Thanks for the wonderful review!

Cheryl

Has a friend ever asked you to pray for their physical and spiritual needs? Would you tell them, “No, there is only one mediator, and that is Jesus!” Of course not. St. Paul in his letters often asked his readers for their prayers and offered his own prayers for them. James 5:16 says The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Who is more righteous then those who have successfully run the race and earned the crown of eternal life?

Interesting thought about asking Moses or Abraham to pray for us — I have always focused on the New Testament saints, but since you brought it up, there is nothing wrong with asking the holy men and women of the Old Testament to pray for us.

You asked if there is a scripture you were missing. Try Rev. 5:8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and with golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. This is about as clear as it comes — the saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth. That is what the Communion of Saints is all about.

I’ve heard The Communion of Saints explained like this.

Imagine you were to meet your favorite author or artist. He or she is at a showing of his greatest works or a book signing. He would like to show you his works personally, give you his insights on what he was thinking as he was writing, what the light was like as he was painting, what his influences were at the time of his creation of the works, but your not interested in his works, or meeting any of his friends or family members who are all at the showing, you only want to talk to him and ignore the rest. So it is with the family of God, his Kingdom, or as the Church calls it The Communion of Saints.

If we were to ignore an artists family and friends, and really didn’t want to look at his best work or his most learned or ardent followers it would be quite rude. Jesus, God made man, came into a family, and he is building an even bigger family. Healthy families interact with and get to know one another, support each other, help each other. So it is with The Communion of Saints.

There is a lot more to be said about Mary as Queen of Heaven and her Immaculate Conception, but it deserves full consideration that exceeds the size of a com box. Scott Hahn has a lot of good material on the topic.

Simply ask Jesus’ guidance as you consider these issues. He never lets us down when we ask for his wisdom and direction.

The experience gave me a whole different view of the crucifixion. I had always imagined the women as frightened and cowering from the authorities, but in this “vision” they were not. They were sorrowful, but not frightened.

Among the things I noticed was the smell, it was not good. That and the air, it was dry and hot like and windy being in a desert. And I had always pictured great crowds at the crucifixion, but in my “vision” there weren’t many people there.

It gave me an insight to Jesus’ death. It was similar to his birth. Lots of crowds around, but very few souls aware of or concerned about the arrival or departure of God from this earth.

One of the most important reasons the Church has always honored Mary, long before she was declared “Theotokos: the Mother of God” at the Council of Ephesus in the early 5th century, stems from the development of these Christological and Trinitarian dogmas of that time period. It is for this reason that we speak of the Trinity, even though it is not contained in any Scripture.

Christ predicted that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church. He did not leave behind a book, but a group of men to guide the Church. Scripture does not say, “I will build my Church to guide you until such time that you can read the Bible for yourselves.”

If “there is one mediator between God and man, HIMSELF MAN, Christ Jesus…” meant what you claim it means, each of us would be sinning every time we asked anyone to pray for us, on earth or in heaven. (There’s another verse to contemplate, the great prayer of Christ, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”)

Instead, Jesus told us in John 15, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

Nowhere does it say, “if you remain in me as long as you are on earth,” or “you shall bear fruit as long as you are on earth.” So long as we remain in Christ and in the Church He founded to guide us to heaven, we remain connected to all our mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters in faith.

One final thought: If Christians for more than two millenia have interpreted the Scriptures one way (including the “Reformation Fathers” themselves, all of whom honored Mary as the Mother of God), and Christians for the last two hundred years have taken it upon themselves to interpret the Scriptures differently … whose interpretation do you think it is likely to be closest to what the Lord intended?

God bless you … and please remember, you are always welcome to return home! Our Lady does not need us to acknowledge her motherhood to act upon it … no doubt she is praying for you even now, that God would reveal the truth to you.

Like many Catholic converts, it took years for Him to complete this work on me. He will show you the truth, if and when you are willing to receive it.

Page 165, a little ways into Christ the One Mediator—and Mary:

“[...]Technically a mediator (mesites in St. Paul) is a person who holds a favorable position between parties at variance, and can therefore interpose between them as the equal friend of each. The history of religion is filled with attempts to bridge the gap between the Deity and man, and in Christianity, the heretical systems of Gnosticism and Arianism were essentially misguided efforts to find this mediator in someone less than Christ. Thus in Gnosticism the aeons or “intermediate beings” were supposed to span the chasm between the Godhead and the material world, which was believed intrinsically evil. in Arianism, the Logos, as the most exalted of creatures and creator of the rest, served the same purpose.

“From this standpoint, the main thrust of all the early councils—Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon—was to settle once and for all that no one but the second person of the Trinity become man, is man’s mediator with the Almighty. His mediatorship was declared to be both in the order of being (natural or objective) and in the order of action (functional or moral). In the order of being, Christ is our mediator by the fact of his hypostatic union, joining in one person the two natures that need to be mediated: divine, which He has in common with the Father; and human, which he shares with us. In the order of action, Christ alone is our mediator by the fact that his death atoned for man’s sins, and his humanity is the channel of grace from God to the human race.

