Why should we pray to Virgin Mary? The reasons are many.
Why do Catholics pray to Mother Mary? Is Rosary really powerful?
The intercession of Mother Mary is very powerful as Jesus cannot neglect His mothers commands.This can be proved by the first miracle Jesus did at the wedding at Cana. – (John 2:1-11). Mother Mary told Jesus “They have no more wine.” And what was the final result? He turned water into wine.
In “The Poem of the Man-God” by Maria Valtorta, she says that Jesus told her about this incident as “I did it for Mary”. This proves that the intercession of Mother Mary is very very strong.
Mother Mary was blessed with Holy Spirit abundantly. We can see this as we read “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Luke 1:39-41) ; just by Virgin Mary’s greeting.
Listen to the talk from Apologetics on Mary, Purgatory and The Bible
What the angels thought on this matter:-
When angel appeared before Zechariah,father of John, angel just greets him by his name ,nothing more although he was “upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly.” – (Luke 1:6)
When angel appeared before Joseph, the greeting was like this: “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” – (Matthew 1:20). Angel greeted him ‘son of david’, thats all.
Now let us see how did the angel greet Virgin Mary. It goes like this: “The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:28). See the difference….
Also read the article Mary, The Mystical Rose
Fellow Christians,(and others)
We could counteract or argue to doomsday so to speak on religious matters but on the matter of this debate relating to Mary,the Mother of God,I personally have to come to a conclusion.
As I conclude I request that those interested in the debate procure and read a book by a Protestant scholar- John McQuarrie.Its title- ‘Mary For All Christians’.Perhaps the internet source -Amazon- could provide.
Finally be aware of rational egoism and the act of limiting divine knowledge to the written word alone.Any danger however from the latter to the open minded person will be nullified by the grace of the Divine Spirit for that is Our Lord’s guarantee to the magisterium of the only Church which he founded.
With no disrespect to anyone.
May God bless you all!
Praise the Lord…
Christ is the only God & there is no other gods before Him. The very first commandment says that “thou shalt have no other gods before Me”. Mary was just a part of the play. There is no reference in the Bible about the miracles performed by Mary. Mary was of course a blessed lady like many of other people mentioned in the bible. But it does not mean that we should give equal place to Mary with that of Jesus who is the only God & a Savior of all man kind…
Lord Jesus come soon…
Amen…
to Alwyn
Mary is the one who brought THE Jesus into the world,no-one is saying she is equal to Jesus or God. We honour her for being obedient to God in order for the Saviour to be born for us. She is more blessed than ANY woman who walked this earth and no other woman will equal her. God made her blessed so she could carry the saviour. Read Revelations 12 and show me which other woman or person was clothed with sun with the moon under their feet, AVE MARIA!!
God bless you Georgy. There is so much truth on your website……
From Goa.
As divine revelation consists of both, the written word of God (The Bible) and the unwritten word of God (Sacred Tradition), hence matters where the Bible is silent or ambiguous can usually be determined by what has been taught to us via Sacred Tradition via the Church Fathers.
The Bible is silent on Mary’s death, but Sacred Tradition says that she was taken up by God into Heaven. The Church maintains, however that a biblical allusion of the Assumption does exist in Revelation 12:1 – ” A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under ther feet, and on her head a crown of twleve stars”.
The Church professes that when Mary’s time on earth came to an end, Mary died and her body was placed in a tomb, howver her body did’nt decay on earth. Instead, her son, Jesus Christ, assumed her into heaven, body and soul.
To make matters a little more clear here – only God can rise from the dead on his own divine power and only God can ascend into heaven of his own divine power. Hence Jesus, himself being God, rose from the dead. However Lazarus, was raised by Jesus. Likewise, Jesus ascended into heaven, but he also assumed his mother into heaven.
Further, with referece to the Immaculate Conception, this preserved Mary from original sin so Mary would have been free from the consequences of sin as well – namely physical death and the separation of Body and soul. The Eastern churches prefer to use the term falling asleep rather than death before the assumption. However because she voluntarily joined with her son’s suffering on the cross, Pope John Paul II, said that kogical conslusion is the she willingly followed through her own death as well.
The most fundamental reason that Jesus assumed his mother into haven was to give people on eath encouragement. Scared Tradition teached us that the Assumption was meant to give humas hope and consolation that what jesus did for his mother in reward for her being a faithful disciple throughout her life, beginning with the response form the Archangel Gabriel. He will also do this for humanity till the end of time. At his second coming, Jesus will raise the dead and take the righteous to heaven and the reprobate will go to hell.
