PRAYING TO MARY

No, Catholics adore God alone, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They love and reverence the Blessed Virgin, because God honored her above all creatures by choosing her to be the Mother of His only Son. St. Epiphanius in the fourth century condemned the Collyridians, the only sect in history, who gave her divine honors, saying: "We do not adore the saints. . . . Let Mary then be honored, but the Father,  Son and Holy Ghost alone be adored" (Adv. Collyrid., 29).

     Why do Catholics pay so much honor to Mary, when she was only an ordinary woman? Does not Catholic devotion to her detract from the worship due to Christ?

The Catholic Church has always paid special honor to the Biessed Virgin, because God honored her above all creatures by bestowing upon her the highest dignity He could confer—the divine maternity. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus honored her by dwelling with her under the same roof at Nazareth for thirty years until He began His public ministry, and that He showed His love to her on the Cross, when He left her to the kindly care of His beloved disciple, St. John (John xix:26). I could never understand how intelligent men hoped to extol the Son of God by making little of the Mother of God. We do not win the affections of our fellowmen by despising or making little of their mothers.

 MEDIEVAL LEGENDS

The expressions of an ardent lover may not all be literally true, for warmth of feeling often produces exaggeration in language. But who cavils at this, and who asks the lover to speak in matter of fact terms? Must there be no warmth in the expression of our love of the saints of God?

Did not Christ speak harshly to the Virgin, saying to her at the marriage of Cana: "Woman, what have I to do with thee" (John ii.4)?

     The Catholic version is more accurate: "What (is it) to me and to thee?" According to Father Lagrange the Arabs of Palestine still use this same expression: "What to thee?" It has a two-fold meaning, either "attend to your own affairs," or when said smilingly, "Do not worry, all will turn out well." This second meaning is certainly the meaning here, for Christ immediately works the miracle of changing water into wine at His Mother’s request.

     The use of the word "woman" does not in the slightest degree imply any disrespect, or even emphasize, as some have falsely held, the infinite distinction between Mary, the creature, and her divine Son. It is simply a solemn mode of addressing anyone, as we know from our Lord’s use of it on the Cross (John XX. 26).

     Many honest Protestant commentators—Westcott, Bloomfield, Ellicott, Alford, Trench—admit that our Lord did not speak harshly to His mother in this passage. Trench writes: "It is true that in the address ‘woman’ there is nothing of severity or harshness, however much it may have some such sound to Eng1ish ears. In those last and tenderest words which our, Lord addressed to His Mother, He used the same language: ‘Woman, behold thy Son.’ So far from any harshness, the compellation   has something solemn in it, and cannot but have such where ‘the dignity of woman is truly felt. But it is otherwise with the words: ‘What have I to do with thee?’ . . .  Any severity which these words may seem to have in reading,  we cannot doubt was mitigated in the manner of speaking; suffering, as it did, a near compliance with her request to look as though an apparent refusal" (On Miracles, Ser. 1).

Bibliography:  Lagrange, Evangile selon Saint Jean, 56, 57).

Did not Christ make little of His Mother, when in answer to the woman in the crowd who called her blessed He said: "Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it" (Luke xi. 28)?

He did not. Father Ryder, answering this objection, said: "The comparison is one of relations, not of persons, and the perfection of both relationships might culminate in the one person, as indeed was the case; for was she not Athe handmaid of the Lord@ (Luke i. 38) as well as His Mother, and did she not Akeep all these things and ponder them in her heart?@ (Luke ii. 19.) If in Christ=s Ayea rather@ He be supposed to deprecate His Mother=s cultus, He must no less be supposed to deprecate His own, for the woman in the crowd primarily extolled Him, and His Mother only for His sake. Doubtless He would turn men=s minds from the external greatness of His Mother=s prerogative as of His own, to fix them rather upon His and His Mother=s truer glory, as when He said: ACallest thou Me good?@ (Matt. xix. 17.)

Bibliography: Ryder, Catholic Controversy. A. Q. 1895, 399.

