Category: SaintsA prayer of preparation for Advent…
O sweetest Jesus, You come to me with Your infinite love and the abundance of Your grace; You desire to engulf my soul in torrents of mercy and charity in order to draw it to You. Come, O Lord, come! I, too, wish to run to You with love, but alas! my love is so limited, weak, and imperfect! Make it strong and generous; enable me to overcome myself, so that I can give myself entirely to You. St. Teresa of Avila The Way of Perfection, 40 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 |
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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.
