Why do Catholics put so much faith in the Virgin Mary?

Question

I'm not sure how to express the relationship that Catholics have with the Virgin Mary, so please excuse the word Faith in the question title.

giving Mary praise

I understand that Mary gave birth to Jesus. But isn't Jesus God in human form, He is the Alpha and the Omega, He chose Mary to give birth to his human body, right?

So if Mary was chosen by God, and we know that Mary is incapable of doing anything on her own, why give her so much praise? Is she not just another servant like the rest of us?

intercede

When asking the virgin mary to intercede for us, I'm confused. Because isn't that the role of Jesus, that the curtain to the Holy room was torn because Jesus is now our intercessor between us and God. That we may now go directly to Jesus. So why have Mary do this for you?

I am seeking the Catholic viewpoint on this.

Answer 1

I'm a Catholic.

Our reverence for the Virgin Mary is greatly due to her response to God and her faith. When the angel appeared to her and stated that God was to have her give birth to the Christ, she didn't protest, but responded sincerely to God: "do unto me according to Your word". This is a model of how we should respond to God's requests of us.

Also, she is a saint and very close to God. When we pray to her, we praise her for her faith, acknowledging that and the child that she carried (as her cousin, Elizabeth, did). Much of the Hail Mary is taken from her praise in greeting to Mary when she visited during her pregnancy. The Magnificat, Mary's response, is related and acknowledges her praise. But then, we pray that she will intercede and pray for us. This is no different than us asking the other saints to pray for us, or our friends and family to pray for us.

She is special in some ways though because of her role in Christ's birth and life, and her response to God. The Immaculate Conception is an acknowledgement of that--in order for her to be pure so that she may give birth to the Christ child, she was born without Original Sin, and was as perfect as a human could be, except for Jesus. You can read about it in a bit more depth in this article.

Answer 2

Thomas Merton in "New Seeds of Contemplation" talks about the common protestant misconstrual of the Roman Catholic devotion to Mary the mother of Jesus. Mary is given praise because she is a servant. What is recorded in the Bible about her marks her as a perfect servant to the christ.

This is often forgotten by Catholics themselves, and therefore it is not surprising that those who are not Catholic often have a completely wrong conception of Catholic devotion to the Mother of God. They imagine, and sometimes we can understand their reasons for doing so, that Catholics treat the Blessed Virgin as an almost divine being in her own right [...]

Mary is a saint, and because of her perfect servanthood in being the mother of God's human incarnation, is regarded as the highest saint.

In all the great mystery of Mary, then, one thing remains most clear: that of herself she is nothing, and that God has for our sakes delighted to manifest His glory and His love in her.

It is because she is, of all the saints, the most perfectly poor and the most perfectly hidden, the one who has absolutely nothing whatever that she attempts to possess as her own, that she can most fully communicate to the rest of us the grace of the infinitely selfless God. And we will most truly possess Him when we have emptied ourselves and become poor and hidden as she is, resembling Him by resembling her.

Answer 3

There are 4 Marian official dogmas

1. She is conceived without original sin
2. She is the Mother of God
3. She is perpetually a virgin
4. She was assumed into Heaven at the end of her earthly life

This all leads up to the 5th (unofficial) Marian dogma, which is what you're talking about

1. She is the mediatrix of all graces

This is not doctrine, but it what many Catholics and popes (like Leo XIII) have proclaimed and believed. It is a hard concept even for me, but I think it makes sense. Mary is the Secondary Cause of our redemption. (See TAN Books "This is the Faith") Certainly God made her special, only the most special human being in history could bear God. But God also chose her, she had found favor with God.

We Catholics are not obliged to pray to Mary at all, just believe the infallible doctrine. But, by and large, we have a tradition of honoring her and believing that she has a strong intercessory power (See wedding at Cana) and that we should take her into our house (Like John the Apostle).

It's tradition and in general you could leave it at that. But the reformation broke with the tradition insisting on the bible as the sole source of God's truth, so we must defend our Blessed Mother and recapitulate what we already knew.

In the old testament she is prefigured by Eve (Mother of all the living), Sarah (Bearer of the new covenant), Ruth and Rachel (A sorrowful wife/mother).

She is the woman who's offspring would crush the serpent's head and she is the woman in Revelation clothed in a sun with a crown of stars. (Read the history and significance of the miraculous medal)

She is the model of piety and the embodiment of the Church (she literally was a tabernacle). (See Mary as the new Ark)

She has appeared in visions to mystics throughout the history of Christianity. Bringing messages of repentance and leading millions to worship to Jesus. (see Carl Anderson's, Head of Knights of Columbus, book on Our Lady of Guadalupe and all the converts)

She said yes to God.

She's my mother and yes, she took me from a child in the faith to a man when all my friends and relations strayed from the path.