Did not Christ disown His Mother, when He said, "My Mother and My brethren are those which hear the word of God and do It" (Luke viii. 21; Cf. Matt. xii. 46, 50)?

Not at all. He is simply taking occasion of the presence of His Mother and cousins to teach the people the necessity of keeping the word of God, as Mary did (Luke i. 38, 45; ii. 19, 51), and the necessity of detachment from even one=s kinsfolk for the love of God. Tertullian writes: AChrist is wont to do everything that He enjoins upon others. How strange then would it certainly have been if, while He was teaching others not to esteem mother or father or brother as highly as the word of God, He were Himself to leave the word of God as soon as His Mother and brethren were announced to Him. He denied His parents, therefore, in the same sense in which He has taught us to deny oursCfor God=s sake@ (De Carrie Christi, 7).

Bibliography: Lagrange, L'Evangile selon Saint Luc, 244. A.Q. 1894, 712.

What is the origin and meaning of the Rosary? Why do uneducated Catholics mechanically count their prayers on strings of beads? Did not Christ rebuke repetitions in prayer: "Use not vain repetitions as the heathens do" (Matt. vi. 7)?

The chief object of the Rosary devotion is meditation upon the mysteries of our Redemption. The fifteen mysteries---the Annunciation, the Visitation,  the Nativity,  the Presentation,   the Finding in the Temple,  the Agony,  the Scourging,  the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion,  the Resurrection,  the Ascension,  the Descent of the Holy Spirit,  the Assumption and the Coronation of the Blessed VirginC-are an excellent summary of the Gospel.  Catholics try to realize them clearly and to feel them deeply, while they recite fifteen decades or tens of Hail Marys with an Our Father between each one.

From the ninth to the twelfth century the priests of the monastic orders said Masses for their deceased brethren, while the uneducated lay brothers recited fifty Psalms or fifty Our Fathers. The recitation of fifty Hail Marys, divided in sets of ten, is first mentioned in the Ancren Riwle of. the English anchoresses of the twelfth century. The counting of these prayers on strings of beads to prevent distraction soon became prevalent,  and two hundred years later the practice of meditation on the mysteries was introdluced by a Carthusian named Dominic.

Christ never condemned repetitions in prayer, for He repeated the self-same prayer thrice in the Garden of Gethsemanil (Matt. xxvi. 39, 42, 44), nd He granted the gift of sight to the repeated prayers of the blind men (Matt. xx. 31).   One of the most beautiful of the Psalms contains the recurrent antiphon: APraise the Lord for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever@ (Pa. cxxxv.), and the angels of God in heaven nevet tire of repeating day and night the canticle: AHoly, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come@ lApoc. iv. 8; Isa. vi. 3).

Repeated prayers are not necessarily mechanical. A pianist like Paderewski may play the same concerto over and over again, and always play it with a perfect interpretation; an actor like Forbes Robertson may play the part of Hamlet night after night for months, and always reveal some new meaning in his lines.  A mother can talk by the hour the most unintelligible baby talk to her child, and yet express in every word the deepest affection. Why then cannot Catholics repeat the Lord=s Prayer and the Hail Mary, most of which is scriptural (Luke i. 28), over and over again without being accused of a lack of devotion.

Bibliography: Lagrange, Evangile selon S. Matthieu, 122-124; Mother Loyola, Hail Full of Grace; McKenna, Treasures of the Rosary; Sheehan, Vain Repetitions. C. E. xiii. 184-188.

HOW TO PRAY THE ROSARY:  http://www.teleport.com/~rosary/howto.htm

The Angelus is a beautiful devotional custom of reciting three Hail Marys in the morning, noon and evening, in honor of the Incarnation. It derives its name from the first words of the prayer; "The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.@ It goes back to the fourteenth century, and was originally a popular imitation of the night prayers of the monks. The morning Angelus bell was called the peace bell, as the Bishops often urged their people to pray for peace while it was being tolled. The midday Angelus in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was generally associated with the commemoration of our Lord=s Death upon the Cross. The evening Angelus, in honor of our Lady of the Annunciation, probably goes back to the time of Pope Gregory IX (1239).