Let's try some easy math:
There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide;
If merely 1% of them 'ask' Mary for help just once each day;
that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day.
Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds)
...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!
Purty good fer someone NOT 'divine'!
It was right this morning; and it'll be right again tonight during the news...
From the Catechism of the Catholic church....
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a9p6.htm
969 This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation .... Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.510
Names of God from the Bible. Compare them to the names given to Mary in the above quote from the CCC.
Jesus
Hope (our) - 1 Timothy 1:1
Counselor - Isaiah 9:6
Advocate - 1 John 2:1
Mediator - 1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 9:15, Hebrews 12:24
Holy Spirit
Comforter - John 14:26
Helper John 14:16
On deifying Mary, or worshipping her as a god, I wrote this to another poster here in this thread:
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Yes, the doctrine of your church says Catholics dont worship Mary, so it is understandable how Catholics might believe they arent doing that, but words and deeds can be two different things. And, when we are talking about deeds that are more physical, like getting in water, or eating something, its a lot easier for everyone to tell if the deed is done or not. Worship, though, is in many ways not so physical.
Now, would you think it proper to call any other human than Mary, our life, our sweetness, and our hope? Why or why not? We who are born-again, evangelical Christians call Jesus our life, our sweetness, and our hope, and wont call anyone else that.
Consider, too, that we know the Bible, and that from its beginning to its end, it speaks in the strongest terms of giving our worship only to God, and the New Testament writers wrote comprehensively about faith and the church and exalted only God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).
The New Testament writers also deliberately, by guidance of the Holy Spirit, avoided almost all reference to Jesus human family, Mary included, as a lot of other information (like about Jesus earlier life and appearance) was also left out. If the Christian faith was to be so much about Mary, then the Church could have recorded and preserved something about the rest of her life.
What troubles evangelicals is that so many of the very things we do as worship of God, including how we behold Him, Catholics do towards Mary. And we are not creating our own idea of what worship is, but going by what God Himself has revealed in His Word.
www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3287986/posts?page=343#343
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So, we believe in giving 100% of our worship to the triune God, including calling Him “our life,” “our sweetness,” and “our hope.” We can see no basis for turning our attention that’s wholly on God from Him to a creature, and for starting to divide our attention between them, calling on her sometimes (instead of who we have always called on, God) as “our life, our sweetness, and our hope,” too.