My Catholic Answer to an image of a Marian prayer (image below) that I saw posted to social media.
I had never seen this before and just had to give my reply. This was posted by a self professed Christian, who desperately wants to believe that Catholics worship Mary. Those who post such things have no idea what the Church actually teaches, or how to understand the Marian language that has been used by Catholics for thousands of years.
I agree that posts like this can throw the unsuspecting and poorly catechized Catholic for a loop! This is why I welcome the challenge to understand and refute this claim made by non Catholics.
In this article you will see my response to the image I happen to see on Social Media. I try not to pay too much attention to the blatant attacks on Catholicism that seems to be common place on Social Media. But once in awhile however I do feel the need to respond.
This is such a time!
Like I said I welcome the challenge. I have been studying Catholicism for many years. Through Catholicism I have come to love the scriptures, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
First of all regarding that image. I am not sure where this is from because there is no source. But it is definitely using some very high sounding language. This language seems to be a lot like divine language that is being attributed to Mary.
It is a prayer that seems to be following the Mother of Perpetual Help tradition found in The Catholic Church. This is a tradition that can be traced back to the year 1495 AD. And is associated with a 15th-century Byzantine icon of the Madonna and Child shown below.
Prayers following this Catholic tradition ask for the help and protection of The Blessed Mother, Mary. Those who are not familiar with Catholic Marian theology will not understand the language used. They wrongly perceive that prayers such as this show a Marian worship in The Catholic Church.
Second; Any high sounding language used in The Church, in reference to Mary who we know from scripture, is "Blessed among women" (Luke 1:42) is done in the light of her Son and our Savior, "and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" (Luke 1:42)
We see that Elizabeth first blesses Mary as The Mother of The Savior, and then Blesses her womb which contained in The Savior Himself.
It obviously pleases Christ to show honor to His own mother even before Himself.
Why? Because she loves God and always points to Christ.
Mary explains it like this...
"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name." (Luke 1:46-49)
So the big answer is NO!
Catholics do not worship Mary and never have. We do often use high sounding language when referring to her, but this is only because of Jesus Christ! I will also argue that we do this because God does in His Word as shown in Luke's Gospel. We do not believe that Mary is due any worship. We worship God, and also specifically Jesus Christ who we believe is God. We call her "blessed among women" because that is what is says she is in the Scriptures. We are the fulfillment of her prophetic statements in God's Word.
We are the generations who call her blessed!
At this point the poster was not convinced of what I was saying. This person is a lot like everyone who I have chatted with over the years about Catholic teaching. They are coming from a place of assumption rather than facts. They think they know what Catholics believe and what The Church teaches because of what they heard from the haters instead of what they know in truth. From my experience those who strongly object to The Catholic Faith never read the catechism, and they never took any time to actually learn what The Church is all about. Those that do honestly and prayerfully, become Catholic.
Maybe that's what they are afraid of...
Someone replied with a source for this prayer, but it was a blog post that twists Catholic theology. They are trying to create a Catholic theology that doesn't exist, namely that Catholics worship Mary and that Catholics believe that Mary is another redeemer.
Which is absolutely not true!
I explained that any veneration given to Mary is in light of her Son. Without Christ she deserves no such language! Without Christ she is just another Hebrew girl that existed a long time ago. Without Christ she is nothing and We are nothing!
Jesus does what His Mom asks of Him...
We can read in John chapter 2 about Mary's intercession at the wedding feast at Canna. Mary told Jesus about the problem and HE LISTENED TO HER! Then He performed His first public miracle which lead to His death on the cross saving sinners.
So NO, we don't worship her but we honor her for what she has done for us by saying yes to God always. She is also the first Christian because she believed in Christ before any other human did! And she does The Will of God always. Remember, she has NO POWER OF HER OWN, it is Christ, and always Christ!
The power of prayer...
The only power that we can even say that she has, IS THE POWER OF PRAYER! Her prayers when she was on earth, as well as now in Heaven is for God's Will to be done. And the beautiful thing is that we all have this power if we follow Christ and do The Will of God.
"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:16 NIV)
This is why we pray to Mary and other Saints who are in Heaven with Christ. When they pray for us to God, He sends us the Grace we need. Don't we need all the help we can get? Do you believe prayer is helpful to us? I believe...
