Last week my dear mother asked me, "why are so many of a Catholic's prayers to Mary rather than to Jesus?" I plan on having a talk with her one-on-one about it, but I thought it was a nice topic for a post.
Firstly, let me state a few points at the outset so there is no confusion:
Mary is not a goddess, nor is she a divine person, like her Son is. Catholics do not worship her as we do God.
Mary's salvation was brought about by the blood of Christ, the same as the rest of the elect.
While she is considered the Theotokos (God-bearer), i.e., Mother of God, she is so by God's will and power, not her own.
It is through God's divine power that Mary and the other Saints can hear our prayers. This is not necromancy or some attempt to commune with the dead, since as the scripture tells us, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." (Mark 12:27)
I'm asked sometimes, "why do you pray to Mary or Saints at all? All you need is Jesus!" As Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote, "It may be objected: 'Our Lord is enough for me. I have no need of her.' But He needed her, whether we do or not." Jesus chose to be made incarnate through the Blessed Virgin's womb. He chose to make her a part of His plan of salvation for mankind. Over and over in the Gospels we see Jesus do things like this, using physical means to express His power, such as the water transformed into wine at Cana, mud applied to the eyes of the blind, or the woman with an issue of blood touching Jesus' garment for healing. Surely Jesus didn't need to use the physical things to convey his Grace, but he did use them, and we should be aware of and instructed by the things Jesus does.
What does it mean to pray? Praying has two distinct meanings. First it means to make a request in a humble manner; second, it means to address God with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving. Our prayers to Mary are made only in this first sense, humbly making a request, not worshiping her. Legal documents make use of the term "prayer for relief" to the court, and surely the plaintiff isn't worshiping the judge! Many prayers to Mary use honorific titles for her, or praise her and laud her excellent and holy qualities, but as high-sounding as these are, they are still not the same weight or intention as those we use for God Himself. Mary is honored, but only God is worshiped as divine.
Why make a request to Mary at all, then? Why not "go directly to Jesus?" We do just that, all the time. Any Catholic prayer is made "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Holy Mass, which faithful Catholics attend at least once a week, is actually a prayer itself. We are told in the scriptures that we are supposed to pray for each other, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:14: "I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men." Would you tell a friend or loved one that asked for prayers to stop diminishing God and "go directly to Jesus?" Of course not! You would console them and assure them of your persistent prayers. In the same way, we ask Mary for her prayers to her son on our behalf. God pays particular attention to the prayers of the righteous, as James says in his book, chapter 5 verse 16. In that verse we see the prayer of Elijah, while he was still subject to sin here on Earth, was effective; how much more powerful are the prayers of the Saints in heaven? Even more powerful are the prayers of Mary, Christ's own mother!
Do prayers to Mary take honor or glory away from God? Well, let me address that question by way of an example. If my son draws a picture and my wife proudly puts it on our fridge, does that take away from my honored place as his Father? Of course not! When a child does something praiseworthy it honors me as his father. In the same way, the honor Catholics give Mary doesn't take honor away from God, it increases it! Remember in Luke 1:46 where Mary prays, "My soul magnifies the Lord"? To magnify something is to intensify or increase that thing. When we honor Mary, when we ask her to pray to her son for us, we are praising and honoring the great works of God. The moon is often used as a metaphor for Mary, in that she offers no light of her own, but simply reflects the light of the sun (or Son, in this case).
I must make a point about the phrasing of the original question, regarding prayers to Mary "rather than" prayers to Jesus. This isn't a situation where we're praying to Mary at the expense of or to the detriment of prayers to Jesus. If we were to keep track of the number of prayers we make regularly to Jesus, the Holy Ghost, God the Father, the Saints, and Mary (we don't--imagine the charges of legalism and Pharisee-ism that would be leveled at Catholics then!), the Trinity gets the lion's share of the prayers. The number of times the various Persons of the Trinity are invoked in the Mass alone dwarfs the number of references to Mary and the Saints. The traditional daily prayers of the laity are very Christ-focused.
To conclude, I recall something I read in a book discussing prayers to the Saints, where the author (whose name escapes me) describes the way Catholics and Protestants view the throne room of God. The Protestant approach to God (go directly to Jesus, no Saints or Mary needed, or allowed) leaves us with a Spartan room, bare except for the Glory of God himself, who seems to say, "Focus on me! I'm what's important!" The Catholic sees a room filled with the great Saints of every description, from glorious Martyrs to humble Confessors; a room where God bursts with the pride of a Father whose children have done great things by and through Him.
The greatest of those children, Mary, sits humbly at the feet of her Son, and tells us what she told the servants at Cana: "Do whatever he tells you."
