Cases of aberrant devotions to Mary in the Roman Church

I think the usual Ronan retort to this question is “well why did Jesus bother to be born of a woman? Why not just materialize out of thin air? Surely he could have if he wanted to.”

 

I don't think anyone knows. BTW, I also don't think it was His call.

 

I can think of 10,000 reasons that don't require Mary to follow as Mediatrix, but the obvious answer is so the prophecy of Isaiah would be fulfilled, so we could believe the Christ was not an imposter.

 

Yeah, the whole thing is a bit convoluted. If Jesus is the one Mediator, why does he need a Mediatrix? I think maybe she is there for people who can't relate to male authority figures and need a Mother/Goddess figure instead? Otherwise, why not just direct from the source?

 

I can't see it makes much difference who in heaven we speak to in prayer, it is only God the Holy Trinity who will grant our requests, no one else. Jesus Christ taught us to pray to The Father and prayed to his Father himself, so that's good enough instruction and example for me.
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I don’t think Jesus “needs” do do any of it, but he desires all his creation to be reconciled to him, so perhaps he gives us more help and avenues (outside the needles eye) than we can possibly ever use, or even make sense of.

 

Jesus is God the Son. In a sense it was His call, and in a sense He was fulfilling His role as the obedient son of God the Father. This gets into some deep theological stuff, doesn't it!

 

I tend to view it from a slightly different angle; I think it can (potentially) make a substantial difference who we pray to. What I mean is, I think a fair number of RCs ask Mary in prayer to help them. This is not exactly the same as asking Mary to ask Jesus for the help. In other words, if they are looking to Mary as a source and a provider, they are missing it.

Of course, the scripture you referenced is the exact same point I would want to make to anyone who wasn't certain whom to address: we are taught in scripture to ask God. Another scripture in support of this concept is the prayer Jesus taught to us: "Our Father...give us this day our daily bread..." Jesus never taught the disciples to pray, "Hail Mary, give us this day our daily bread." But if someone prays, "Mary, please entreat with Jesus on my behalf for this need," God is glorified.

 

Isn't John 14:6 a little relevant here as well?

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So when we start using Mary or saints to get to the Father, doesn't it become a little bit of a roundabout way? I mean, no one come to the Father unless they go through Jesus anyway. so if we pray to Mary or a saint, then they have to turn to Jesus to get to the Father. And then Jesus tells us to pray directly to the Father in the Lord's Prayer. Just saying . . .

I am not a fan of praying to anyone except the Father through Jesus.

 

jesus is the only medeator but we can ask mary and the saints to pray for us

 

Are you suggesting that going through the Messiah directly is less effective than going through Mary and the saints?

 

no im saying they can intercede on our behalf

 

But why if it isn't more effective?

 

But how will they hear us?... proponents of prayers to the saints assume that the saints are kind of like mini-gods, who are everywhere present, able to hear everything and anything... But they're nothing like this, they don't have supernatural hearing, and cannot hear anyone in the natural world

 

Besides, if they are in heaven, and even if they could, why would they want to be bothered with listening to the prayers of people on earth? Heaven is supposed to be some kind of reward, eternally peaceful or happy or whatever.

But the statement above says it all anyway - they are just holy people, not gods. So the only reason ever to pray 'through' them is because for some reason a person can't relate to God through Jesus - and therein lies the problem since that is the only way to the Father.

 

who ever follows jesus will never die and the bilble says that the dead have some idea of what happens on earth

 

asking the saints to pray for us is like asking some who is more pious to pray for us it says in the bible that god hears the prayers of someone that pleases him

 

So you're changing your "no" in post #112 to "yes".

 

Yes God will hear the prayers of the saints, but how will -the saints- hear our prayers?

 

because saints know whats happaning on earth