Hence to conclude, Mary’s assumption was like a preview of what is to come. She was the first human to be assumed into heaven and who better to be the first than the Mother of Christ herself.
THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
WHAT DOES HISTORY TELL US? We know that Mary was actually called Miriam, after the sister of Moses. Most likely she was born in Nazareth, a tiny Galilean town of about 1,600 people, during the reign of Herod the Great, a violent puppet-king propped up by Roman military might. Nazareth was of little consequence for most Jews: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?†(John 1:46). It is never mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, nor in the Talmud, a rabbinic commentary.
Mary spoke Aramaic, with a Galilean accent (see Matt 26:73), but she also had contact with a multilingual world. She heard Latin as it slipped from the tongues of Roman soldiers, Greek as it was used in commerce and educated circles and Hebrew as the Torah was proclaimed in the synagogue.
She belonged to the peasant class, which eked out its living through agriculture and small commercial ventures like carpentry, the profession of both Joseph and Jesus. This group of peasants made up 90 percent of the population and bore the burden of supporting the state and the small privileged class.
Their life was grinding, with a triple-tax burden: to Rome, to King Herod the Great and to the Temple (to which, traditionally, they owed 10 percent of the harvest). Artisans, who made up about 5 percent of the population, had even less income than those who worked the land full-time. Consequently, in order to have a steady supply of food, they usually combined their craft with farming.
The picture of the Holy Family as a tiny group of three living in a tranquil, monastic-like carpenter’s shop is highly improbable. Like most people at that time, Joseph, Mary and Jesus probably lived in an extended family unit, where three or four houses of one or two rooms each were built around an open courtyard, in which relatives shared an oven, a cistern and a millstone for grinding grain, and where domestic animals also lived. Like women in many parts of the world today, Mary most likely spent about 10 hours a day on domestic chores like carrying water from a nearby well or stream, gathering wood for the fire, cooking meals and washing utensils and clothes.
Who were the members of this extended household? Mark’s Gospel speaks of Jesus, “the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?†(Mark 6:3). Were these “brothers and sisters†children of Jesus’ aunt (see John 19:25) and therefore cousins? Were they Joseph’s children by a previous marriage? We do not know their precise relationship to Jesus and Mary, but it is probable that they all lived in close proximity, within the same compound.
In Palestine at that time, women ordinarily married at about age 13, in order to maximize childbearing and to guarantee their virginity, so it is likely that Mary’s espousal to Joseph (Matt 1:18) and the birth of Jesus occurred when she was very young. Luke indicates that Mary gave birth to Jesus during a census required by the Romans around 6 B.C. (our calendars are off by a few years!) in a cave or stall where animals were stabled.
A feeding trough served as his crib. This is easy enough to visualize, since today poor refugees use cardboard boxes and other homemade artifacts as makeshift beds for newborn infants. It would be a mistake to think of Mary as fragile, even at 13. As a peasant woman capable of walking the hill country of Judea while pregnant, of giving birth in a stable, of making a four- or five-day journey on foot to Jerusalem once a year or so, of sleeping in the open country like other pilgrims and of engaging in daily hard labor at home, she probably had a robust physique in youth and even in her later years.
We also err when we picture her as Fra Lippo Lippi (a 15th-century Italian master) did, as a gorgeously dressed, blue-eyed, blond-haired Madonna, a European beauty who often adorns Christmas cards. Whether she was beautiful or not, she would have had features like those of Jewish and Palestinian women today, almost certainly with dark hair and dark eyes.
It is doubtful that she knew how to read or write, since literacy was extremely rare among women of the time. Most people acquired information and culture by listening and speaking. People didn’t read books and magazines; they listened to public reading of the Scriptures, shared in storytelling, recited poems and sang together.
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN
MARY’S WAS JEWISH CULTURE. One might legitimately ask: Did she keep a kosher kitchen, that is, one which was ritually pure? Was there a mezuzah on the doorpost of her family’s modest home in Nazareth? That small reminder of the Passover, containing the Ten Commandments, was used then and remains on the main-entrance doorframes of many Jewish households today.
Her husband, Joseph, seems to have died before Jesus’ public ministry began. We know that Mary herself, however, lived through the time of that ministry (Mark 3:31, John 2:1-12). Her separation from Jesus as he went out to preach was undoubtedly painful for her. In a passage that has always embarrassed those academics who study Mary (Mariologists), Mark tells us that Jesus’ family thought him mad (Mark 3:21). But what mother, upon seeing her son challenge Roman authority rather dauntlessly (this often meant death), might not have said to him, “Are you crazy?â€
John tells us that Mary was present at Jesus’ crucifixion (John 19:25-27), though the other evangelists are silent about this. At that time she was probably close to 50 years old, well beyond the age at which most women in that era died. She lived on at least into the early days of the Church.
