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Do you believe that it lacks important doctrines about Mary, like assumption, immaculate conception, her ability to hear and answer prayers or forward prayer requests, distribution of graces, position at the cross?

AB: yes it lacks that.

Then you don't believe the bible.

And so we're back where we started ... Do you believe the Bible when "it teaches" the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? The primacy of Peter as head of the Apostles? The ablilty of the Apostles and their successors to forgive sins in Jesus' name? that the Church (not the Bible) is the pillar and foundation of truth? (Just for a few examples)

BW: Yes, it most emphatically does teach those things.

If not, then "No", you don't believe the Bible.

Mary is not, and never has been, my mother.

Well, if that is so, then that tells me alot about your relationship with Christ.

The NT is positively shot through with the metaphor of the mystical marriage between Christ and each one of his disciples in the Church. I have never, I have never ever, heard of any kind of a marriage (mystical or otherwise) where the bride steadfastly--proudly even!--refuses to greet, honor, and respect her groom's mother as her own and at the very same time she professes to unite with him in love. When you love your spouse--or anyone else--you are drawn into their family automatically and unconsciously. You become a literal son to your in laws, and even "like a son" to the parents of your best friends.

This is the fundamental difference between your outlook here on this thread and ours. You see devotion to Our Lady as a thing that has to be teased out of proof texts. You see fervent devotion as a malformed legalistic formalism, repeated whispers of "I love you" as vain babbling, honor as deification and goddess-worship. You see the cult of Mary as a matter of a cerebral and intellectual geometric proof, of something that has to be demonstrated QED from explicit texts of Scripture. And that is why it will never make sense.

We hold Our Lady close to our hearts as an intimate member of our spiritual family. She is the Mother of He whom we love more than our lives themselves. She was *explicitly* given to the unnamed "beloved disciple" at the foot of the Cross: "Son, behold thy Mother" on behalf of *all* of us beloved disciples of Christ. No honor is too great for her, no love too avid, save any which fundamentally distort her nature as a creature of the uncreated God.

Unless you learn to see your relationship with Christ and the saints as a family--a *real* family of God, not a shrink-wrapped, plastic collection of the "saved"--you will not find yourself as a happy resident of the Kingdom of Heaven.

You obviously have problems with the whole concept of Marian hyperdulia--one that has been discussed, debated, and reflected upon by holy Spirit-filled saints and brilliant theologians for the last 2000 years of Church history. You don't understand it, you don't seem to want to understand it, and you don't care that you don't. To you it's just one big exaggerated mess. Fine.

But I tell you this, all you who glory in the name of "Christian". Unless you cultivate *some* affection, *some* love, *some* little begrudging respect for the Mother of Our Blessed Lord *as* his Mother, and as yours as well--then I will say to you, despite any impudent Calvinist fulminations to the contrary, you stand in mortal danger of the death of the soul. Because you cannot pretend to show true love for Our Blessed Lord by exhibiting utter apathy and cold indifference for the woman He chose to be His Mother. If He is your Spouse, she is your Mother.

Have enough humility in your heart, even if you think that the Roman See is Antichrist straight out of Hell, to get down on your knees tonight and whisper in prayer, "Lord, I love you, and I love your mother."

If you have not the humility in grace to say that simple prayer of love--not of adoration, not even of veneration, but only of love--the Spirit dwells not in your hearts.