Mary, the glory thief? (1)

As I mentioned in my previous post, over the next few days I’m going to be responding to some comments left on my Biblical Mary: The Ark of the New Covenant post by a lady named Monica.

In today’s post I’m going to begin examining some of the assertions she made about the Blessed Virgin.

Accidental Worship

Monica began her comments with the common assertion that Catholics worship Mary:

People praying the rosary, singing Mary songs, etc is a form a worship no matter how much catholics want to deny it. These things only belong to God.

It’s interesting to see the way in which she phrases this opening statement. It seems clear to me that she has previously encountered Catholics who have vigorously denied this charge of worshipping Mary. This is something I would also emphatically confirm – worship is due to God alone – worship of anything else is idolatry. We do not worship Mary, but simply honour her.

However, it’s clear that Monica rejects our protestations and is convinced that we do, in fact, worship Mary. She cites the following two activities as each constituting worship:

1. Praying the rosary
Monica doesn’t explain why she thinks praying the rosary is worship. When praying the rosary, one invokes the name of the Trinity and recites a good chunk of Scripture (Matthew 6:8-13; Luke 1:28; Luke 1:42), as well as meditating of the various events recorded in Scripture concerning the life of Christ and His mother (Joyful Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries etc.).

I can only imagine that Monica thinks the rosary counts as “worship” because it involves praying to Mary. However, I’m still unclear as to why this is considered worship. Why does asking someone to pray for you constitute worship? After all, I’m sure Monica asks lots of people to pray for her: her friends, family and church leadership. I’m also sure she makes a point of asking for prayers from those she knows to be men and women mighty in faith, since the prayer of the righteous is extremely powerful (James 5:16). Given that, who is better placed to pray for us than the Mother of the Lord who is with Him in Heaven?

2. Singing Mary songs
This one I also find puzzling. Why would the singing of a song be equated to worship? Do songs really “only belong to God”? That seems to me to be a rather strange assertion.

Just the other night I was at a friend’s birthday party and we sung “Happy Birthday” to her. Did we accidentally worship her? Back in England, I have sung “For he’s a jolly good fellow” at a coworker’s retirement. In doing so, did I make that colleague equal with God? With the aid of my guitar, I once sung a love song to a girl I was dating. When I did this, in addition to being rather cheesy, did I commit idolatry inadvertently? I would suggest that the answer to all these questions is a resounding “No”. None of these were expressions of worship, they were simply acts of honour, directed towards a loved one. The same is true when these things are directed towards Mary.

So, unless I’m missing something, I would say that neither of these two things qualify as “worship”.

How then will we honour her?

Monica’s next statement was rather interesting:

Of course she was blessed by God and deserves to be honored but it does not imply a godly position.

I think it’s wonderful that she affirms that Mary deserves to be honoured. However, another commenter, Alexandra, asked same the question which also popped into my head when I read this: in what way does Monica honour Mary? In fact, in what way is Mary honoured at all within the various Protestant traditions?

Among Catholics, Orthodox and Coptics, the honor given to Mary is clear and frequent. We call her “Blessed”, “Immaculate” and “Holy”. We have icons, statues, stained glass of her. We teach our children to love her in the way that Jesus loved her.

However, can the same really be said in the Protestant congregations? Some Anglicans, maybe? However, I would suggest that the vast majority of Protestant communities simply ignore the woman chosen by Christ from all eternity to be His mother.

During my time attending non-Catholic communities, I almost never heard Mary mentioned. In fact, the only time I can recall her being mentioned was at Christmas, but only because it’s basically impossible to talk about Jesus’ birth without at least mentioning the one giving birth! Even then though, any mention of her was brief and fleeting.

Monica concluded her sentence saying that, although Mary should be honored, it “does not imply a godly position”. I completely agree! What has she heard that’s made her think that the Catholic Church would in any way disagree with that statement?

I’d like to end this post with a quotation about the honouring of Mary. I’d invite you to check out the source of the quotation. It might surprise you…

“The true honour of Mary is the honour of God, the praise of God’s grace. Mary does not wish that we come to her, but through her to God” – Source

That’ll do for today. I’ll pick things up again on Thursday…

Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6