Luke states that she was in the Upper Room in Jerusalem with the 11 remaining apostles who “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary… and his brothers†(Acts 1:14). The lovely paintings and icons of Pentecost that picture the Spirit descending on Mary and the 11 apostles hardly do justice to Luke’s text in Acts 1:15, which indicates that she was there with a community of 120 persons.
After Pentecost, Mary disappears from history. The rest of her life is shrouded in legend. As Elizabeth Johnson points out, an active imagination easily wonders: What memories, hopes and strategies did she share with the men and women of the new, Spirit-filled Jerusalem community? Did she live on peacefully in Jerusalem as an old woman, revered as the mother of the Messiah? Was she quiet or outspoken? Did others come to her for advice? Did she express her views about the inclusion of the gentiles? We do not know.
She may well have died as a member of the Jerusalem community, though a later tradition portrays her as moving to Ephesus in the company of the apostle John. There is a shrine there, in modern-day Turkey, honoring that tradition.
PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH
WHY FOCUS on the historical Mary? I would suggest there are three good reasons:
1. Her history brings her nearer to us. While there is an alluring quality to the gorgeous Madonnas depicted by medieval artists, Mary didn’t look like that. This first-century Jewish woman, living in a peasant village, was much more like billions of people today than like the women in those beautiful paintings.
Though her culture was quite different from that of our 21st-century post-industrial society, it was not unlike that of women in thousands of villages as they exist today in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Her daily life and labor were hard. With Joseph, she raised Jesus in oppressive circumstances, struggling to pay the taxes by which the rich became richer at the expense of the poor. As with the vast majority of people in world history—the poor— most of Mary’s difficult life went unrecorded.
2. She listens to God’s Word. In fact, her holiness lies in persistent, faithful listening to God’s word. In canonizing saints, the Church has customarily emphasized martyrdom, asceticism, renunciation of family and worldly possessions, or lifelong dedication to the poor. Today, though, the Church recognizes more and more that holiness consists mainly in persevering fidelity in the midst of everyday life, whatever it holds. This is what the “historical Mary†exemplifies.
As events unfold around her, often to her surprise, she has to figure out continually what God is asking of her. She looks for the word of God in people and events, listens to that word, ponders it and then acts on it. She doubtless repeats again and again what she said to Gabriel, “May it be done to me according to your word†(Luke 1:38). Day by day she lives a “pilgrimage of faith,†to use the words of Vatican II (see Lumen Gentium, #58). She finds energy in her trust in the God of Israel and in her solidarity with the growing community of Christians who experienced the promise of life in the death and resurrection of her son.
3. She sings freedom’s song. Today we recognize Mary’s Magnificat as a rousing freedom song of the poor. Mary, the lead singer, epitomizes the lowly of Israel, those marginalized by society, for whom there is “no room in the inn†(Luke 2:7). God is her only hope, and she sings the divine praises with exuberant confidence.
While it may be difficult to imagine this revolutionary hymn coming from the mouth of a Madonna painted by Caravaggio, it is easy to envision it issuing from the lips of the historical Mary. Galilee was the spawning ground for first-century revolts against a repressive occupying power and its taxes. The Christians of Jerusalem, who with Mary were the nucleus of the post-Resurrection church, suffered from real hunger and poverty (see Gal 2:10; 1 Cor 16:1-4; Rom 15:25-26).
With the members of this community, Mary believed that God can turn the world upside down; that the last are first and the first last; the humble are exalted, the exalted humbled; those who save their life lose it, those who lose their life save it; those who mourn will rejoice, those who laugh will cry; the mighty are cast down from their thrones, the lowly lifted up. She and they were convinced that in God’s Kingdom the poor are first, and the prostitutes, publicans and outcasts of society eat at the table of the Lord, as Jesus, her son, pointed out during his ministry (see Matt 21:32).
The historical Mary experienced poverty, oppression, violence and the execution of her son. Her faith is deeply rooted in that context. Before the omnipotent God, she recognizes her own “lowly estate.†She is not among the world’s powerful. She is simply God’s “maidservant.†But she believes that nothing is impossible for God. In the Magnificat (see Canticle at left) she sings confidently that God rescues life from death, joy from sorrow, light from darkness.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian-martyr executed by the Nazis in 1945, spoke these words during a sermon in 1933:
The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings; this is that passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerless of humankind.
