Category: MaryI am a convert and am struggling with the idea of praying to Mary, can you help? Part III
A: We have already looked briefly at the source of Mary’s greatness and the power of her presence. Now we are ready to look at the two other ways she exercises her spiritual motherhood in our lives: her example of holiness and her prayerful intercession on our behalf. Mary Shows Us the Way The popes and the most revered spiritual writers throughout the centuries have all emphasized Mary’s example above every other aspect of Marian devotion. She, the first Christian, is also the model Christian. Throughout the Gospels, she is very discrete. She never tries to steal the spotlight from her son and Lord, yet her own role cannot be ignored. As she serves and follows Jesus, she shows us, with great simplicity, how to do the same. When the Archangel Gabriel brings the message of the Annunciation, she shows us the beauty and force of virtues like humility, obedience, and trust in God. When she speeds off to help her elderly cousin Elizabeth with her pregnancy and birth, and when she saves the wedding at Cana from social disaster, she shows us what true, self-forgetful, creative charity really looks like. With the words of the Magnificat, she shows us what it really means for a creature to love and praise her Creator. As she gathers with the frightened Apostles in the Upper Room, waiting for the Holy Spirit, she embodies the virtue of prayer and love for the Church. Perhaps most eloquently of all, as she stands at the foot of the cross and accompanies Jesus to the bitter end of his passion, she reveals the true countenance of faith, courage, patience, and perseverance. It is easy to list her exemplary virtues. But to benefit from them, we have to do more than read the list. We have to meditate on her words and example, giving them space to resonate in our hearts. Like tiger cubs, we have to watch our Mother vanquish our spiritual enemies so as to learn how to do the same. I recently received an email from a friend who described a painful situation. A relative had committed suicide, causing shockwaves throughout the large extended family. My friend made a beautiful comment on the challenge of dealing with that, a comment which impressed me deeply: “I can’t imagine Mary’s Agony of the loss of Jesus. Jesus gives way beyond my comprehension. There is so much to learn and I only feel I am skimming the surface. I pray to do his will.” In the midst of that suffering and pain, it was Mary’s example that shone like a bright moon on a cold, dark night, giving hope and strength. Mary is not invoked by Catholics as “Star of the Sea” for nothing. Mary Prays for Us Besides her presence and her example, we also need to learn to depend on her intercession. The “pray for us, O Holy Mother of God” that we recite in the Hail Mary is the model of a child’s confident plea. We should expect great things from the mother of our Lord, who is also our mother in the order of grace. It is no coincidence that in the game of Chess as played in the Western world, the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board. According to most Chess historians, the game originated in India, and was popularized in Persia and Arabia before coming into Europe through Muslim Spain in the Middle Ages. In the Indian version, the Queen piece could only move one square, and in fact it was not named Queen at all – it was called the Mantri, or minister. But as the game took on its modern form in Catholic Europe, the piece next to the King became more powerful and was renamed the Queen. At the same time, the magnificent medieval cathedrals were being constructed, often named in honor of “Our Lady” (Notre Dame), the Blessed Virgin. The concept of a good and powerful Queen who would look after her subjects’ needs in the King’s court was tightly entwined with the longstanding role that Mary had played in the Church (the earliest recorded extra-biblical Christian prayer is a prayer asking for protection from the Blessed Virgin Mary, the sub tuum presidium). When Jesus was dying on the cross, he entrusted John, the representative of the whole future Church, to Mary’s care. And ever since then, Christians have leaned, happily and fruitfully, on Mary’s intercession. In a recent discourse, Pope Benedict XVI recalled this intercessory role when he commented on the life of St. Germanus of Constantinople. In the eighth century, that city, which had been the capital of the Christian Roman Empire since 325 AD, was under siege by Muslim armies. The siege lasted an entire year, and only the holy Patriarch was able to convince the emperor to keep up his resistance. Every day during the siege, St. Germanus led a religious procession along the battlements all along the city walls. In the procession, the faithful prayed and sang, carrying in honor a relic of the True Cross (the cross on which Jesus was crucified) and an image of the Mary, the Mother of God. “In fact,” Pope Benedict explained, “Constantinople was liberated from the besiegement. The adversaries decided to permanently let go of the idea of establishing their capital in the city that was the symbol of the Christian empire, and the appreciation for divine help was extremely great among the people” (Wednesday Catechesis, 29 April 2009). This is only one of countless examples of the power of Mary’s intercession on our behalf. Her presence, her example, her intercession – these are the three pillars of Marian devotion, the three ways in which she wants to have a role in our spiritual growth. In our next post, we’ll get practical and list a few ways to let her do that. Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC I am a convert and am struggling with the idea of praying to Mary, can you help? – Part IV
