Does Devotion to Mary make her more important than Jesus?

Devotion to Mary is not scriptural.   Mary is a creature just like you and I.   We have Jesus as our mediator with God, so Mary is not needed in any way whatsoever.

This was very much the position of the Protestant Faith until the Reformers within the Catholic Church decided that in order to bring about an Ecumenical church certain Catholic beliefs had to go and among them was the position of Mary.

The first thing to say is that Mary was never a creature just like you and I.   Yes, she was made like you and I, but the role she was to undertake as Mother of Jesus, the Son of God, meant that she had to be someone with the fullness of Grace and Holiness that was needed by someone who was to give birth to the Holiest of Holies.    Her sinless son would need a sinless mother whom he could love with all his heart and be united to her as a loving son.   So Mary, as the angel Gabriel said, was born "full of grace", indeed this grace filled her soul at the moment of conception so that she was indeed as she declared at Lourdes to Bernadette 'The Immaculate Conception".   Mary was always close to God even as a child when she served in the Temple.

That closeness to God was the reason she loved Jesus so much, she knew he was the Son of God and her whole life was spent caring for him.    She knew the terrible death he was to suffer and suffered every day as that dreadful time drew near.

The relationship between Jesus and Mary was evident at the Marriage Feast of Cana.   The compassionate Mary having learned that the hosts were facing humiliation went to Jesus and just said "They have no wine"   Jesus replied "What is that to you and me, my hour has not come"   But Mary knew that he would be even more compassionate than her so she went to the servants and prepared them for the miracle.    Nobody knows a son like his mother.    Mary in the story was an advocate, and intercessor for the hosts with her son.   That role did not stop with her death and when someone asks something from her whether it is forgiveness of a sin, or some material need she goes as an advocate to her Son and wins that grace or that favour for him or her.    She knows her compassion will be more than matched by the compassion of her son.    Jesus loves her so much he can refuse her nothing.    Notice that this has nothing to do with the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.    Only Jesus redeemed Mankind for the Father, and only Jesus obtains the many graces that mankind needs because  of His Passion and death.    Nevertheless this favourite daughter of the Father and the Mother of the Son, that bridge between the two, whose consent played such a part in the story of Salvation, is a powerful advocate for us in Heaven.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Translation of Luke 1: 28 in the Latin Vulgate by St Jerome.

.......et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit have gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus..... If indeed we are to have a Year of the Bible and indeed praise St Jerome, as indeed he deserves to be praised, for translating the texts approved by the Church into Latin, the language of the Mass, then surely we should check what the Latin says according to St Jerome before we rush into translating into other languages.    In this case translating  from the Gospel of Luke, St Jerome wrote the above, which translates  "..and entering the angel said to her 'Hail full of grace the Lord is with you and blessed are you among women".   Now you do not have to be a scholar to realise that this means much more than 'highly favoured'.   So why I ask myself does the translation we read in our Catholic Church at the gospel read 'highly favoured' rather than 'full of grace'  Why is this important?   Because if she was born 'full of grace' t
Read more

FAIR AS THE MOON, BRIGHT AS THE SUN, TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY SET IN BATTLE ARRAY

'Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array'. The above quote will be familiar to only a few Catholics today,   It was once on the lips of members of the Legion of Mary which was present in many parishes.    Fair as the moon and bright as the sun certainly describes Our Lady of Fatima but who exactly is meant by 'terrible as an army set in battle array?'   Certainly Our Lady appeared to ask us to pray for the conversion of sinners many of who were going to Hell for their sins as forewarned by her Son Jesus when he preachedHis Gospel.  Often we are trying and feel we are succeeding in living good lives when suddenly everything goes wrong  Like St Paul we often do the things we do not want to do rather than those that we want to do.   It is because we are involved in a war between Good and Evil and we are the children of Mary that the red Dragon wishes to devour in Revelations 12    We
Read more

The meaning of 'virgo Immaculata'

Image
As you will see from the stained glass window the name given to the image is Virgo Immaculata.   Mary was the virgin who remained sinless and spotless.  Yes she would have been tempted by Satan, but as the image shows she kept close to God in prayer and all the wiles of Satan, the forbidden fruit he offered, depictdd by the apple, ended up stuck in his throat while the right foot of Mary crushed his head. "I will put enmity between Thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed", God tole the serpent in Genesis   Satan was no match for Jesus who was God made Man but he had overcome a mere mortal before in Eve, What a triumph it would have been to destroy she whom Jesus loved above al others - his mother.   But Mary kept close to Jesus and to God, the new Eve, and mother of the new children that the death of Jesus brought into being.    And as Revelations 12 tells us having failed to destroy the birth of Jesus Satan  went after her other children - us.       When
Read more