Mary from a Protestant point of view.

"I suspect for many of us as Protestants the Roman Catholic devotion to the Virgin Mary is one of the mysteries of why Roman Catholicism has developed the way it is. And in a sense, what we can say is, Mary is simply a special case of the saints. If there is a hierarchy in heaven, then surely if there are saints up here, Mary is even a little further up. Mary is the one who surely will have influence over her Son, and not only that, Mary’s a mother. Mothers are always more sympathetic. Well, maybe not always. But in this case, Mary as the mother is going to be more sympathetic to us than Jesus will be.

Now see again, just seemed to make sense to people, the sympathy of a mother. There came to be a story in the middle ages, after our time, but illustrative of this point, and the story was told in the middle ages that when Mary came into heaven Juesus greeted her and said, “Oh Mother, I’m so glad you’re here. I will divide my kingdom with you, and I will be the King of Righteousness, and you will be the Queen of Mercy.”

And that expressed the attitude, you see, somehow Jesus was holy, Jesus was exalted, Jesus was unapproachable, but Mary, she understands. She’s sympathetic. She’s approachable. She’ll carry our burdens to the Son. And some of the theologians have said a part of this reflects a failure to understand the real character of Jesus. Because part of this said, “You know, Jesus can’t fully understand us because He’s divine. Jesus may be true man, but he’s not purely human, he’s not simply human. And Mary is purely human.” Now to make that distinction is to misunderstand the nature of Jesus’ incarnation, it’s to misunderstand that He really was a human being, and He understands us from His humanity as well as any human being could conceivably understand us. But that’s what creeps in I think, that somehow Jesus divinity has contaminated His humanity so He can’t really understand us, and we need Mary, because she really understands".

                                                                                                                                    I could not transfer the video of the above onto this blog, but this is an honest and sincere Protestant preacher teaching on Roman Catholics and Mary.   But what he says is not the Catholic position.   We do not honour Mary because she is more approachable than Jesus.   Indeed the people  most devoted to Mary usually have a love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.    They kneel before the Blessed Sacrament in love and adoration because they know just how intimately Jesus knows and loves them.   It would be a heresy to say that 'Mary is more approachable than Jesus for He does not understand us'.   We do not think, nor are we stupid enough to think, that the divinity of Jesus contaminates his humanity.  How can someone who can look into our souls not understand us perfectly.    The story he quotes from the middle ages is laughable for it does not again in any way reflect Catholic teaching.

The trouble with the Protestant position is that they have a very poor knowledge and understanding of Church History.   When Catholics pray to Mary they call her a mother.   Vatican II for example taught that Mary was the Mother of the Church.   We are the Church, so Mary is our mother.   But why did the Church 'make this all up',  as some would say.    When in 1854, Pope Pius IX decreed as a dogma the Mary was conceived without original sin, he and his bishops were daring to say that this was a truth that was part of the Church from the very beginning- a revealed truth.   Mary herself at Lourdes used the words "I am the Immaculate Conception.    But through the Holy Spirit in its approach to Mary,the Church realised also that this made her the New Eve, since St Paul had described Jesus as the New Adam.   The glory of Mary lay in that whereas the old Eve had not kept herself immaculate and fell into sin, the new Eve remained faithful to God.   "Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck"   "No" cried Jesus "rather blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it", as his mother had.    You can find many references to Mary by the Early Fathers.   There is none more so than Justin, Martyr, who claimed that without Mary then Jesus could never have been born.   What he was saying was in tune with the Church.   God the Father did not  decide one day that it was time for Jesus to make an appearance, then look around for a suitable mother.   No, a special Mother had been prepared with all the graces that were necessary to raise, understand, and share in the life of her divine son.    Surely common sense should tell us that this was indeed necessary, and when Luke described the Angel's first words he was simply stating what the Church taught "Hail Mary FULL OF GRACE........."

Now the point of the New Eve is that she was the mother of a new creation called Christians, who had the power to overcome sin   So Mary was called 'Our Mother'.     Now the Protestant Minister stressed the humanity of Jesus and rightly so, and one of the wonderful things in humanity is the love of a son for his Mother.   And in the humanity of Mary it is the love of a mother for her son.   Because of that close human tie, people when speaking to Jesus also speak to his Mother, and do you know, try though I may, I can see nothing wrong with this.   In fact I believe that in honouring his Mother we are honouring Jesus.   And I defy anyone to say that because of their ties with the mother, Catholics have displaced Jesus.   Our liturgy and the Mass gives a lie to this.

But study Mary for  yourselves.    Through the internet we can now study the early Church.   Put into your search engine'Mary Early Church' to start with.    But we must get over this idea that some are mature and some are stupid.   This is insulting to God and whatever community we belong to.