Why pray to Mary- Catholic respones only!!!

I do not want this to be a debate, nor will I participate in a debate. If someone comments and is trying to get a debate started, please do not respond. I am sincere in my two questions, though the responses may inspire more.

1. Why do Catholics pray to Mary, and what is the biblical reasoning behind it?

2. Does baptizing a baby make them go to heaven. How and why if it does. Also please give the biblical foundation for baptizing a baby.

Thanks, I imagine this topic has been covered, but I want a simple answer not 40 pages of arguing to wade through.

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"But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."Hebrews 3:13

Haha, I totally understand I hate wading through 40 pages to try to make sure you don't rehash old arguments. So lets get started...

First I won't cover both topics, because they are both very large topics, and trying to cover them both in one thread will eventually get confusing.

So lets start by approaching the question of Mary. I'm going to approach this from a broader angle by very quickly and very briefly talking about the saints, as this fits in the picture, Mary is simply the most well known and most venerated Saints.

Catholics believe that when you die and you go to heaven, you are not dead, but alive in Spirit through Christ our Lord. As most other Christians believe this, with a few groups, such as Seventh Day Adventists, dissenting this point I will not take the time right now to site Scripture on this specific point in this thread.

So since these individuals who are in Heaven with Jesus they are still very much a part of the Church, as they were before they entered into eternal life, as they are still members of the Bride of Christ. For Catholics, we believe that as members of the Church they still are very much concerned with the entirety of the Bride of Christ, which includes those who are still here in this life.

This means that these Saints in Heaven are still concerned with us saints here, just as our other brothers and sisters in Christ are concerned with our well being. How they manifest this love for their brothers and sisters is one of the exact ways that we Christians on Earth show our love, (or at least we should) is by praying. One of the most common prayers to any saint, including Mary, is simply saying "St. (name), pray for us."

Now is the point where you may be saying, "Well that sounds nice, but whats the point? Why not just go directly to God?" This is a valid question, and it is one that I personally have asked at another point in my life. So we will go into that.

Throughout his epistles St. Paul talks about the importance of praying for one another, and at many points asks the communities or individuals he is writing to pray for him. Why? Why can't he simply pray to Jesus Himself? God heard his prayers just as well as He would hear the prayers of others.

Now one might answer, well it is simply to bring the community together, by praying for each other we grow to develop greater care for our brothers and sisters. This is indeed part of it, but to this I pray, why are our brothers and sisters in heaven not a part of this? Why should we not wish to grow closer to our brothers and sisters who went before us?

Like I said that is only a part of it. The other part is shown in the letter of St. James:

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (James 5:16)

The Saints are men and women who have been deemed to have been righteous, and according to James their prayer is powerful and effective. This is why we Catholics pray to any Saint, including Mary, we believe that the prayer of those righteous men and women who came before us is powerful and effective.

Sorry this is so long, but trust me this is a very deep and complex subject, and there are many topics I wanted to discuss, but did not because to be exhaustive on this subject would take me hours that I do not have at the moment. Hopefully this helps though.

Peace of Christ.

Than you very much Alphonsus! I truly appreciate the time you put into your response and the way simplicity in which you stated it. My curiosity is satisfied on that matter and I will also remember you in my prayers tonight If anyone would like to answer the other question in a simple fashion like Alphonsus did, it would help me grow in my knowledge of the other parts of the Body of Christ. I appreciate and want to fellowship with all who desire to seek after the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength!

God Bless,
Jeremy

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"But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."Hebrews 3:13

I'm a convert to Catholicism. As an Evangelical, we didn't really talk about saints. I mean, like everybody knows who St. Francis was but he's mostly just a statue in people's gardens.

Later, I became an Anglican and I learned about many saints, Anglicans use the same basic calendar of saints that Catholics and Lutherans do. But Anglicans only recognize as saints those prior to the split, so the old saints from before 1500 (though they recognize more modern people, they're sort of in a different category). Anglicans celebrate feast days for saints (usually the day of their birthday into Heaven, i.e. their death) and have official prayers (collects) for those days but they pray to God directly, thanking Him for the work he did through the saint. Privately, some Anglicans choose to pray to saints and some don't. My Anglican church had a Marian (side) altar with a big picture of Mary next to it and votive candles. People light the votive candles to represent prayers, the folksy idea (not strict theological) is that as long as the candle burns, Mary is sending up your prayers.

I left the Anglican denomination (The Episcopal Church) and crossed over to the Catholic Church because of all the mess that was going on in Anglicanism (and I was dating a Catholic, so it helped). I had never had a relationship with Mary or with any other saint. However, I had been praying the Rosary leading up to my conversion. I had always been taught as an Evangelical that it was wrong to pray to saints and I didn't do it through most of my Anglican period, though I knew some people did. So I'd start off my Rosary the first week or so with a bit of a disclaimer to God, telling Him that my intentions were good and to accept my prayers anyway even if I'm not supposed to be praying through Mary.

But I became more and more comfortable with seeing Mary as my dear mother. Remember the part where Jesus is on the Cross and gives His mother to "the beloved disciple"? Well, as an Evangelical, I just saw this as Jesus "taking care of business" (He didn't leave a will...) and making sure somebody took care of His mother since apparently Joseph had died (which is why he's usually portrayed as much older than Mary). But Catholics see it as much more than that, we see it as symbolic of Christ giving Mary as a mother for the whole world.