The historical Mary stands in solidarity with the poor of Israel. In fact, she is their spokesperson, especially in Luke’s Gospel. She cries out with gratitude for God’s gifts, especially for the son in her womb: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.†She believes that, in Jesus, the power of God can turn the world upside down, ushering in a new era, a kingdom of justice, love and peace: “He casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.†This message is more and more relevant today as the Church holds Mary up as Mother of the Poor, and as the poor throughout the world join with Mary in singing her vibrant song. It is both praise of God’s power and prophecy of a world to come.
Talking about eucharist. I took this video in Lanciano, Italy 2 years ago.
http://youtu.be/Ln2KrEQrLKw
The Flesh is real flesh. The Blood is real Blood.
The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart.
In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium.
The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB (The blood-type identical to that which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin).
In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteic make-up of fresh normal blood.
In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
The preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.
The reasons given for praying to Mary gives Mary (a human being) too much power. Jesus may have changed water into wine to please Mary but not because He had to do whatever she asked. Also, the child in Elizabeth’s womb jumped at the presence of the Son of God when Mary came into the room, not just at the sound of her voice. The first commandment should make it clear that we are to pray to God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) only. “Mother” is not part of the Holy Trinity. Also, Mary was a human being, just like the rest of us, except that she was chosen to bear the Son of God. If she was like God (holy/never sinning, able to answer prayers, etc.), then how could we say that Jesus was born both as a man and as God? The reasoning behind praying to Mary like she has powers makes no sense to me.
Darlene it makes no sense to you because you are allowing Satan to take hold of your thinking and creating a stubborn mind block.
My sympathies are with all you folk who are against the Mother of God and blaspheme her name. But it wont be long when Jesus unravels the Mystery. All I can do is pray for you.
Atheistic,Protestant, and agnostic Doctors,etc., have studied the Marian and Eucharistic phenomena of the Catholic Church plus stigmata,etc.,and in general cannot provide a scientific explanation.And inspite of the expected few who are questionable because of the actions of the devil science has no answer to the work of the Holy Spirit.
dont fight or discuss i saw my room mates belivers thay tell me all good things n thay no all bible study only in theory not in practicals so dont fight n dont insult any body (like mother mary ) only i will say united we stand divided we fall ( catholic, bi-livers,orthodox,jewish ,protestant &roman catolic )other wise sombody else will take advantage of ours religions
dear, read gospel of st.john chapter 19 words 26,27
we beliveeverything in bible for us .why we dont belive these words.
revelation chapter 12, especialy words 5,17
Darlene,
If I may: an old definition of ‘Prayer’was the offering of our minds and hearts to God.However there are various definitions of the concept of prayer today.It is not purely the act of asking of God it is more like ‘friendship’with God.And of course within the context of friendship as mortals we do ask others now and again to pray for our various needs-a job perhaps,etc,.Therefore asking Mary who is God’s Mother to pray for us is a very human and spiritual thing to do.
We also must remember that as Christians we are the ‘Body of Christ’ and because of this reality and truth asking Mary or any saint to pray for us is quite normal for it is God’s will.
As the Mother of Christ whose life we share Mary is quite rightly our Mother.She is unique amongst the saints.God might have chosen other ways of uniting himself to mankind and ensuring our salvation but he chose one way -through Mary.
We are aware of how important the Gospels are to the Christian faith but they are not the be all and the end all.The Gospels themselves confirms that truth!
See John Ch.14-16.
“I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now.But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth,since he will not be speaking as from himself but will only say what he has learnt;and he will tell you of the things to come.
He will glorify me,since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine;that is why I said:All he tells you will be taken from what is mine.”
Thus, emphasising the importance of ‘holy tradition’and the guarantee given to Peter at the birth of the Catholic Church.Therefore what the Catholic Church declares upon is the will of Christ and this includes declarations relating to Mary for the Spirit is fulfilling the will of Jesus as our Lord stated in the Bible extract above..
