A Question about praying to Mary

I am the last person to be an authority on this, but I did find a rather interesting article.

http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu67.htm#answer1

That is interesting, Phoenix. Thanks.
I'm still rather confused, though.

Why do you pray to Mary, she was merely a mortal like all of us. The only one you need to pray to is God Himself and directly to Him alone, not via some priest or otherwise.

If My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I answer the call of the caller when he calls on Me. They should therefore respond to Me and believe in Me so that hopefully they will be rightly guided. (Qur'an, 2:186)

I'm not a Christian, but as an outsider, I reckon that Mary has more hands on experience with human life than the Father, the Son or the Holy Ghost--particularly a woman's life and troubles.

A great deal of goddess worship was transmuted into Devotions to Mary.

Mary is thought to have particular sympathy and insight with the problems of mothers--especially Mothers of Sons.

You pray to Mary when you want presents.

No wait, that's Santa....same damn thing.

Reference to the "Cult of Mary" on Google reveal a general belief amongst historians that Mary was synonymous with Isis, acquired by the Romans via Egypt. This would seem to be in keeping with other Romanizations such as the adoption of Sunday (Apollo's day) as the sabbath.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianised_Myths_and_Imagery

Wow. That was very interesting, fresco. Thanks. I wouldn't have thought to look up 'cult of'.

Noddy, maybe you have something there. Mary is relatable in a human way. Easy to talk to? She went through a lot with her son and suffered with dignity.
'The Great Mother' type.

It's interesting.

Yeah, my take on it is that people pray to Mary to get to Jesus or God is another way to keep pagan rituals around. Not on a conscious level today, but way back when christianity started making inroads.

If a female had a female goddess, Mary more or less replaced her. The followers of the goddess made, over time, the concession to pray to this familiar female figure, it was ok to do.

Just like so many Christmas, Easter, Halloween traditions are really based strongly in pagan belief.

You've heard the expression "Sweet Mother of God" (I personally hear it in Chris Farley's voice). Well, I thinking the thought process went something like...If Mary is the mother of God, doesn't that make her a Godess?

The protestants of course rejected this.


So, just another way the Catholic Church kept the natives from getting restless.

Ok, this is all starting to make sense. Heh, "sweet mother of god". Funny how many expressions and curses are rooted in religion. When I stop to think about it, I mean.

So basically it is Goddess worship - when taken to the extremes of putting up a shrine and venerating/praying to her.

I know not all give prominensce to Mary. Weird: I was always taught that it is 'blasphemy' to do more 'Hail Marys' than 'Our Fathers'.
Just a silly distinction between churches, huh?
That church was Male-Figure heavy.

I am also very interested in the saints. Looks like a bunch of those were 'stolen' and history written however was convienient for the church at the time, and different sects/churches simply carried on certain versions of history.

Funny how this wasn't clear to me before. I really like the concept of saints and holy jewellry.

My brother, the Roman Catholic priest, would be scandalized by the thought of praying to Mary as goddess worship,(she supposed to be contacted only as an intercessionry) but then he was also wacked out a little when I told him that the Rosary (there a lot more Hail Marys than Our Fathers in that ritual) was a long form of mantra. (I was studying yoga back then).

Any form of quiet reflection is probably better than none.
but there is no magic to it.

Jewelry is just jewelry.

Joe(excuse me, have you seen my philosopher's stone?)Nation

OMG - Joe, is your last name Manero?


hey....hey....could you ask your brudda the fadda a question for me?

see....I got this friend...who, uh......oh forget it.

As brother Raul wrote, Mary (Peace be upon her) was a human being.
We need to pray to God, the One and Only.

God almighty will ask Prophet Jesus (Peace be upon him) on the Day of Judgment: "
"O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah.?"
Jesus (Peace be upon him) will answer:
"Glory to Thee! never could I say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, thou wouldst indeed have known it. Thou knowest what is in my heart, Thou I know not what is in Thine. For Thou knowest in full all that is hidden.
"Never said I to them aught except what Thou didst command me to say, to wit, 'worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord'"
[Holy Qur'an 5:116-117]

Back decades ago when I used to pray to Mary quite often, I did so as JoeNation's brother regards it, as asking help (intercession) from her. It wasn't any kind of adoration-thinking, as was involved regarding prayers or thoughts of God (the trinity and its component personae). Back then I had no clue of the goddess element to all this, and didn't then know about Isis.

This is reminding me to double check what I think I know about the church in Rome, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which is a church devoted to Mary that was built over (perhaps not directly over) a temple to Minerva, but also was related in some way to Isis...
Pretty church by the way... it's the one with Bernini's elefante holding a small obelisk in the small piazza in front of the church entry - all this a few feet away from the Pantheon.

