Do you believe in intercessionary prayer? If you do, then you value other's prayers for you, you ask them to help you, please. Are there some folks you'd ask to pray for you above others?
Mary is Jesus's mother and asking her intercession is very special, because she and Jesus have a unique and special relationship.
Here's the bottom line, PM, do Catholics believe Mary is God? The answer is no. Catholics are trinitarian monotheists, and were so long before protestants came on the scene.
If a Catholic, or any Christian, mistakes Mary for God, they are in error. This is idolatry. Idolatry takes many forms, but it is most clearly defined as mistaking the finite for the infinite.
You may not be able to distinguish proper doctrine on Mary from improper; it may seem to you, within your experience, that Catholics are idolatrous. In some cases you would be right. Catholics and other Christians also sometimes slide into magical thinking. However, this is not the correct teaching of our respective churches.
Something completely unknown to most Protestants is the Catholic practice of meditation on Jesus having a human mother. This, if you pursue it but a little, leads you to fuller understanding of the most central event in Christianity: the incarnation. "And the Word became flesh and walked among us..", "for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.." Fully God and fully human.
"God from God, Light from Light,true God from true God, begotten, not made… he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man."
This Incarnation was through Mary, God had a mother, just like us. He worried about His mother; and his mother watched him tortured and killed.
If you understand only a little of what I'm saying, you may begin to see Catholic religious practices as they include Mary in a more complete light.
To make Mary a diety, gets the significance of the incarnation completely wrong; it goes against the most basic Christology of the Church. To not fully realize that Mary was the human mother of God, results in the opposite, but equally false, teaching.
Idolatry, again, takes many forms. When I hear some Protestants discuss the Bible, it seems to me they have mistaken an object for God, and are practicing idolatry. In some cases, I am likely right; however, this is not the proper teaching of Protestants.
Again, idolatry is mistaking the finite for the infinite. Two people can use a cross and pray "to" it. One can be using it as an icon, to focus beyond it to the infinite God; another can be using it as an idol, as an embodiment of God.
The difference can not be determined by observing their prayer; cannot be determined by whether one is kneeling or not. The difference is in whether they believe the finite object or person is the infinite God.
Catholics are taught that Mary was fully human, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.
She is not God.
Thank your for reply and for your prayers.
In closing tonight, I'm going to paste the Nicene Creed. This is an excellent beginning in knowing what Catholics believe (the catechism is organized around it). We say it every Sunday; it is the basic tenets of our faith - written seventeen centuries ago.
If what you believe we believe, or what any Catholic actually believes is contrary to this, it is, by definition, contrary to our creed.
The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
How sad. A good man makes a journey of faith, which is chronicled in this thread, then the wackos show up to try to turn it into an "I hate Mary" thread.
Satan laughs at his little bible-thumping clowns.