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And praying to is worship.
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication.
Dictionary;address a solemn request or expression of thanks to a deity or other object of worship.
Mary is the mother of Jesus according to Catholic tradition.
After attending Catholic schools for 12 years I guess I could talk on it from a Catholic perspective.
Mary is definitely venerated, albeit not necessarily "worshiped"..... we pray to Mary to "intercede" for us when it comes to "god." The Virgin Mary is just another access point to god..... She can essentially act on our behalf. . . . Because she's the mother of Jesus, she's got a lot of clout up in heaven lol. . So She's higher up the ranks than a saint, but certainly not God...or Jesus. .
Catholics will pray to Mary so that Mary can send your message on to God.... Mary can be your advocate....or advocate for you.
I would be eternally grateful to the disciple but I would give Glory to God. We do the same with Mary. I really don't know why this is so hard to understand.
Protestantism will always have a very difficult time with this because praying to saints and Mary has all of the same properties as worship of gods. Consider for a moment that every pantheon of pagan gods you can think of has one single ultimate leader of all of the gods. Whether that is Zeus or Odin or Brahman or Jupiter or El or Perun or whatever, most pantheons of the world are strikingly similar. There is one supreme god and an every-growing group of lesser gods. A Greek offering up a prayer to Poseidon for a safe sea-voyage did not mean that they considered Poseidon to have taken Zeus' place as supreme god. It doesn't mean that Zeus is any less supremely powerful. Poseidon is the guy you talk to about sea/ocean related stuff, that's all. He realizes that Poseidon is limited and lesser than Zeus.
That is strikingly similar to Catholic behavior towards saints. A Catholic college student praying to St. Justin the Philosopher for help taking a difficult test isn't much different from the example of the ancient Greek praying to Poseidon. The student isn't putting St Justin on the same level as God, just as the Greek isn't putting Poseidon on the same level as Zeus. The only difference that I can see is that Catholics refuse to call it worship when they pray to saints. They don't call saints gods. But they most certainly treat them exactly like ancient pagans treated their lesser gods.
As far as I'm concerned, while I personally disagree with it, that doesn't matter much. Christianity is so diverse that it's unlikely for any religion to get things 100% right, isn't it? How would any one religion have all the right answers anyways? Only direct revelation from God can get you there and there's precious little of that in this day and age.
Protestantism will always have a very difficult time with this because praying to saints and Mary has all of the same properties as worship of gods. Consider for a moment that every pantheon of pagan gods you can think of has one single ultimate leader of all of the gods. Whether that is Zeus or Odin or Brahman or Jupiter or El or Perun or whatever, most pantheons of the world are strikingly similar. There is one supreme god and an every-growing group of lesser gods. A Greek offering up a prayer to Poseidon for a safe sea-voyage did not mean that they considered Poseidon to have taken Zeus' place as supreme god. It doesn't mean that Zeus is any less supremely powerful. Poseidon is the guy you talk to about sea/ocean related stuff, that's all. He realizes that Poseidon is limited and lesser than Zeus.
That is strikingly similar to Catholic behavior towards saints. A Catholic college student praying to St. Justin the Philosopher for help taking a difficult test isn't much different from the example of the ancient Greek praying to Poseidon. The student isn't putting St Justin on the same level as God, just as the Greek isn't putting Poseidon on the same level as Zeus. The only difference that I can see is that Catholics refuse to call it worship when they pray to saints. They don't call saints gods. But they most certainly treat them exactly like ancient pagans treated their lesser gods.
As far as I'm concerned, while I personally disagree with it, that doesn't matter much. Christianity is so diverse that it's unlikely for any religion to get things 100% right, isn't it? How would any one religion have all the right answers anyways? Only direct revelation from God can get you there and there's precious little of that in this day and age.
Well praying to saints and to Mary is not mandatory. Those who want to can do it and it makes a lot of people happy, so why not?
The children at Fatima were told by Mary to pray the rosary for the conversion of Russia. It sure doesn't hurt if Mary wants to help us here on earth. The rosary if a powerful prayer. Makes Satan run and hide. Satan knows how powerful the saints and Mary are, after all, they have make it to heaven and that is the last thing he wants humans to do.
And praying to is worship.
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication.
Dictionary;address a solemn request or expression of thanks to a deity or other object of worship.
Some prayer is "worship". Many prayers are just conversation with God, or his saints.
Only God can hear our prayers. The dead are not omniscient or omnipresent, just as the angels can not even hear our prayers.
What about your guardian Angel? If saints can't hear our prayers than what about miracles from praying to saints? Many medical cures were obtained by asking a saint to intervene. The doctors can't explain them.
The church teaches very strongly against doing such a thing. Pointing the finger to Catholics and saying they rank Mary as high as Jesus is a quick emotional accuse. If you're going to disagree with the church at least know what you are disagreeing with.
I wasn't pointing the finger. Again, here we go again. My point, regardless of one being what ever Christian religion the person belongs to, it's flat out wrong to leap frog over Jesus and put Mary, one's religion, or one's good deeds over what JEsus has done for all of us. So again, my point is all about giving credit to where credit iS due, and that only goes to MY LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
I wasn't pointing the finger. Again, here we go again. My point, regardless of one being what ever Christian religion the person belongs to, it's flat out wrong to leap frog over Jesus and put Mary, one's religion, or one's good deeds over what JEsus has done for all of us. So again, my point is all about giving credit to where credit iS due, and that only goes to MY LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
You are absolutely right and that is what we are doing. I am in violent agreement with you.
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