Marian Worship???

As the month of May is dedicated to Mary, our Blessed Mother, I write this to just skim the surface of Mariology. There has been so much written and spoken on this subject. Each of these paragraphs do not justify the deep richness of the Church’s teaching on Mary, but I hope they are a starting point to make aware of the importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary in our Salvation history.

Do Catholics worship Mary? As a Catholic myself, I’ve been asked this question. It is a great misunderstanding on the part of those who do not comprehend the honor that the Catholic Church gives to Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Catholic Church does not worship or adore Mary, but venerates and honors her because God chose her to be the Mother of our Lord.

With the ancient prayer of the ‘Hail Mary’ prayed in the rosary and other devotionals, we honor Mary. We do not honor her for what she did on her own but what God did through her. It is her ‘YES’ (Be it done unto me according to thy word…Luke 1:38) to God’s plan in salvation history that makes her holy. In any of us, it is the same response of ‘YES’ to what God wants to do in and through us that makes us holy. It is her ‘YES’ to cooperate with God the Father to bring salvation into the world by means of giving birth to the God-Man, Jesus, to all of us, past, present and future.

The angel Gabriel appeared to a virgin from Nazareth, named Mary. In the salutation of the angel, we read in Luke 1:28, “Hail Mary, full of grace.” This wording loses its fullest sense in the English translation. The real interpretation is, “Hail full of grace.” Gabriel is not saluting her by her name but by the essence found within her. Gabriel is substituting her name with what Mary truly is…’Full of grace!’ The Church teaches that grace is the life of God Himself, and Mary was full of this divine life, leaving no room for sin because sin and God are incompatible.

“The Lord is with thee.” This too is a biblical revelation given to Mary by the angel Gabriel. (See Luke 1:28) When it is written in Scripture that the Lord is ‘with’ someone, there is usually a special task at hand that God wants to accomplish through them. The task which was given to this Jewish teenager was that of greatest importance and meaning. To bare the Son of God!

“Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” These words are spoken by Mary’s kinswoman, Elizabeth (see Luke 1:42) We, as Catholics, should always follow in the spoken words of Elizabeth and not be afraid to call Mary ‘Blessed’. God made her ‘Blessed amongst all women.” In Luke 1:48, Mary proclaims her Magnificat…”Henceforth all generations will call me blessed.” To this day the Church has always kept the words of Elizabeth and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Blessed also is her womb, who carried Jesus for nine months. Mary was like the Ark of the Covenant of the Old Testament which bore the Presence of God. Inside the Ark contained the Word of God in stone (the Ten Commandments), inside Mary was the Word of God in flesh (John 1:14,”…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”)

“Holy Mary, Mother of God.” The Church has always called Mary, Mother of God. Clearly defining the Dogma at the Council of Ephesus, as early as 431. In Luke 1:43 Elizabeth tells us who is in the womb of Mary, “and why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” This declaration does not mean Mary is older than God, it states that Mary is to give birth to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus, the Son of God. God is eternal and has no age. Since Jesus is God and Mary gave birth to Him, it then follows that she IS the Mother of God (Theotokos).

“Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” ‘Please pray for me,’ is used by every Christian to their fellow Christians in time of need or sickness. If Christians on earth can pray for another, then Mary, being ‘Alive’ in heaven and being the Mother of God, can surely plead our petitions to her Son in heaven. St. James tells us that “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16). If anyone is righteous, it is the one who said ‘YES’ to God and gave her life in service to the Son of God, she who we call the Blessed Virgin Mary.

As Catholics and all Christians for that matter, let us not be afraid to invoke Mary, the Mother of God (as well as our Mother), as the Church has called upon her since the first century. As Mary gave Jesus to the world over 2000 years ago, let us give OUR ‘YES’ to God and bring forth Jesus to our world, in imitation of Our Blessed Mother, Mary!