How an Amazon Pagan Rite Brought 48 Years of Demonic Torment, Until Christ Freed Me

National Catholic Register ^ | Oct. 18, 2019 | Edward Pentin

[Luircin]

Why not pray to Jesus instead?

Does Jesus love you less than Mary or something?

[Elsie]

Jesus loves her very much.

God so loved the WORLD; that...

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, yes. I think Jesus loves the world, FReepers, my mother, you, me, Mary, Joseph, etc.

I am well-advised to ask any righteous person to pray for me: you, FReepers, my mother, Mary, Joseph, my guardian angel, etc. I think, especially, people whom Jesus especially loves and honors, like His mother.

"The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much." (James 5:16)

[Mrs. Don-o]

It seems you wish to imply, by your words, that there is some either/or relationship between praying to God or asking for others' intercession in praying to God. That is, as if there were some rival or competitive element in praying to God vs praying to Mary or the other saints.

This is not so, for two reasons.

First, praying to God always includes adoration of God, while praying to Mary (or the other saints, or the angels) never does.

Second, praying to other believers (whether they are in this world or in the next) is always asking them to intercede for us to God. If I ask you to pray for me, I am --- in that sense --- praying to you.

That sense of "earnestly asking" used to exist in the English language, but it is now archaic and has almost been lost: "Who, I pray, could be phoning me at this hour of the night?" "Pray be careful in handling those fragile china cups." "I pray you, the members of the jury, to keep in mind that the defendant is mentally impaired."

You can find a lot of that in Shakespeare. But 500 years later, not so much.

Anyway, the thing to keep in mind is that "prayer" is not a synonym for "adoration". It is a synonym for "ask earnestly," or, esp. religiously, a synonym of seeking spiritual connection or communion.

The way I summarize that for my RCIA students, includes this little mnemmonic shorthand:

Prayer to God, ACTS

Adoration
Contrition
Thanksgiving
Supplication

Prayer to saints and angels, HI

Honor
Intercession

This is no different from me asking you to pray for me.

Would you pray for me?

Thanks.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oh, and I meant to add: God IS love. So --- His love, being infinite--- it is, so to speak, mathematically impossible for God to love anybody *more* or *less*. It is His nature to love infinitely, and "infinity" is not a counting number, and cannot be used for computation, calculation or comparison.

He loves every single thing His hands created. "The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Psalm 145:9) So God loves you, all His creatures, constellations, cockroaches, molecules, his mother, Jim Robinson, and Adolf Hitler equally.

But this is hardly comprehensible because we have finite minds, and we know God (Who is infinite) *hates* infinitely as well (He hates evildoers, hands that shed innocent blood, for instance) and all this does not compute--- for us.

So, humanly speaking (and Jesus had, and still has, a human nature as well as a divine nature) we can say at least that Jesus can love some people specially.

For instance, in Mark 10:21, it says that when Jesus encountered the rich young man who asked Him about eternal life, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him..."

In John's Gospel, John calls himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (What? Didn't Jesus love the other disciples?)

When His friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept and the people said, "Look at how much He loved him."

So it can be said pretty definitely that Jesus had particular affections.

It's pretty safe to say the woman the Archangel Gabriel hailed with the unprecedented form of address "Kecharitomene" (she who is all-filled with grace) and whom Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, called "the Mother of my Lord" and who is declared "most blessed of all women" and who was the obedient, warm, responsive, empathetic, and holy mother of Jesus Christ Our Lord --- --- He lived *in* her for 9 months, He was subject to her when He was a child, and He lived *with* her for 30 years! And one of his last thoughts, when He was dying, was of her----would be very specially loved by Him: Him being the perfect son!

What good son does not have a unique and particular love for his wonderful mother?

[metmom]

What good son does not have a unique and particular love for his wonderful mother?

How can a God who condemns favoritism as sin and cannot love anyone any more or any less than someone else, have a special love for one person over another?

[Luircin]

Not exactly what I meant.

And this isn’t just because the word ‘pray’ to anyone but God offends me.

The question I’m asking is this: Why pray to Mary? I’m asking for your personal reason you spend so many words talking to Mary that you could use to talk directly to the Lord.

I mean, even if I were to believe that I could ask people who are already asleep in Christ to pray for me, why wouldn’t I just spend a sentence asking them and then zip directly to God, like I do with those around me?

[Mrs. Don-o]

`

??

What?

I just explained that.

Jesus Christ Our Lord has (in addition to His Divine nature) a human nature. True God and True Man. It's just human nature to love your Mama.

I concede heartily that it's not humanly possible to understand God's limitlessness (by which we can say God loves Josef Stalin, mosquitoes, Genghis Khan, and myself equally, because He loves infinitely) and at the same time He hates whom He hates:

The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked. He hates those who love violence. Psalm 11:5

There are six things the Lord hates—
no, seven things he detests:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that kill the innocent,
a heart that plots evil,
feet that race to do wrong,
a false witness who pours out lies,
a person who sows discord in a family.
Proverbs 6:15–19

Jesus, being a perfect Man, had a loving good will towards all, but special affections for some--- this being consonant with human nature. a human (qua human) is finite and cannot love infinitely; only God can.