I may have read some of this history in A Virago's Guide to Rome by, I think, Ros Belford. Interesting book.

from Wikipedia --
History

Details of the ruined temple to Minerva, built by Pompey about 50 BCE, referred to as Delubrum Minervae are not known. A temple to Isis and a Serapeum may also underlie the present basilica and its former convent buildings, for in 1665 an Egyptian obelisk was found, buried in the garden of the Dominican cloister adjacent to the church. There are other Roman survivals in the crypt. The ruined temple is likely to have lasted until the reign of Pope Zachary (741-752), who finally Christianized the site, offering it to Eastern monks. The structure he commissioned has disappeared. The present building owes its existence to the Dominican Friars, who received the property from Pope Alexander IV (1254-1261) and made the church and adjoining monastery their headquarters before later establishing it in Santa Sabina. The Dominican Order still administers the area today.
Two talented Dominican friars, Fra Sisto Fiorentino and Fra Ristoro da Campi, who had worked on the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, began the present structure in 1280, during the pontificate of Nicholas III. With the help of funds contributed by Boniface VIII, this first Gothic church in Rome was completed in 1370. It was renovated by Carlo Maderno and others, given a Baroque facade, then restored in the 19th century to its present neo-medieval state. The gates are from the 15th century.
Saint Catherine of Siena is buried here (except her head, which is in the church of San Domenico in Siena). Beyond the sacristy, the room where she died in 1380 was reconstructed here by Antonio Cardinal Barberini in 1637. This room is the first transplanted interior, and the progenitor of familiar 19th and 20th century museum "period rooms." The frescoes by Antoniazzo Romano that decorated the original walls, however, are now lost.
The famous early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico died in the adjoining convent, and is buried here also, as is Pope Paul IV and the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII. Before the construction of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, the Minerva was the church of the Florentine nation, and therefore it houses numerous tombs of prelates, nobles and citizens coming from that Tuscan city. Curiously, Diotisalvi Nerone, a refugee who had took part in the plot against Piero de' Medici, was buried here in 1482, and was later joined by other members of the family.
The sacristy was the seat of two conclaves. The first, held in the March 1431, elected Pope Eugene IV, the second, in March 1447, Pope Nicholas V.
Michelangelo's Christ the Redeemer sculpture is housed here.


If anyone's interested, this book had a lot of behind the scenes stories I hadn't read elsewhere re various sites in Rome -
Virago Travel Guide to Rome
Book is in storage now, so I can't check my memory re the Isis story.

And Isis from Semiramis.

praying to Mary is pointless. if you want to pray, just pray to God, or Jesus. simple, direct and more effective.

"Mother of God"!!!!!!!

Does nobody here realise how this sounds??

Say it to yourself and contemplate on it...

God had a mother??

He was created???

May God forgive me..

We believe Jesus was a prophet of Allah (Arabic for God), Mary (pbuh) was the mother of Jesus who had no father. They and all the other prophets and messengers were Muslim (Arabic for submitters to the one true God)

"Relate in the Book (the story of) Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East. She placed a screen (to screen herself) from them. Then We sent her our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects. She said, 'I seek refuge from you to God Most Gracious! Do not come near me, if you fear God!' He said, 'No, I am only a messenger from your Lord, (to announce) to you the gift of a holy son.' She said, 'How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?' He said, 'So (it will be). Your Lord says, 'That is easy for Me, and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men, and a Mercy from Us. It is a matter (so) decreed'" (19:16-21, the Chapter of Mary)

Christ, the son of Mary, was no more than a messenger; many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how God makes His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth!" (5:75).

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU GIVE GOD HIS TRUE RIGHT TO BE WORSHIPPED ALONE WITHOU ASSIGNING ANY PARTNERS TO HIM.

THIS IS HIS RIGHT ALONE

"Do not call onto any beings other than Allah. These are capable of neither benefit nor harm. To do so is therefore guilty of wrongdoing. When Allah inverts you with an affliction, none can remove it except Him." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 10, Verse 106-107


"Seek your livelihood from Him and worship Him alone." The Holy Qur'an,Chapter 29,Verse 17

"Who is more foolish than he who prays to other beings than Allah, to beings who are ever impotent to answer his prayer?" The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 46, Verse 5

"Is He not Allah Who answers the appeal of the needy when he calls upon Him and removes the deed?" The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 27, Verse 62

"Do not call onto any beings other than Allah. These are capable of neither benefit nor harm." The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 10, Verse 106

And Allah knows best

Pushing my way through the Christian and Muslim nutcases . . .

When i was a child, and had not choice in the matter of being Catholic, it was explained to us that we did not pray to Mary or the Saints, but rather, we prayed that they would intercede on our behalf. It was considered that the Saints could intercede with Hey-Zeus of God the Pappy on behalf of we poor mortals. Hence, when the priest jammed the crossed candle against your neck, he would intone; "Through the intercession of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, may you be protected from all afflictions of the throat . . . "

Yeah, St Blaise was always a favorite of mine.

patron saint of sore throats.

wasn't that at the same time you had to kiss the feet of a cruxifix, the priest would sanitize it between each set of lips with an alcohol swab.

Jesusmaryandjosepshandallthesaintsinheaven....