Explaining Mary and the Saints

Question: How do we, as Catholics, explain to people that we so not worship the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints?

Answer: The first thing you must always do when explaining anything is to know your audience. You would not explain Mary and the saints to an athiest (someone who does not believe in God) in the same way you would explain it to a Protestant, or even a fallen away Catholic. With that in mind, I will give you a variety of ways to explain how Catholics don't worship Mary and the saints, but we do honor them and ask for their intercession.

With that being said, we honor the saints in heaven for one simple reason, because Christ honors them. We see this through countless examples in Scripture:

• "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I call you friends"-Jn 15:5
• "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to
  prepare a place for you."-Jn 14:2
• "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."-James 1:12
• "Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life."-Rev 2:10

So we see that Christ honors us by calling us friends, by giving us a mansion in heaven, and even crowns us as royalty because we stay faithful to him. Mary herself is given a special crown as shown in Rev. 12:1:

• A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

Notice that this crown of the woman who would bear the "child destined to rule the nations with an iron rod"-Rev. 12:5 (who is Christ-see Ps 2:9, a messianic Psalm) is of 12 stars. This is the fufillment of the promise to Abraham through his desendant Jacob/Israel whose son Joseph, had a dream that was a to be fufilled in its fullest sense in Rev.-see Gen 37:9. The 12 stars are the 12 tribes of Israel which represented the people of God. So this woman is crowned as the Queen of God's people. God's people will all eventually be in Heaven (hence the title Queen of Heaven). She is crowned not by man, but by God Himself. So if, the saints are good enough to be honored by Christ, and thus God; if being a Christian means following Christ and His example; then we can't help but honor those whom God honors.

As for intercessory prayer, this is also because of Christ. In James 5:16, it says, "The prayers of a righteous man availath much." We see this truth presented all through out Scripture:

• God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah because of the intercession of the righteous Abraham (see Gen. 18:16-32)
• God spared Israel after they worshiped the Golden calf because of the righteous prayer of Moses (Ex. 32:7-14)
• God himself even asked Job to intercede on behalf of his friends because of his righteousness, "Now therefore...go to my servant Job and offer a holocaust to yourselves; and let my servant Job pray for you, for his prayer I will accept, not to punish you severely"-Job 42:8

Just so you don't think this is simply an Old Testament practice, intercessory prayer is in the New Testament too:

• And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.-Eph 6:18
• And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.-Rev 5:8
• Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.-Rev 8:3

Now these men while still on earth had powerful prayers because they were righteous in the eyes of God; how much more then, would the prayers of the righteous man in heaven who sees God face to face and lives with Him forever (see 1Jn 3:2) be! Even better still, how much more powerful the woman who is the most righteous human ever to live and has recieved a crown of glory in heaven as seen in Rev. 12:1.

Now the most common objection, 1Tim. 2:5, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." As Catholics, we believe this with all our might and to say anything otherwise is heresy. However, we as Catholics believe that the saints are not mediators in spite of or instead of Christ, but we are mediators precisely because of Christ. Christ gives mankind a share in his power and offices. Some example are:

• Christ is God, the creator of all things (see Heb. 1:1-2; Col. 1:16-17), but He gives man a share in that office in procreation. He even commands them to have a share in this when he says, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it."
• Christ is the Supreme Judge (see Jn 5:27, 9:39). He however allows those who are united with him to share in his judgement. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel"-Mt. 19:28. See also 1Cor 6:2-3, Lk 22:30
• God also is the only one who has the power to heal. He is the Divine Physician (2Cor. 5:18-21). Christ shares this healing power with man. Peter heals a cripple in Acts 3:4-10. Ananias gives Paul back his sight in Acts 9:13-19. In fact, the apostles were so well known for their healing powers that people "carried their sick out into the streets in order to be healed"-Acts 5:15

So if Christ chose to give mankind a share in his offices and glory in these things, why could he not do it in his office of intercessor. He clearly does if you read Scripture as a whole as noted in the examples cited above. We can all intercede for one another because we all are a part of his Mystical Body. Thus, when we intercede for one another, we do so in and through Christ (hence why we can pray for one another) and the saints in heaven intercede for us because they too are part of mystical body of Christ even though the have died. After all, St. Paul tells us, "What can seperate us from the love of Christ...For I am convinced that niether death..."-Rom 8:35-39. If the saints are not seperated from the love of Christ by death, then they must be in the love of Christ and thus can share in his love, i.e, interceding for others.

This is how 1 Tim 2:5 must be read. We know this because in 1Tim 2:1, just 4 verses before 1Tim 2:5, reads, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone." Paul is not refuting intercessory prayer, but he is asking for it. What sense would it make for Paul to ask for intercessory prayer and then in the next sentence condemn it. Better yet, what sense would it make for God to inspire Paul to ask for intercessory prayer and then condemn it. We know that God can't contradict himself and that the Bible is inspired and thus cannot contradict itself. Thus we know that 1Tim 2:5 can't mean a condemnation upon intercessory prayer. It actually is the exact opposite. Paul is writing that because we are in Christ, we can and should intercede for one another.

Therefore we ask Mary and the saints to intercede for us because Christ has arranged it this way and Scripture clearly shows this.

Here are the answers to some other objections:

Explanation 1 (explanation through reason): Some people say that Catholics worship Mary and the saints because we honor them with our prayers.

Honor does not necessarily mean worship. The claim is that we put Mary and the saints on a different level than human beings. We pay them special tribute and thus we, as Catholics must be worshiping them. This is false and unreasonable because we pay a different degree of respect to different people even here on earth due to their titles. We pay more respect to our parents than we do to our little brothers or sisters. If the President of the United States walked in, we would stand up and maybe even salute him. This does not mean that we worship him, it means that we are showing respect to his title. Now the saints in heaven have the title of being with God for all eternity. They are ones who "are righteous in the eyes of God" and thus deserve a respect beyond just the average human being. Mary, has the unique title of Mother of God, and thus deserves the uttermost respect because of that. She is the mother of our Lord and thus, we as Catholics honor her in a special way.

Explanation 2 (through reason and Scripture): We must worship the saints and Mary because we have statues and graven images through of them all over the place. This is expressedly forbidden in Ex. 20:4-7

Having statues of something does not necessarily mean that you are worshiping it. There are statues all over Washington DC of presidents, animals, etc., but they are not there for worship. They are there to honor the person who the image is made of. If simply building an image and remembering a person equaled idol worship, then our entire nation and the history of the entire world was built on idolatry for statues have been around for milienia. The reason that we have statues, pictures, etc. are the same reason that families have family portraits, pictures of loved ones who are far away, and tombstones of those who have gone before them. So we can remember and honor them. The saints who went before us remind us that sanctity is not only something that we should aim for, but in Christ, something that is possible. When we remember our loved ones that are far away of those who have died, we are not worshiping them, we are honoring them.