My only request to those who support the thought that “we should pray to mary or through mary” is ,do not underestimate GOD . HE is indescribable,holy our limited words are not enough to glorify him.
our intercession with GOD is only through JESUS CHRIST .HE is the mediator between us and GOD THE FATHER because HE died and rose again defeating death and satan. HE paid full price for our sins. BIBLE says we have mediator(JESUS CHRIST)in the presence GOD ,he is praying on our behalf to the FATHER.AS we are on the earth,as JESUS CHRIST is not on the earth, WE do not know how to pray so the HOLY SPIRIT, one of the person in trinity helps us assists us in prayer.
we receive HOLY SPIRIT the moment we repent for our sins ,ask GOD for forgiveness.when you think you can pray to GOD through or to mary , you are replacing and denying the HOLY SPIRIT. You know the BIBLE says THERE IS NO FORGIVENESS TO THOSE WHO DENY THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Even if you are not convinced the best way to know the truth is
1.check whether you are born again(saved) or not
if yes
a.take your BIBLE , go in to your room,kneel down and pray to the FATHER and ask HIM all your douts (to whom to pray or through whom to pray)in JESUS CHRIST’S name.My friend HE is true living GOD ,who hears and answers our every prayer.And you will come out of the room with a perfect answer.
if you are not saved, first cleanse your sins at the cross with the blood of JESUS CHRIST.
I pray that the LORD open your spiritual eyes.
Joyce we Catholics do not want to further comment on what you have said but your blind eye towards the Blessed Mother is blasphemous.
You Protestants, or born again Christians or whatever have a ONE TRACK WAY OF THINKING……..you do not want to go beyond the BIBLE.
Anyway God bless you and I can only Pray that the Blessed Virgin opens your eyes to see the TRUTH.
Worship and prayer is only meant for God, and not men or angels (or saints). PERIOD!
Mary or any saint for that matter cannot intercede for any one…
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus” – 1 Timothy 2:5
Jesus is the one and only Mediator (Intercessor) between God and Man, and He lives to continually intercede for those who come to God.
When referring to Deity, the Bible mentions only the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; cf. Matthew 3:16-17; John 10:30; 17:21; Acts 5:3-4). Mary is never mentioned in that context. Mary is not Deity and should not be worshiped as such. The idea that Mary occupies a special place in heaven, close to the Son, is just a traditional belief. It shows a lack of understanding concerning biblical teachings.
The whole talk about respecting each other’s beliefs is just totally absurd. You respect someone’s beliefs if it is as per the Word of God. Keep the Bible as your reference and focal point. You do not need to go beyond the Bible for any discussions. You remember how Paul loved the people of Berea ? He was very fond of them because they validated whatever he preached with the scriptures. I urge all of you’l to do the same. Validate your arguments with the scripture, and only the scripture, not with church tradition/history.
You might find these links interesting :
http://espanol.apologeticspress.org/articles/240082
http://www.answers2prayer.org/bible_questions/Answers/mary/mary.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/prayer-saints-Mary.html
mother mary suffered a lot in her life .how can a son neglect the words of a mother?
if jesus has no feel or respect to his mother, i dont think we need to bow before him .
Hello… God’s people.
Why so much confusion here?
Guess we know about Jesus and not know jesus.
Cos if we know Jesus we will know what his teachings are.
The Bible clearly says, Ask anything in My Name to the father and it shall be given.
Where does Mother Mary comes here??
When we can have a direct contact with jesus why do we have to go to the 3rd party?
Jesus is the first contact we should pray to.
Please know what ever the doctrine of this world speaks about…
Believe in Nothing More than The Bible and Nothing Less than The Bible.
Jesus says Ask anything to the father in My name, it shall be given.
46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,( Luke 1:46-47 ) Even Mary needs a Savior…God bless!
Monica,
1. It was through the most holy Virgin Mary that Jesus came into the world, and it is also through her that He has to reign in the world.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16. Watch out Monica you are stealing the glory of God.
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.â€
John 14:6
So, no one should come between Jesus and us while praying. Even if it’s Mary. Though she is holy, she is a mere human being.
I am not Catholic, but i do pray the rosary. My question to those who are anti-Mary? why do you keep ignoring the fact that catholics do not worship Mary but ask her to intercede for them instead? Secondly, the rosary is not the only prayer that Catholics do. Thirdly, the bible you keep quoting was canonized by the same Church that you accuse of knowing nothing about Scripture. The bible came out of the church; the church did not come out of the bible.
Personally, it is through the rosary that i feel closer to God. I would rather ask the saints in heaven to pray for me than earthly friends who will later gossip about my problems.
Our God is a God who is always available to directly communicate with us. In olden days, he used to communicate directly with those who pray to Him. And now, he may not. But he surely does show us a solution if we pray with a humble and broken spirit. There is no use even if one intercedes with God thru’ Mary and other saints if one has sin in one’s heart.