“Another way of looking at the two mediations is to say that the Incarnation corresponds to mediation in the other of being, and the Redemption (remission of sin and conferral of grace) is mediation morally.

“This kind of mediation is incommunicable. No one but the Savior unites in himself the divinity, which demands reconciliation, and the humanity, which needs to be reconciled.

“Nevertheless, lesser and subordinate mediators are not excluded. The question is what purpose they serve and in what sense do the mediate. They can help the cause of mediation in the only way that human beings (or creatures) can contribute to the work of salvation, namely, by their willing response to grace: either better disposing themselves or others for divine grace, or interceding with God to give his grace, or freely co-operating with grace when conferred.

“Everyone who is saved has, in some sense, been such a mediator between himself and God, which the Church assumes by its claim that man’s freedom was not extinguished by the fall; that he can (and must) collaborate with God’s grace to reach the God for whom he was made.

“Moreover, vicarious mediation is also part of the plan of salvation, since we are bidden to concern ourselves about others, and the solidarity of mankind in Christ lays the foundation for helping others save their souls, too.

“It is in this context that the Blessed Virgin enters as mediatrix par excellence. We presume that she co-operated fully with the graces she received, to save her own soul. But she mediated for others, as well, by her vicarious assistance to the rest of mankind. She deserves the title mediatrix because she co-operated in a unique way with Christ in his redemptive labors on earth, and because in heaven she continues interceding for those who are still working out their salvation as pilgrims in the Church Militant or souls suffering in purgatory. [...]“

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I don’t know if this is official teaching, but from what I’ve been able to understand of it, Jesus is the only way to the Father. Three parts to the Trinity: father + son + spirit. Jesus = son, God = father, holy spirit = spirit. I think you know this. So, if the son is the only intercession to the father, what keeps there from being intercessors to the son?

I’ve always looked at it as less of a Mary going to God thing and more of a Mary going to Jesus or Son thing. But whenever you pull in the Trinity and explaining what part does what and how they’re all the same yet different, that’s when things start getting confusing. This may be one of those cases? Anyway, that’s how I’ve looked at her intercession and prayers.

But more importantly, the passage in 1st Timothy seems to be speaking about mediation in terms of salvation. Only Jesus was able to save us. So you are correct, we cannot pray that Mary will have died on the cross after living a sinless life to save our sins – or that in any other way she will be able to save a person the way Christ mediated for us – that would not work. On this topic, you are correct.

But when you say “Jesus exhorts us to pray and fast here on earth, not in heaven”, first I must ask what you mean by prayer. If, by prayer, you mean “addressing a solemn request or expressing thanks to a diety or other object of worship” (in this case any member of the trinity), I don’t see why people in heaven are unable to pray – or come into dialogue or communication – with God, Jesus, Spirit, what have you.

Thus, I must conclude that it would be possible for those in heaven to pray – and to pray for us.

So, while you may have been specifically targeting mediation in terms of salvation, which we do not believe Mary can intercede in such a way to gain us our salvation the way Christ did, what I said in my Mary 28th wasn’t so much concerning that, but was concerning the intercession we do ask from her.

The intercession/mediation, then, that you described is also something that Catholics do not agree with. It seems that there are two types of intercession. As far as I am aware, it is a different type that we go to Mary for. The differences between the two may seem small, but are enough to put one in an incorrect light, as you explained, and the other in an okay light, as hopefully I was able to convey.

Most importantly, though, I don’t think that anybody has to look to Mary for her intercession at all. It’s just one avenue on the road to God that many may take, but it is by no means a requirement for getting there.

Hope this helps!

-p

A lot of people have grandparents or family members or friends who have passed on. I often hear those people say things like “she’s watching out for me” or “he’s looking down upon me”, etc.

As Jennifer said, that goes hand in hand with our idea of the communion of saints. We believe that we are all connected as a part of one body – the Body of Christ. If our deceased grandparents can look down upon us, and presumably pray on our behalf, isn’t it cool to think that anybody in heaven can do the same?

For many Catholics, they find a special connection with our Blessed Mother – Jesus himself gave Mary to all as a mother.

Hope this helps and didn’t seem too rambly!

-p

I guess it just comes down to whether or not you believe in the Communion of Saints. If you believe that the folks in heaven are aware of what’s going on down here, then why not ask them (especially Jesus’ mom) to pray for you just like you’d ask your friend or your pastor to pray for you?

I might not be a good person to take that question, though. Though I haven’t always had what you’d call a “devotion” to Mary, the idea of someone being devoted to her and asking for her prayers has always made so much sense to me that I’m not really sure how to explain it.

If you have any interest, I thought this series of posts over at Caritas Dei, (by a girl who is not currently Catholic) had some great meditations on the subject — especially Part 4.

Hopefully someone else can do a better job answering your question.