"Mary, my Mother and my Lady, I offer You my soul, my body, my life and my death, and all that will follow it. I place everything in Your hands. O my mother, cover my soul with Your virginal mantle and grant me the grace of purity of heart, soul and body. Defend me with Your power against all enemies, and especially against those who hide their malice behind the mask of virtue. O lovely lily! (79)"
HUH?
MARY?
No thanks.
It is CHRIST that I pray to and put my faith in; certainly NOT MARY!
GEEEESSSHHH!
Don't direct that foul stuff to MY attention.
If you feel that strongly about it, why did you jump on a Catholic themed thread where we would be talking about it? If you don't like it, don't inflict it on yourself.
But we LIKE Mary. No, we LOVE Mary.
We see her as our spiritual Stepmom, given to us by Jesus, both through our adoption into the body of Christ and by the words he spoke right before he died.
And your opinion of her expressed by aggressive outrage comes across as an attack on our beloved Blessed Mother, and really won't have much of an impact on our faith in Jesus, Mary, or the teachings of Mother Church - but it might color how we will interpret ANYTHING you say to us, and basically turn us off from listening to your message.
At moments like this, I get the words to "They will know we are Christians by our love," running through my head, and wondering if I should rewrite it....