The first thing one needs is REPENTENCE. If one doesn’t have a contrite heart, then God doesn’t listen to one’s prayers even if one prays directly to Him or intercede thru’ saints.
You say Catholics don’t worship Mary, they just ask her to intercede for them. Right ? and you’d rather ask Saints in heaven to pray for you rather than friends here on earth. Correct ?
Now, saints (and Mary for that matter) were mere humans. Just like you and me ? You agree ? None of them possessed any divine attributes. Mary was the earthy mother of Jesus, but she still was a mortal human like you and me.
Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. This applies to Mary and all the other Saints you are referring you. My point is divine nature cannot be attributed to any of them.
Now, as far as interceding is concerned, get this straight, ‘Dead people cannot intercede for you’ PERIOD!. I’d rather have my friend here pray for me than have someone dead do it. You say you’d rather have saints in heaven pray for you. How do you even know they are in heaven in the first place ? You or rather we would just assume it as per the life they lived. Right ? But we are no one to decide whether they end up in heaven or not. We don’t sit on the judgement seat.
I’m not trying to offend you here. My point is asking someone dead to pray for you isn’t biblical. As far as asking someone in heaven to pray for you is concerned the Bible is very clear about it.
1 Timothy 2:5 says “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus”
Christ is the only one who can stand between you and God. Why would you need anyone else ? The Bible says that we are all guilty before God, guilty of sin. No lawyer could defend you, fictional or non-fictional, or could ever plead your case. No one could defend you before God, no matter how good he or she may be. No one except Jesus Christ, and Him alone, could do such a task. Job knew that there is but One who could do such a thing, that One is the Lord. That is why he said in Job 16:19-20, “My advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friendâ€. Jesus Christ is our great Advocate, our great Defender, who will plead our case before the very high courts of heaven itself.
Shalom
And God said,”… thou shall have no other Gods before me.You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: You shall not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my Commandments.” This is stated in Exodus. So although the catholic faith is full of goodness as it concerns God, there are some major things about it that are very incorrect, such as praying to Mary.
Another big thing that is wrong is praying through a priest, such as giving confessions. Although confessing one to another is a biblically good act, using a man in between you and God is not necessary or good. Because of Jesus we can go to Him directly and ask forgiveness. And He will instantly forgive us if we are sincere, we do not have to do something for it (like several hail Marys, etc.)What makes the Cathloic faith wrong or incorrect is man trying to mold things to his/their likeness and in a way controlling others. If you want the truth about it all study an actual real, regular bible, and not one that man has changed!
Just thought I need to quote the reference to Mary on the Rosary prayer:-
“Hail Mary, Full of grace the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God pray for us sinners now and the hour of our death”.
The rest of the rosary prayer meditates on scripture and prayers are directed to God/Jesus.
There are two groups here: some Christians and Jehovah’s witnesses believe that the bond you share with a loved one ends with death. Some of us believe in the communion of saints. We can quote all we want but one thing for sure we will not change anybody’s mind.
“Another thing that is wrong is praying through a priest….”
You carry on here and suggest that confession is wrong. In the bible that I read it does seem that Jesus had given the apostles power to forgive sins (or hold back forgiveness). The apostles had ordained others to carry on with their work here on earth so my logic tells me that applied to confession as well.
Paul told the Christians of his time to observe not just what he wrote to them but those things passed through orally (that is what most catholics, anglicans, orthodox etc refer to as tradition. Unfortunately most people dismiss tradition as an invention because it was never written down. I just urge you to study the ancient church before dismissing things because they are not in the bible. surely the christians who were closer to the revelation must have had a clearer understanding of it than us living centuries later?
One more thing, pray the rosary and soon you will receive signal graces that would really make you believe. just try for a week and ask God if he wishes for you to continue praying the rosary, You will get an answer for sure, If you havent seen a miracle yet you’ll see one when you pray the rosary. Blessed mary wants us all to pray to Jesus.
Firstoff to answer the question as to whether one should pray to Mother Mary, the answer is a big’NO, you should never’ and here are a few reasons why. The Bible clearly tells us that anyone who tries to alter or misinterpret the word of God will be cursed. It also clearly tells us that Jesus alone is Lord our God and worthy of our Praises, prayers and worship. Yes, Mary may undoubtedly be the most innocent and pious woman who has lived in this world but she was fully human.
Jesus was born through the Holy Spirit as Gods miracle in Mary’s womb not by human sexual intimacy. Yes, Jesus was fully human when he c