Prayer is not worship but asking for what we need
To pray to someone means to ask them a request. That is an old use of the word not seen much anymore but Catholics still use it. In the KJV, "I pray you" shows up 83 times, "I pray thee" over 500 times. It is used to ask someone and not just God a request. You can see the examples of this here.
When we pray to Mary we are asking her to pray for us who are here on earth. Why? Because she is alive with Christ in Heaven glorifying God on our behalf. Not only that those who are alive in Christ are also glorified with Him. We know that because that is what the bible says :)
"Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." (Rom 8:12-17 NIV)
If I ask you to pray for me, will you say NO, go to God?
If you are a good Christian I don't think that you would say that to me. As Christians it is a moral good to pray for one another. Our prayers are then taken up to God on our behalf. There is no doubt in my mind that God hears our prayers. And I don't think that this Christian responsibility to pray for sinners ends just because we enter the glory of Heaven.
To be clear...
The only power that Mary has or any Saint has IS THE POWER OF PRAYER!
Just like the bible says as already quoted in James 5:16.
Those in heaven whether it be a Saint (which is a person saved in union with Christ) or Angels who are there with Christ bringing our prayers to God.
How do we know? The bible tells us so...
"And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people." (Revelation 5:8-9 NIV)
One family in Christ...
In Catholicism Christ's Church is one family in God. This family consist of those on earth who love Christ, follow Him and do The Will of God. As well as those who have died in God's Grace and are being glorified with Him in Heaven. Not to mention all the angels who are also in this divine family with us...
"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized be one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body." (1 Corinthians 12:12-27 NIV)
Since we are all one family in Christ, we care for one another!
But what about the language in the prayer?
Well for a short answer it's all about Christ, who is God! Without God and His Grace no goodness, or virtue can exist in us at all. He is the good we wish to obtain and the Grace we need to do anything at all! That is true with us and it is true for Mary who was saved by His Grace.
She is our Mother of Perpetual help because she is in Heaven praying for us. Praying and glorifying God is what you do in Heaven. And she and all the Saints is doing it perpetually. Why? As the mother of Christ she cares for us because her son cares for us. She loves what He loves! And we love her because He loves her.
How does she help us? She helps us with her prayers to God for us, and the prayer of a holy person is powerful. (James 5:6 as already mentioned) If we read the words of the prayer in question we see that it is God who answers the prayer not Mary. And that we are only asking her to advocate for us to God.
Family analogy; It's like when a child is in trouble because he made a mistake and fears what his father will do when he comes home from work. The child might appeal to his mother before his father gets home. His belief is that his mother will smooth things over with dad. When dad gets home there may be a lesser punishment or no punishment at all. The mother's compassion for her children appealed to the merciful heart of the father, causing him to have mercy on the child. If this can be true in our human families, how much more in our divine family?
We are a family in Christ with God as our Father, Jesus as our brother and Mary as our mother. Catholics take this family relationship seriously. If we want to take our relationship with Jesus Christ seriously then in my opinion we need to take a relationship with His mother seriously too. What kind of son, who respects and honors his mother, will respect someone who doesn't?
It's always God's power, God's decisions doing it but she is our advocate to Christ on our behalf because He listens to her. We honor her because Jesus honors her. We want to love who He loves and honor who He honors. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." Exodus 20:12 NIV)
How can we place our eternal salvation on her? Because we trust that she is praying for us and that her prayers are powerful and answered by her son. It is not as crazy as it sounds lol! But that is Catholicism in a nut shell. To the world it seems foolish and really weird. But it is the scriptures experienced in every aspect of The Beautiful Liturgy.
In conclusion; You don't have to use Marian prayers like The Mother of Perpetual Help to be a Catholic if you don't want to. These prayers are there for our spiritual growth but not a requirement to becoming Catholic.
Also asking others to pray for us is a big part of our faith but it is not a requirement of being a Catholic Christian. Catholics go to Jesus in every moment we can find and it is Jesus who we worship at mass! We also believe that when we ask others to pray for us we are in fact going to Jesus as long as the person we are asking worships Him too.
This takes me to a thought I have been having in the last year. Is it appropriate for a Christian to ask someone who is not a Christian to pray for them? I will be doing an article on this but my answer is NO! If someone does not believe in The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they will not be presenting our petitions to The Lord but to some false god or demon. This would not be ok for a Christian. Those who we know in life love Jesus Christ and His Father are the ones we want to pray for us.
I want to thank you for taking the time to read this.
May God bless you and keep you in His Grace always.
Sincerely Joanne Utke