A: She has the role of helping you cling more closely to her Son, Jesus Christ – that’s what first examined, the theological underpinning of Marian devotion. And she exercises that role in three ways, as we have seen: by her presence, her example, and her intercession. Now we are ready to drill down to the practical level. What can we do, concretely, to live this Marian devotion fruitfully, to allow our mother in the order of grace to nurture, guide, and protect our spiritual growth? Here we arrive, finally, to the most obvious and familiar aspect, Marian devotions. Marian devotions are the many different ways that individual Catholics can engage in a healthy Marian devotion. The distinction between devotion and devotions is crucial. Catholics are not superstitious. We do not engage in ritual or pious practices as if they were magical formulae. Our devotions give form to our devotion, just as a birthday cake gives form to our appreciation of a loved one’s existence. Without the sincere appreciation, the cake would have no meaning. If we engage in specific Marian devotions without plugging into the deeper theological source that gives them meaning, these practices can become distractions or even temptations that actually hinder our spiritual growth. Having given that warning, we are ready to mention some common Marian devotions that, when lived rightly, allow the Blessed Virgin to fulfill her role in our pursuit of holiness. Categories of Marian Devotions The numerous Marian devotions that have arisen and flourished in the Church can be grouped into several categories. The most common and obvious category are the prayers. Praying to Mary (not worshipping her as if she were a goddess, but acknowledging her presence, admiring her example, and asking for her intercession) is the most direct and common form of Marian devotion. And among the prayers, the Rosary holds first place. Almost every pope since 1900 has written an encyclical letter encouraging Catholics to make use of this devotion. The Memorare, the Sub tuum presiduum, the Angelus, and the Regina Caeli are other favorite Marian prayers. We could write an entire post on each one, examining its meaning and its history. Many lesser known Marian prayers exist as well, especially novenas and individual prayers composed by saints and popes. These are vocal prayers (except the Rosary, which is a combination of vocal and mental prayer), and we pray them well in the same way that we pray all vocal prayers well. Another category of Marian devotions consists of Marian shrines. By making a visit or a pilgrimage to a Church-approved shrine, we can give our Marian devotion a turbo boost. Shrines are sometimes linked to Marian apparitions (e.g., Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes) or artistic/miraculous images of Mary (e.g. Our Lady of Czestochowa, Our Lady of Chiquinquira, Our Lady of Guadalupe). The history of these events, places, and images offer eloquent (and sometimes downright awe-inspiring) testimonies of Mary’s active role in leading her spiritual children closer to the Lord. Every year, they inspire and renew the hearts and minds of millions of visitors and pilgrims. On a day-to-day level, Catholics have long used household images to channel their Marian devotion. Reproductions of famous and powerful religious paintings and statues adorn living rooms, bedrooms, laundry rooms, dashboards, lockers, workshops, barber shops, restaurants, yards, road-side chapels, screen-savers, cell phone wallpaper, street corners, hospitals, prisons, and even casinos throughout the world. The mere fact of such ubiquity illustrates, to some extent, the powerful and inescapable role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of Christ’s Church. Most parish churches will also have a prominent Marian image, either close to the sanctuary or in a side chapel. Glancing at these images, or even spending a few moments now and again contemplating them or praying to Mary in front of them (this is often called “making a visit to the Blessed Virgin Mary”), allows Mary’s spiritual motherhood to work in our lives. Getting Personal For someone who has not developed a favorite form of Marian devotion, this variety of devotions may seem overwhelming. Don’t worry! None of us is called to engage in all of these devotions, though all of us are called to develop Marian devotion. The key is to find one or two devotions that help you live the devotion fruitfully. If you are at level zero, I would recommend starting to pray the Rosary, one decade every day (this Rosary booklet may be of assistance). If you are looking to deepen your devotion, you may want to arrange a mini-pilgrimage to a local Marian shrine for your family, for a group of families, or maybe even for yourself. An annual Marian pilgrimage, especially during the month of May (a month in which, traditionally, Catholics give special attention to Marian devotion), is an effective way to weave Catholic traditions into the fabric of family life. I hope these series of posts have helped answer your question and put your mind at ease about the role Mary is meant to have in our great adventure of following Christ and building his Church. But if it hasn’t, don’t worry; there’s no rush. By seeking Christ in and through his Catholic Church, you will eventually come to know, love, and feel very comfortable with the Mother of our Lord. Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC I am a convert and am struggling with the idea of praying to Mary, can you help? – Part II
