be called blessed, how much more blessed is the mother of Jesus, the savior of the nations?
A knowledge of the Greek word “menoun,” which is commonly translated as “rather,” is extremely helpful here; it is not a contradiction, but an addition, one which appears elsewhere in Scripture and is translated in Philippians 3:8 as “indeed,” “yes,” or “what is more”: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” Jesus does not deny that Mary is blessed, but, by expanding the definition of those who are blessed, gives us important insight into why Mary was blessed in such a way: “Blessed is the womb that bore you,” the woman says, and Jesus says, “Yes, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” Compare Elizabeth’s statement in Luke 1:45: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Mary is upheld by scripture for her obedience to God and for her willing participation in the Divine Plan: no one heard the word of God and kept it with a more generous spirit than Mary, who said, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” If Jesus’s statement carries the air of a contradiction, it is because Jesus does not want this woman, or anyone else, to miss the mark; to believe that Mary alone is blessed by God, or, conversely, that her carrying of Christ is a thing removed entirely from her obedience, a mere bit of good luck for her. Mary consented to carry Jesus in her womb; everything Mary has, she has because she heard the word of God and kept it. Mary is not an abstraction, a mere nice thing to look at—“What a lucky girl,” a statement which must inevitably carry an afterthought of “and how far removed from my lowly self” (it is deeply significant that it is another woman who has made this statement, and to whom Jesus speaks)—but a living example for Christians, one who shows us how we must react to Jesus’s commandments: “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’” (John 2:5)
This is what we must understand when we read of Jesus asking, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” and answering His question by indicating his disciples, saying “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of My father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50)—or, as Luke phrases it, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” This statement would only exclude Mary if she were not included in the above group, though it may exclude certain relatives of his who had come to suppress His speech. It is primarily a statement of inclusion, a statement of adoption.
And speaking of adoption, if this isn’t enough, and you need further proof that Jesus does not disown his mother, look no further than John 19:
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, 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 to his own home. (John 19:26-7)
Jesus commends the beloved disciple to His mother, uniting them as a family—and the beloved disciple takes Him at His word, bringing Mary into his own home “from that hour.” This is not a terribly strange action for a man who believes he will never return from death, but it is a very strange action for a man who fully intends to come back in three days; we must see its deeper significance. This is not a mere business arrangement; this is the beloved disciple, and Jesus entrusts the beloved to the care of a woman to whom He has shown the greatest love imaginable, living and growing within her body, becoming her child. The word “son” cannot be spoken lightly between these two.
As one who believes that the saints can and do intercede for us, I think—I hope—that even without this scriptural prompting, I might be inclined to ask for the intercession of Mary, who knew Jesus better than anyone who lived on earth, who obeyed God as no one else has obeyed him, who carried Him and gave birth to Him, who lived with Him as a mother and who watched Him die and rise again.
But this scripture does exist, and because it does, I cannot help but feel, as a beloved disciple, that I am not merely invited to honor Mary as a mother, but ordered.
