ASK WITH FATHER TIM - EP 3
HOW DOES PRAYING THROUGH MARY AND THE SAINTS WORK?
In this Easter season all throughout the 50 days, from the resurrection to the Pentecost, in the mass, we listened to the Book of Acts, the acts of the apostles, written by Saint Lucas, a follow up to his gospel.
And whereas his gospel told about the life of Jesus, from birth until death, resurrection and ascension, Acts picks it up with the apostles to whom Jesus passed the baton when he said, go out to all the world and make disciples of all nations. It talks about the first 30 years of the faith, and the triumphs and the tribulations experienced by the apostles as they went out to spread the good news that God, through His Son Jesus Christ, has conquered sin, Satan, and death.
What's interesting is that during most of that time, there was not a New Testament. How then were people learning about the faith if they did not have the New Testament to be able to refer to?
In the Catholic Church, we believe that there are Scripture and Tradition; two sources of truth.
The Hebrew Scriptures were written over the course of a thousand years before the coming of Christ. The New Testament was really written over the course of about 50 years, but none of it was written until more than 20 years after Jesus died and rose from the dead. With that being the case, then the apostles relied on telling the stories of Jesus under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God kept those stories from becoming fables or tall tales, like the fish that you catch that's this big. And then all of a sudden you tell it ten times later and it's grown four times its size.
But then eventually, as people began to pass away, including the apostles themselves who were being martyred, the early Christians who were so intent that Jesus Christ, who had ascended into heaven, was coming back, soon began to realize, well, maybe that's going to happen in God's lifetime, but not in my lifetime.
And they needed to start writing these things down for posterity, to preserve these truths for future generations. Once again, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who is the true author of Scripture. The problem, of course, for centuries was there was no printing press, and most people were not literate anyway. They had no books and they could not read. The printing press didn't come for another thousand years. And thus it was that the church relied on preaching on statues, on pictures, on stained glass windows that show us holy scenes that depict the truths of our faith. But I want to return to something I said earlier about Scripture and Tradition.
There are things that we believe as Catholics that are not recorded in Scripture, but they are part of Sacred Tradition.
It is the central Christian mystery, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to believe in the Trinity. And yet you will not find the word Trinity anywhere in the Bible. That's something that is given to us from Tertullian, one of the Church Fathers, and thus is ascribed to tradition rather than Scripture. And for us it's both and not either or, and the two together form two firm pillars on which the church stands. Think of yourself. If you stand on one leg, you won't be standing for very long. But if you stand on two legs, then you have a firm foundation, and even a strong wind would have trouble blowing you down.
In the case of the Blessed Mother, what do we believe of Mary? In Luke chapter one, verse 28, when Gabriel first appears to the Blessed Mother at the grotto at Nazareth, he refers to her as one who is full of grace. We only hear that one other time in the whole Bible, and that goes back to Saint Luke's Book of acts, when he refers to Stephen, the Deacon, who would go on to be the first martyr for the Christian faith, stoned to death by Saul of Tarsus, who go on to become Paul the Apostle. Stephen, just before his passion was determined to be full of grace.
With regard to the Blessed Mother. We believe that means that she was without sin. Protestants, however, will challenge this Catholic belief by quoting to us Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter three, verse 23, where Paul said, all have sinned and fallen short to the glory of God. Well, I might say that all drivers are bad drivers, but I don't mean everyone, and I'm probably not even including myself. I'm using all as an overarching, hyperbolic, exaggerated phrase that expresses my frustration that there are not more good drivers to say that all have sinned. Paul certainly was a sinner. He admitted that freely and frequently I'm a sinner, but I truly believe there are some people out there who may actually not be sitting. There are some people out there who are living real lives of holiness.
In the question, we also heard that Mary, when she sings her Magnificat, her hymn of praise, rejoicing in the favor God has shown her and making her the mother of his son, the mother of God, the mother of the church. Yeah, she says, God is my Savior. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
Well, we believe that Mary was saved by God, but that she was saved before her conception. God chose her for that task. There's just no way that sinful flesh could contain what is pure God. Pure, immaculate, the fully human, fully divine Son of God. So God did indeed save Mary. He just did it in a different way than he did for the rest of us, by saving her from before conception in order to be that first tabernacle, that first monstrance in which the only begotten sons flesh would be placed.