A: God in his wisdom has given us a mother in the order of grace, Mary. He didn’t have to do it that way, but he chose to, and in the last post we examined, briefly, why. The liturgical feasts that honor Mary, the Mother of God, throughout the year provide us with opportunities to read, reflect, and meditate on this aspect of God’s plan of salvation. We shouldn’t expect those efforts to lead us to a complete and exhaustive understanding of Mariology (the study of Mary’s role in Redemption), but deeper insights into the role and ecclesial action of our Lord’s Mother will, surely, lead us closer to the Lord himself, and that’s our goal. Having looked briefly at the doctrinal foundation of Marian devotion, we are now prepared to give a more direct answer to your question about what that devotion is supposed to look like in practice. Mary draws us closer to Christ in three ways, the three ways that all saints draw us closer to Christ, though as Queen of all the saints (and because of her special privileges, e.g., the Immaculate Conception), Mary’s draw is objectively more powerful than theirs: 1) through her presence; 2) through her intercession; 3) through her example. We’ll take a separate post to look at each one. The Source of Mary’s Greatness The presence of the Blessed Virgin in our lives, the knowledge faith gives us that she watches over us spiritually as natural mothers watch over their children naturally, gives us a constant reminder of the most important principle of Christian living: the primacy of grace. Mary’s greatness, unlike goddesses from pagan myths, doesn’t come from her own excellence. It comes from the privileged excellence that she received from God. The Archangel Gabriel greeted her by calling her “full of grace.” It was God’s special action in her life, his grace, that preserved her from sin and prepared her to become the New Eve. She cooperated with this grace; she was docile to what God asked of her; she allowed God’s grace to penetrate and rule her life. Yet, that grace, that action of God in her life, was the real protagonist of her greatness. Mary is the first one to remind us Jesus’ sobering admonition: “I am the vine, you are the branches… Cut off from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The same grace that was at work in the Blessed Virgin Mary has been at work in all the saints, and it is at work in us. When we were baptized, we received an infusion of that same grace. Every time we pray or receive any of the other sacraments, that same grace – the active presence of God working in our souls supernaturally, from within – continues to warm and transform into our hearts and minds, as sunlight transforms a cold, shadowy cave. The Power of Mary’s Presence When we turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, therefore, her presence reminds us of the primacy and power of God’s grace, and gives a supernatural boost to our faith, hope, and confidence in God. If God’s grace performed such wonders in her, it can do the same in us. This boost of confidence is especially effective because when we turn to Mary we turn to her as our Mother. In relation to a mother, a child is always a child. In relation to Mary, we are always spiritual children. And so, her presence keeps alive in us the childlike spirit that we need in order to be docile to God’s will. It reminds us, in short, that we are not self-sufficient. In this sense, Mary’s presence is especially important for us modern American Catholics. The American way of life, marked more and more by secularism and consumerism, is turning self-sufficiency into a real idol. Much more than previous generations do we need to reminded that we are spiritual children, that without God’s grace we can do nothing. At the risk of making this post exceedingly long, here is a quotation from a speech Pope Benedict XVI gave to the bishops of the United States during his visit in the spring of 2008. Notice how much he emphasizes the importance of depending on God – the primacy of grace:
Mary’s presence keeps us humble, confident in God, and full of childlike docility and energy. In the next post we will look at the power of Mary’s intercession. Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC The problem with “Praying to Saints.”
As a Protestant, I had the same problem when examining teachings of the Catholic Church. Even after more than a decade of study, one-hundred percent of my perceptions were framed, not by understanding how the Catholic Church defined or explained its own beliefs, but by how Protestants defined and explained them. With that as a back-drop, let’s look at a common concern with the idea of “praying” to the Saints. First of all the word “prayer” was a huge stumbling block for me. It is very important for Catholics to understand that in the Protestant world, the word “prayer” is never used for any other purpose than to describe communication with God. So to hear someone was “praying” to a Saint easily sounded like sacrilege. A similarly sized challenge for the Catholic is finding alternative words to describe this preternatural conversation. No Protestant has an issue with asking a friend to pray for them. The scenario of a prayer request to an earthly friend is easily described because the exchange happens in the natural realm. For example, “I talked with Bill and asked him to pray for me.” If a Catholic were to use natural-realm language like this to describe the expression of their needs to someone beyond this life, for obvious reasons, it would sound odd and incomprehensible. The difficulty is that aside from the word “prayer” what word could one use to describe this exchange? I can’t think of one that captures the true nature of the Catholic’s supranatural supplication. So, one is then forced into either falsely defining reality for the Catholic, or, allowing them to define what they mean by what they say. An honest inquiry reveals that the phrase “prayer to” as defined by Catholicism in this context, can be accurately translated like this, “I sought to engage Saint Catherine to intercede on my behalf.” Now, any reasonable person would find this an odd and circumlocutious utterance. Instead, a Catholic achieves the same meaning from the efficient expression, “I prayed to Saint Catherine.” To a Catholic this does not mean that Saint Catherine, any more than Bill in the example above, takes the place of God. What it does mean is that Saint Catherine loves God, is a sister in Christ, cares about the person, and will likely intercede for them effectively. No more, no less. So, if we accept a purely Protestant definition of a contextually Catholic use of a word or phrase, we end up with a contrived psuedosacrilege. If we use a Catholic definition in a Catholic context, we end up with something quite reasonable and biblically sound. Unfortunately, the errant interpretive method outlined above is very common to Protestant evaluations of Catholic doctrine. This disappointing approach is unworthy of the often helpful perspectives Protestants bring to doctrinal discourse on important issues in the Christian life. Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him Dan I am a convert and am struggling with the idea of praying to Mary, can you help? – Part I
