A response to a common protestant argument.
A response to a common protestant argument.
My response to a “discussion” on social media:
Many protestants make a terribly mistaken assumption when they claim that "Prayer is worship. It is a supplication made to a perceived higher spiritual authority. The act of prayer itself is an implicit confession of divinity since it presumes (i) Omnipresence; (ii) Omniscience; (iii) sufficient divine power to grant the requested plea."
Prayer is in no way "worship". I can see that, somehow, to some protestants that is the assumption, as they do not want to even APPEAR to be worshipping anyone but God alone.
How can the Blessed Virgin and the saints in heaven hear our prayers? Only by the grace and power of God almighty!
Mary and the saints are closest to God. He hears their prayers for us, as they are so close to Him, even as we live here on earth. Mary, though a mere creature, is still the very Mother of God, the Mother of her Creator. How can that be? Because God gave Mary alone the power to produce a human body for the Second Person of the Holy Trinity ... thus she is "the Mother of God". (That title has been very important to me even before my conversion to the Catholic Church three decades ago, as it affirms Jesus' divinity.) We get hints of how Mary's will was perfectly conformed to God's Will when we read the Gospel according to St. Luke. God assumed Mary's body into heaven so that, as Queen Mother to her Son the King, she could be as close to Him as she was when He was a newborn infant.
To paraphrase St. Louis de Montfort’s work "True Devotion to Mary": Mary, being a mere creature is less than an atom, in fact she is, compared to God Almighty, basically nothing at all, because only God is the holy “I am."
The great saint also explains that: "God the Father gave Mary the power to produce a human body, through the power of the Holy Ghost, for the the Father’s only begotten Son. In Mary’s womb He would “work in secret the marvels of His grace”. We give greater glory to God and please Him when we follow Jesus’ example of submitting ourselves to her. (I wish I had the copyright approval to quote St. Louis, as he is so eloquent here. I encourage everyone to get a copy of True Devotion to Mary.)
If you peak outside of Sacred Scripture into all that God has revealed through His Church and His saints you begin to find answers. The person I was corresponding with insisted that “saints” are only those Christians still alive on earth, and that the dead cannot hear our prayers. Once again on the Internet I had to explain that there are two "kinds" of saints, so to speak: the saints here on earth (the Church Militant) and the Saints who have gone before us and are now so very close to God Almighty and are only waiting for the resurrection of their bodies.
I gravitate to Catholic sites, but so do many protestants. Some go there for a good reason: they are convinced that Catholics are in danger of losing their souls and go to push anything learned from Sola Scriptura. Others seem to be there only to argue and insult Christ and His Spotless Bride, The Catholic Church.