In addition, Catholics see Mary as the woman in Revelation 12 who is "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (v. 1), which is why we call her Queen of Heaven. We believe that God gave Mary a very special place in Heaven. We even believe that she is closer to God than anyone else, including the Seraphim (the highest order of angels). After all it's not everyone who clothes God with her own flesh and enables the salvation of the world. Mary very humbly played a critical part in bringing Jesus into the world and so He allowed her to help bring Jesus to everyone even after she is in Heaven.

Mary didn't earn these honors and responsibilities by doing anything except by obeying God totally, when she said "yes" to the angel Gabriel and throughout her whole life. Jesus said that those who can be trusted with a little can be trusted with much. Since Mary did a little act of obedience to God so God trusted her with a big responsibility of caring for all the souls on earth.

So Mary is considered first among all the saints because God uses her in a very important way. God doesn't need Mary, God doesn't need any of us but He loves us and He loves to allow us to help Him and to work through us. Even after people die and go to Heaven, they are still alive and still helping other people and still praying for us. This goes for everyone, from your grandma to Mary, but Mary's role is most important and so we emphasize her the most.

Sometimes we sing hymns or have certain traditional prayers to Mary. The most important are the angel's words to Mary announcing the coming of Jesus. We pray, just as the Gospel of Luke says, "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." (Lk 1:28,42). Then we continue and say, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Everything that we say and do about Mary, rightly done, is focused on Jesus. It's not like Mary does anything in Heaven apart from Jesus or tallies up the number of prayers said to her versus Jesus. There's no competition in Heaven among saints. We pray to Mary because we love her and we love her because we love Jesus.

The best book to read about Mary and why we should have a close devotion to her is St. Louis de Montfort's "True Devotion to Mary" (Amazon, online). De Montfort has a very intense Marian devotion but he explains everything very clearly, logically and Biblically and with such love and passion.

That is why we pray to Mary.

I will throw in my 2 cents in addition to some good input. The word "pray" means to ask. Paul asked for this same intercession multiple times (eg Rm 15:30, 1 Thes 5:25). When we pray to Mary or any other saint, we are doing nothing different. We are asking for their intercession. We do not pray to them as an "ends". We ask them to join us in prayer. Only God is the cause to answered prayer.

As for baptizing infants, we believe the Scripture in Mark 16 "he who believes and is baptized will be saved." Baptism is said to "save us" in 1 Peter 3:20-21. This is an act of faith. Babies are born with original sin (Ps 51:5-7) which speaks of a need of the same washing as Peter mentioned.

Also, we are to bring babies to Jesus. Also, there are instances in Scriptures that speak of "households" being baptized, which may well have included children (eg Acts 16:15; Acts 16:33; 1 Cor. 1:16). And finally, baptism is the NT fulfillment of circumcision (Col 2:11-12). And circumcision was of course done to babies.

As to the faith that is required of a baptized person, the child receives faith in proxy by way of the faith of the Church. You see in Scripture numerous times when someone is physically "unable" to come to Christ in the normative way, and someone else intercedes on that person's behalf. Think of the centurian's servant who is healed because of the faith of the centurian (Mt 8:5-13), or the paralytic who was healed and forgiven because of the faith of his friends (Mk 2:3-5). Or the Canaanite woman who interceded for her daughter, healed by Jesus through the faith of the mother (Mt 15:22-28). In infant baptism, the parents supply the faith in proxy, just like in these other examples.

And finally, finally the Catholic Church does not go by Scripture alone, but by both Scripture and Tradition. The early Church understood also understood infant baptism as proper.

"The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit" (Origen, Commentaries on Romans 5:9 (c. A.D. 248)).

"And they shall baptise the little children first. And if they can answer for themselves, let them answer. But if they cannot, let their parents answer or someone from their family." (Hippolytus of Rome, Apostolic Tradition, 21 (c. A.D. 215).)

As a non-Catholic, I appreciate this thread. I never understood the basis for praying to anyone but God. I'm still not sure I get it, but it is much clearer.

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I would just like to clarify this a bit but we see Mother Mary as being definitely one of a few possible meanings regarding the Woman in Revelations.

We also see Mary being mentioned in the first book of Genesis 3:15 giving us a glimpse of Her role within the Church to come. Here God is putting a deep seeded ill-will (enmity) between Satan and Christ along with His Mother.

"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, while you strike at his heel."

So the struggle between Mary and the devil is therefore what part of this verse is said to be alluding to since 'Her offspring' and the one who crushes the serpent's head is Christ, and the 'the woman' is Mother Mary. The Woman cannot mean the Church since the Church didn't give birth to Christ as it's implying with 'offspring' there. Nor are we the ones who crush Satan's head or carry that 'enmity' toward satan either since we are all sinners. Catholics believe Mary to be Immaculate so this enmity would always remain constant as it would be between Christ and satan as well.

Gen 3:15 is what we call the 'Proto-evangelium' since it is the first announcement in the Written Word regarding the Salvation Christ will bring to the world.