” I can’t even begin to parse this dribble. “
Indeed.
‘Sadly, there isn’t any difference between praying to Baal or praying to Mary.”
ROTFLMAO! You are really going there? What a drooling and idiotic simile. But fitting.
Ahhhhh....such logic and reasoning. I’m sure the early church fathers would be proud of such elocution. However, you may have to translate ROTFLMAO for them as it’s not in the Greek.
Doesn’t the Catholic idea of asking Mary to intercede turn prayer into something more complicated than it needs to be? Or perhaps to express it more accurately, does it not seek to downplay the love God has for each one of us individually?
I’m assuming Catholics believe God is both omniscient and is love [see vs below]. That is what the Bible teaches.
If this is true, then God knows your prayer from the moment you conceive of it. [Strictly speaking, He knew about it from eternity, since He is above time and knows the end from the beginning.]
So imagine you offer a prayer to Mary, with the request that she intercede with God on your behalf.
God knows all this in advance. He knows your thoughts, your words, your feelings, etc. So how does Mary approach Him? Does she say, ‘That prayer that Narses prayed—the one you’ve already heard. I just want to especially urge You to answer it,’?
How does this not backfire? It implies that Mary cares more for you than your heavenly Father. It suggests that He might not adequately listen or respond without her intercession.
Jesus gave us a series of teachings under the rubric, ‘how much more,’. Here’s one of them:
Matthew 7:11
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!
A need for Mary’s intercession suggests a deficiency in this teaching. Namely, that it should read, ‘How much more will your heavenly Father give to those on whose behalf Mary intercedes!’
This is simply not the case. God answers our prayers because He is good/He loves us. It all depends on Him—not on us, not on Mary, and not on anyone else.
Look at it like this. You need an intermediary when the party you’re trying to reach is too busy, or perhaps doesn’t know you personally and doesn’t love and care for you sufficiently. For example, let’s say you’re one of a dozen children. Your father is very busy, and anyway, you’ve always suspected he cares more for one or two of your siblings than for you.
One day you have a burning, urgent request. To make certain it gets the most favorable hearing, you ask your mother to present it to your father. He adores her, after all—and you’ve never doubted her love for you.
In real life this is a possible scenario. With God it isn’t. There’s no possibility of God’s love being insufficient for any one of us. If He did not withhold His only begotten Son from death on the cross, then His love is unconditional. Any other belief simply reflects a lack of faith in God’s goodness and love.
1 John 4:
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 5:15
And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.