But I grieve a little because I DO believe this stuff, and I think you are missing out on a lot of totally wonderful graces and helps and benefits and consolation and even on a certain intellectual and moral clarity -- or, at least, great helps towards that clarity ( certainly a great many Catholics despise those helps ... . )
From you viewpoint, I can understand your sadness and I thank you for your thoughtful responses, and I sincerely mean no ill will or harshness, However, I cannot wrap my mind around needing a priest to channel "grace" from Mary, or Jesus to assist in justification/sanctification. I just dont see it in the scripture, in fact I see the opposite. "We can come boldly before the throne of Grace"!
I believe "ex opere operato" sacraments began as public confessions of faith (baptism), commemorations (Lords Supper), and benign rituals that were over many years deformed into "channels of grace" that were effective only thru a priesthood.
I dont see a gradual infused righteousness, but an instant imputation of Christ's Righteousness upon regeneration.
My take on the whole matter is that Catholics have embraced a return to the Law that gradually developed over many hundreds of years, most certainly side tracked by un-believers, "false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage".
I am sorry but when I read scripture, I do not see the RCC. Scripture brings us back to the foundations of Jesus and the Apostles. I think many RC's cling to novelties that appeard many hundreds of years that were unknown in the early church.
I can no longer assent to those things that I grew up with. I can only but agree with the psalmist, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."
Even though I was no doubt not even a feelthy papist when that happened, I feel sorry and all that. There is a lot of crappy catechesis going on through all Christianity as far as I can tell. I get a monthly newsletter from something called the Coming Home Network. it's MOSTLY about non-Catholic clergy who become Catholics, but sometimes the guy started out Catholic, then became a non-Catholic and a clergyD00d, and THEN came back.
But I mention this because the distinctive matters aside, it is REALLY rare (I think) that the unconditional, unmerited love of Christ is effectively conveyed to little ones.
I wish you guys would at least read the Cliff Notes to Dominus Iesus. And I wish I could convey the idea of "ordinarily necessary" (and kick in the butt my fellow catechists who gloss over the "ordinarily.")
I think all the ex opere operato stuff is right and true and good etc. I think it did arise almost for the reason you say -- the assertion that God's action is always primary. The sacrament doesn't "work" because of you or because of the priest, it "works" because of God and His fidelity and generosity.
But it's hard both for preachers and their hearers to convey that. When I preached, I made it a point that at least 9 out of 10 sermons had to be explicitly evangelical -- in the sense that they proclaimed and explained (at least a little) the primacy (in every sense) of Grace. When I had my radio show, for 4 years every 'talk' led to the conclusion that "God loves you."
And yet people who've known me for years react with surprise when I say that the first thing is the Love of God. I don't know what I could do that I am not doing.
Yes, I'm rambling. Sorry.
As to having to go through Mary, yatta yatta. Maybe there is SOME kind of necessity. If there is I am not clear on it. But it would not surprise me if, when I croak, Dominic said to me, "I've had you in my heart and in my intercessions since you were born." In other words, when Dominic was nothing to me but the church 'they' went to on Sunday, while we went to a proper church, he still may have been somehow involved with my life. And I'm utterly persuaded that Mary was.
So just as God's love does not depend on me, the intercession of the saints need not depend on my knowing about them or asking for it.
May I ask you to read with more precision and clarity than I just wrote this mess? I think I need a break.
In any event, let us resolve that neither of us knows as much as we should about the Love of God, yet both of us relies on it, and that therefore we are brethren, even if in some sense 'separated.'