A: This is a great question for the month of August, with the Solemnity of Mary’s Assumption right around the corner. As a fellow convert, I think I know what you mean. Marian devotion (this refers to what you mention about the “role she is supposed to have in my pursuit of holiness”) flows from Marian doctrine, from what the Church teaches about Mary’s role in God’s plan of salvation. The core of that doctrine is, as you can imagine, Jesus Christ. Mary is important because Jesus is important. Let’s take a look at the doctrinal issue before we move into specifics of Marian devotion. Avoiding Exaggerations Non-Catholic Christians often accuse Catholics of idolizing the Blessed Virgin Mary, of treating her like a goddess instead of a creation of God. Undoubtedly, some Catholics have had, and still have, an exaggerated devotion to Mary. But the Church’s official teaching has consistently steered clear of exaggeration. The Second Vatican Council points out that devotion to Mary “as it has always existed in the Church, for all its uniqueness, differs essentially from the cult of adoration,” (Lumen Gentium, 66) which is offered to God alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other words, Catholics don’t worship Mary; we worship God. Anyone worshiping Mary, treating her as if she were divine, would not be following Catholic practice. Most Catholics in modern America, however, tend to exaggerate Marian devotion in the other direction: giving it too little attention instead of too much. Vatican II also pointed this out, when it warned theologians and preachers to “refrain as much from all false exaggeration as from too summary an attitude in considering the special dignity of the Mother of God” (Lumen Gentium, 67). Mary’s Unique Role: God’s Choice Mary is not just another run-of-the-mill Christian. She was not just some kind of surrogate mother that God rented out for nine months and then forgot about. Not at all. God could have chosen to send us a Savior in a thousand different ways. He could have sent him to earth on a chariot of fire descending from the night sky, or formed him from the dust of the ground as he had formed Adam. He could have. But he didn’t. He chose to come to us, to bring us eternal life, to redeem the fallen world, through a woman. He chose to be incarnate, to become a zygote, an embryo, a fetus and a baby in a mother’s womb. That fact, recorded in the Gospels, is the secret to understanding everything that the Church teaches about the Mary: God chose to send Christ into the world through Mary’s free and conscious collaboration. He didn’t have to, he chose to. And all of Mary’s special privileges – her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption into heaven, and her perpetual virginity – flow from that choice. Christ Stays at the Center But why did God choose to send us our Savior in this way? The Church points to a certain appropriateness in having a woman, a mother, collaborate so closely in the redemption of the world. After all, the original plan of God for mankind was disrupted through the disobedience of both Adam and Eve: together they had been entrusted with a mission that together they messed up. It is fitting, then, that Christ, the new Adam, should involve Mary, the new Eve, so intricately in his plan of redemption. As St. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, put it, “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience.” The Second Vatican Council puts it beautifully when describing the angel’s annunciation to the Virgin Mary: “The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in bringing about death, so also a woman should contribute to life” (Lumen Gentium, 56). When we were baptized, we became Christ’s brothers and sisters, as well as members of his body (the Church), and so Mary’s maternal care for Christ was extended to us as well. Responding to that care, accepting it and utilizing it to help us follow Christ more closely, is the heart of Marian devotion. The proud and self-willed child wants to do everything himself; the humble and wise child allows his mother to teach, guide, and inspire him. Mary wants to do that for us in three ways. We will look at them one-by-one in the next post. Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC |
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Q: Father John, I am a convert to the Catholic faith, and I still have difficulties with Mary. Don’t get me wrong – I believe all the dogma and doctrine fully, but when it comes to praying to Mary, I don’t seem to get it. What role is she supposed to have in my pursuit of holiness and spiritual growth?
At one time in my life I viewed Christians as shallow people blindly following silly rules. As I was to discover, these perceptions were not only wrong, they were worlds away from reality. The root cause of my misperception was my confident ignorance. Until I allowed Christians to speak to me and define their faith in their words, I was unable to get anywhere near the truth.
Q: Father John, I am a convert to the Catholic faith, and I still have difficulties with Mary. Don’t get me wrong – I believe all the dogma and doctrine fully, but when it comes to praying to Mary, I don’t seem to get it. What role is she supposed to have in my pursuit of holiness and spiritual growth?
