why do Catholics worship mary and do the saint thing when...?

Question

...Jesus said 'no one may pray to the father but by me'.
i read up on the catholic denomination and i found out that they use saints as a link to heaven. that's wrong! and worshiping mary is wrong too! mary was a sinner and she was a mortal. she is blessed becuz she was chosen but that doesn't make her the 'mother of God'. i don't care what the reason behind that is. no disrepect meant, it's just that the catholic denomination is filled with misinterpretaions of the bible. you don't need a link to heaven, your link is praying directly to God! praising mary and the saints is idol worship!

adolfo m...then why is there a need for the 'hail mary' if catholics to worship her. i've heard the words the the 'hail mary' and it sounds more like a worship prayer, besides its a prayer. you should only be praying to the trinity.

judit r...no i'm way past 14, i'm over 18 now. and yes i do know my facts.

Answer 1

Catholics share the belief in the Communion of Saints with many other Christians, including the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopal, and Methodist Churches.

The Communion of Saints is the belief where all saints are intimately related in the Body of Christ, a family. When you die and go to heaven, you do not leave this family.

Everyone in heaven or on their way to heaven are saints. You, me, my deceased grandmother, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mother Teresa.

As part of this family, you may ask your family and friends here on earth to pray for you. Or you may also ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew, or your deceased grandmother in heaven to pray for you.

Prayer to saints is communication, not worship.

The Hail Mary prayer simply recites Bible passages (the Word of God) and asks Mary to pray for us:

Hail Mary Full of grace, the Lord is with you. (These are the words the angel Gabriel said to Mary, a Bible quote.)

Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. (This is Mary's cousin Elizabeth's greeting, another bible quote.)

Holy Mary, (The angel Gabriel said she was full of grace and Elizabeth said she was blessed.)

Mother of God, (the Bible says Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, God the Son)

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. (A simple request to pray for us.)

Amen.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

ok that is me in my opinion, and that i'm not a Protestant, those are the arguments I have heard contained in the previous. the way Mary is addressed contained in the church in both prayer and absolution looks to placed her between the international of guy and heaven. An party being even as one recites Hail Mary, it will be interpenetrated that the guy putting forward that is calling Mary for forgiveness. hence making her look like the deity. as far because the saints flow, many people question the reason behind them in the journey that they don't look worshiped. There are consumer saints for virtually each and every church/daily try of existence. again searching from the exterior in, apparently as if the saints are deity because people do "pray" to them to boot. Now me, i imagine in case you analyze any faith lengthy sufficient you're sure to locate holes. You worship in the way you experience presented about and enable that be the end of it. besides, i desire that this allows some.

Answer 3

I am presently not Catholic; but apparently from the comments in the above question; you have not made the 'jump' up to the '2 or more witnesses' (Matt. 18:16) level. While I can not speak for all of them, the 'praying to Mary' is not worship but respect.

Answer 4

Well it's already been said, but I'll point it out again. Catholics do not worship Mary or the saints. It is honoring because they were good examples, not worshipping. Asking them to intercede is done by asking them to pray for you, much the same as a protestant might ask a friend to pray for him/her.

Answer 5

I agree with you completely. There are many things in Catholicism that disturb me. The basic teachings of Catholicism removes the sufficiency of Christ. Praying to Mary and saints suggests that alone Christ is incapable of the very reason He came here, to have victory over sin and make a way for us to spend eternity in heaven with He and the Father.
I was raised Catholic but am now of no denomination. Not to say that I am not Christian, I follow the Word not a religion. I am defined by Christ not a religion.

Answer 6

That is one of the greatest missunderstandings. neither catholics nor orthodox Nor maronites or Assyrians, or any ancient church has ever worshipped mary or any Saint. Mary is HONORED! And the Saints are set as example of a Christian and Holy life for us all to follow, to look up to, to be a role model in our perfectioning towards God. If you think that catholics stress too much the "image" aspect, you haven't seen nothing. Orthodoxes and assyrians really stress this aspect much more than we do. But anyway, the image of a Saint has no more sacredness than the picture of your mom in your wallet or the statue of Lincoln in Washington DC. It seems funny to me that those who criticize the Church for having images of Saints are those who do the same they criticize towards secular figures and heroes.

We do not worship mary, not the Saints...we honor them.
Let me put it this way...do you admire Billy graham? or Martin Luther King? aren't they wexamples of a good christian life to be emulated? is the same with Saints, that is all there is to it, although I must admit there are many catholics who mistakenly end up praying to the saint for favors, and that is not what it;s suposed to be.

And how can Christians totally ignore mary and not set her up as an example? that's impossible. Mary is a model of obedience to God and a model of Sanctity. how can you say you love Christ and you despise his mother?

Truth is what is, and truth must be spoken.

Saints are a "link" to heaven, as you say, not because they will grant it to us, but because we by following their example can become more holy in our lives and manifest more strongly the grace received by God, to whom we only worship

Worship god alone, period.

Answer 7

It is a slippery slope. I have asked people how they are communicating with a saint when they ask them to interceed. It gets all messy as they are communicating with those who are dead here on earth but who are alive to God. I think it ultimately comes down to the issue of 'why would one ask a (dead) saint to pray for them when that person could go directly to God or ask a lliving friend to interceed?' It is all very bizare.

Answer 8

Catholics do not WORSHIP Mary or the saints. We ask them for help, to intercede.

Praising Mary and the saints is not idol worship. And the Catholic church isn't filled with 'misinterpretations'.

Answer 9

Catholics dont realize and make the connection that if you believe mary was sinless and trying to "pray through her" then youre basically deifying her which is breaking the 1st commandment of not following other gods.

Jesus never said "I and my earthly mother are 1" he said "I and the Heavenly Father are 1." They are a victim of their own poor philosophy in believing that church tradition is equal to Scripture in authority.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. -Collosians 2:6-8

Answer 10

If you ever become Catholic, we'll explain it all to you.

For now though, you must continue to suffer in ignorance, because you chose to put your faith in a book, instead of the universal church of the risen Christ.

Oh yeah ... no disrespect meant.