When it comes to Scripture and Tradition, we go even beyond the apostles to what we call the age of the Church Fathers.
In the first century, as the apostles were all martyred, with the exception of Saint John the Beloved Disciple, the only one who lived to a ripe old age. Once again, as Jesus pass the baton to the apostles, the apostles pass the baton to the fathers of the church.
And one of them a great example is Justin. We call him Justin Martyr. That was not his last name. That's how he died for the faith in the middle of the second century. And he was very ambitious, even trying to convert the Roman Emperor himself to bring an end to the persecutions. And Justin Martyr, along with many other church Fathers, spoke of Mary before and after the birth of Jesus as the Virgin.
The fathers of the church believed that Mary was a virgin, also echoing and emphasizing the fact that we believe that she was ever virgin, conceived without sin, never sinned. Now it comes to the question, what are we doing? Are we praying to Mary? Are we praying through Mary? Are we worshiping Mary? Mary could not be worshiped. God alone can be worshiped. But that's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He is a Trinity of persons, one God and three persons. We worship God when it comes to Mary. We venerate her because Jesus did. He showed great honor to his mother, and that can be reflected in history. As we look at any monarchy where you had a king, there was also a seat of honor for the Queen mother.
The mother of the king is also shown special favor, but she could not rule like the king did. She might intercede on the people's behalf, taking the request to the king, but he alone had the power to grant those requests. The same is true in this relationship of Jesus, who is the king of kings, and Mary, who we believe to be the Queen mother, to follow that example. In that case, then we are not praying to Mary. We're asking Mary to pray for us. If you think of the Rosary prayer when we say the Hail Mary, which quotes scripture heavily in the first half, what is the second half? Say Holy Mary, Mother of God, we believe that Jesus is God. Mary is the mother of God. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
The mother of the king is also shown special favor, but she could not rule like the king did. She might intercede on the people's behalf, taking the request to the king, but he alone had the power to grant those requests. The same is true in this relationship of Jesus, who is the king of kings, and Mary, who we believe to be the Queen mother, to follow that example. In that case, then we are not praying to Mary. We're asking Mary to pray for us. If you think of the Rosary prayer when we say the Hail Mary, which quotes scripture heavily in the first half, what is the second half? Say Holy Mary, Mother of God, we believe that Jesus is God. Mary is the mother of God. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Rather than praying to her, we're asking her to pray for us. And you'll say, well, how can we do that? Well, this is the Easter season, we don't believe that we are part of a church, of the living, of the dead.
We're part of a Church of the living and the risen. We call it a Communion of Saints.
We believe that Mary is alive. Jesus is alive, and we can live after death thanks to him. So then why would we just want other people to pray for us? If we could ask some people that are even closer to God to pray for us also, much like when someone is sick or you're not feeling well and you ask someone else, pray for them. Pray for me. We believe that that helps more than just me saying the prayer by myself. Why would we not turn to our friends in high places to join their prayers to ours? Throughout the centuries, there has been an old Latin phrase to describe this relationship of Catholic Christians to the Blessed Mother, and it says odd. Compare Miriam to Jesus through Mary we're only going to worship God.
We're all going to pray to God, father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But we're going to ask the Blessed Mother to pray for us when it comes to other saints who are patrons of various things. Saint Jude and Saint Rita, who are patron of lost causes, the most popular one is probably Saint Anthony, the patron of lost objects.
Let's remind ourselves we're not praying to them. We're asking their intercession. We're asking them to pray for us. We're asking them who were once sinners like us, who were now with God around the throne of the lamb, to help us to do small things with great love. Help us to live like them. Love like that. Believe like them. Trust like them. Have the faith that they did so that we too can become saints, that God has given us these heavenly helpers.
But if anyone is ever going to be healed of anything, if someone is going to be, subject to a miraculous healing of an illness or freed from some vise in their life, it's going to be God who accomplishes that task, and we hope it will be with the help of the saints.
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