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And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Luke 1:28

And she [Elizabeth] cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:42

Neither of those are prayers. The angelic greeting is just a greeting, and an announcement of great blessing. If a greeting can be accounted a prayer, then saying hello to someone on the elevator at work is praying and we are all in a lot of trouble. But of course it isn't, so there's no reason to see this as prayer either.

The greeting of Elizabeth is again a pronouncement of blessing, and here said with great feeling and intensity. But in no sense is Mary being addressed as one with supernatural power to mediate between Elizabeth and God, either in the giving of worship, which Elizabeth would know to be blasphemy to offer to anyone but God, or in the granting of supernatural aid, which is precisely what most people think of on hearing the word "prayer."

But what about the "Hail?" It is simply the word χαιρε ("chaire"), which is basically "cheers!," "be of good cheer!" etc. There is no way to twist that into a term of worship. It's just "Be happy," because something wonderful is going to happen to you. Which is all true. And has nothing whatsoever to do with either worship or prayer.

Hebrews 4:14-16 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Catholics love to quote Mary's words of *Do whatever He (Jesus) tells you.* and yet are not so great about following His instructions.

Here He tells us how to pray.

Luke 11:1-13 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.” And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Jesus promised us that God the Father would hear and answer our prayers.

There is no need to go to another,especially with the thinking that they can more easily obtain for us from God the requests we have.

What an affront to God and His father love for us.

SR, thanks for your wonderful, well thought out and expressed posts.

Neither of those are prayers.

But RCs excel at extrapolating whatever they want from Scripture, seeing and they have a great deal of liberty to do so, and Scripture is rendered a servant to support Rome, and the weight of its substantiation is not the basis for the veracity of RC teachings.

Thus the explicit instructions on who to address in prayer to heaven, and the direct access Christ enabled by His blood, and the immediate access to Christ Himself as the only and wholly sufficient heavenly intercessor btwn God and man, and the Spirit in us calling to God, and the inexplicable absence of even one example out of the close to 200 prayers in Scripture to anyone in Heaven but the Lord (except by pagans) are dismissed as teaching only God is to be addressed in prayer to Heaven.

And PTDS as a common practice is taught as doctrine based upon an imposed correlation btwn earthly organic relations and that of relations btwn created beings from earth and Heaven. And the offering up of prayers as a memorial by created beings.

And humble Mary is made into an almost almighty demigoddess to whom "Jesus owes His Precious Blood" to,

whose [Mary] merits we are saved by,

who "had to suffer, as He did, all the consequences of sin,"

and "was elevated to a certain equality with the Heavenly Father,"

even so that “sometimes salvation is quicker if we remember Mary's name then if we invoked the name of the Lord Jesus,"

for indeed saints have "but one advocate," and that is Mary, who "alone art truly loving and solicitous for our salvation,"

and whose power now "is all but unlimited,"

for indeed she "seems to have the same power as God,"

"surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven,"

so that "the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse."

Moreover, "there is no grace which Mary cannot dispose of as her own, which is not given to her for this purpose,"

and who has "authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven,"

including "assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels,"

whom the good angels "unceasingly call out to," greeting her "countless times each day with 'Hail, Mary,' while prostrating themselves before her, begging her as a favour to honour them with one of her requests,"

and who (obviously) cannot "be honored to excess,"

and who is (obviously) the glory of Catholic people, whose "honor and dignity surpass the whole of creation." Sources .

Yet as i have said before, one would have a hard time in Bible times explaining kneeling before a statue and praising the entity it represented in the unseen world, and as having Divine powers and glory, and making offerings and beseeching such for Heavenly help, directly accessed by mental prayer.

Moses, put down those rocks! I was only engaging in hyper dulia, not adoring her. Can't you tell the difference?

More .

Along with this is reliance upon interpretive statements in the gospels which are compelled to support Rome by ignoring how the rest of the NT manifests their meaning.

Thus the Lord's supper is made into being the "source and summit" of the faith,around which sacrament all else revolves, in which "our redemption is accomplished," with souls gaining spiritual and eternal life thereby, even though this "feast of charity" is only manifestly described once, and in which the church is the body of Christ, which proclaims the Lord's death and their union with Him and each other by how they take part in that communal meal. (1Cor. 11:13-34 )

And being spiritually "nourished" is by "the words of faith and of good doctrine," (1Tim. 4:6) the preaching of which is the main function of NT pastors, not dispensing physical food as "priests," which is not ever shown to be the ordained function of NT priests.

And thus Peter is made to be the first of a line of supreme exalted infallible CEOs that all the church looked to, though the NT nowhere states (interpretative of Mt. 16:18) that He is the rock upon which the church is built, and to whom the church looked to as its supreme exalted infallible head, nor that his office possessed perpetual assured (conditional) infallibility.

But what about the "Hail?" It is simply the word χαιρε ("chaire"), which is basically "cheers!," "be of good cheer!" etc

Consistent with the Catholic technique, Jael must be the fertility saint to pray to:

Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent. (Judges 5:24)