[Mrs. Don-o]

You wrote: I find the Catholic comportment toward Mary to be "adoration" while that toward God to be "fear and reverence."

But in what way? Please specify with examples so I can see where your objection is.

I think one source of incomprehension, maybe, is that we as 21st century people, and espcially as Americans, have very little imagination of courtly relationships.

Take any pf the great artists, East or West, who portrayed Heaven, and you'll see a vast and crowded scene with a throng of holy personages, heirarchically assembled: Angels, Archangels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Emperors, Kings, Bishops, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, etc. etc., deployed as a pyramid with the Trinity at the top, or in a circle with the Trinity in the center.

There was a fairly intricate sense of how they related to each other, and of the degrees of honor suitable to each, based on a kind of exuberant expansion of the protocols and the splendor of earthly courts.

The use of Imperial images, poetry, and diction to convey Heaven realities is firmly rooted n Scripture, as well as being inevitable in the artistic imagination of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, Russia, Byzantium. That's where a lot of the more traditional and fervent devotions get their vocabulary from, and why it doesn't make instant sense to us, secular, egalitarian, democratic, and culturally deracinated as we are.

[papertyger]

You make an interesting point. It may be true a modern American mind set isn't appropriately trained to make the correct distinctions, but that just puts us back to the position of a "weak" brother as in 1 Corinthians. It does not fix the problem.

As for your inability to appreciate my discomfort, I would think praying my life and my hope to anyone but God would be fairly self evident.

[AnAmericanMother]

Precisely. You linked what I was talking about (the degrees or hierarchies in who you introduce to whom) to the tradition of the Church.

Thanks!