Yet the Bible says that God hates some people.

“Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Romans 9:13). Psalm 139:21–22 tells us that we should join God in His holy hatred of these people: “Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord …? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.” (Also in the NT, Revelation 2:6.)

In another context, hate just signifies "love less." Jesus says that we must hate the members of our own families if we want to follow Him (Luke 4:26), in Matthew 10:37, Jesus says we must love them less than we love Him.

Jesus asks Peter if Peter loves Him "more than these". He's looking for an affirmative answer.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Because God intends us to understand how closely He actually identifies with us: so much that asking one of His disciples, is the same as asking Him (because we all know that God does it all.)

But before I get into more detail:

Have you ever asked somebody else to pray for you? Or even to pray for somebody else, someone in need? At Church, in your family, on a Free Republic prayer thread, or at any other time?

If so, why did you do that? Why didn't you just pray to God yourself?

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[Mrs. Don-o]

THanks for this discussion!

[metmom]

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 commands us to pray to God, the Father.

What happened to the Biblical literalism Catholics use when interpreting John 6?

Is that out the window along with ignoring the command to call no man father as a religious title?

[Luircin]

I’m not sure you read my post; I already addressed that.

What I’m asking is why you spend all the *time* praying to Mary and saints instead of spending that *time* praying to God and maybe two seconds asking Mary to pray with you.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Umm... I am pretty sure you pray more prayers than the Our Father.

Perhaps you will correct me, but do you not also pray to Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit?

Yet intercessory prayer to the saints is recommended in the NT also--- many times. Two example:

Acts 5:12 ff

And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people...Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them...There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.

---

Acts 19:11-12

And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

---

Why did these people come to Peter and Paul? Why didn't they just pray directly to God, themselves?

I pray to Peter and Paul, too. I ask them to pray to God for me. And I pray to God on my own, as well.

Jesus says we would be very much mistaken to suppose that those who have gone on before us, are "dead." That's seriously erroneous thinking.

"Have you not read that God told him [Moses], 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"

[metmom]

It’s a PATTERN for our prayer.

Jesus preached against meaningless repetition in prayer, and while it may be a fine prayer to pray on occasion, I doubt He meant it for THE prayer to pray all the time, fulfilling our obligation for prayer.

Nor does that justify in the least, praying to others besides God, dead, alive, or whatever other excuse you want to make for it.

Time spent praying to others is time robbed from praying to God. And nobody is falling for the praying through others to God rationalization. Pray to God directly yourself as COMMANDED by Jesus.

[Mrs. Don-o]

How could you possibly know how much "time" I spend praying to Mary?

Mary is mentioned in the Mass only briefly (in the "Confiteor" or "I confess") and --- if the Confiteor is omitted, as it often is--- she is generally not mentioned at Mass at all:

I confess to almighty God
and to you,
my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done
and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault,
through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

That's 2 seconds (I just timed myself on the bolded words)--- 2 seconds out of an hour-long Mass.

If you read the prayers of the Mass, you'll notice that almost all of the prayers are directed to God the Father, and almost all the action is done by God the Son.

`

[Mrs. Don-o]

Jesus COMMANDED you to pray "always".

So why do you send so much time on the Internet? Are you robbing God of all this time which He has a right to?

" But I DO follow the NT pattern of praying to God, interceding for others, and asking others to intercede for me.

Here, This is for you, too.

Reading this will give you a more accurate idea, which I am sure you will appreciate.

[metmom]

So why do you send so much time on the Internet? Are you robbing God of all this time which He has a right to?

Backatcha.....

[Mrs. Don-o]

Double backatcha!!

(Giggles)

[Luircin]

Then why are all the prayers to Mary that I end up reading from Catholics so long and flowery, hmm?

[Mrs. Don-o]

An interesting question! This is how I see it:

I think the Marian poetry in general was so ornate because it was written to suit the devotional style of people who were well able to appreciate courtly poetry.

Because so many were written in or before the 17th century, the Marian hymns (e.g. writings from the era of the Byzantine Court to St. Louis de Montfort) have an easily recognizable panegyric style.

You should see how people of, for instance, the 16th century, even Protestants, wrote about queens (like Elizabeth I) --- it was a whole genre of courtly poetry, typified by a flowery, ornate style. The Baroque era took it even further (both for secular and religious poetry.)

The Catholics thought that if an earthly queen (e.g. the Byzantine Empress) got such honors, the mother of the King of Kings (as Queen Mother) should receive even greater. It illustrated the magnificence of the risen Savior's court and of His royal family. It would be an insult to the Kingship of Jesus Christ if she were not addressed in a courtly way. Christ's royal dignity is above all earthly dignities!

21st century America has no concept whatsoever of courtly artistic style. (Think how crudely and trivially we treat the Presidents and their wives.) The closest you will come is the Song of Songs in the Bible, which uses an ornate style to celebrate a royal marriage in the age of King Solomon, which is read allegorically to refer to the Church and also to the Theotokos.

I wrote a BUNCH on this in Free Republic several years ago, but the Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search engines are now almost useless for locating specific FR content, even with very exact search strings. Grr...

I think the Engines screwed up the algorithms for conservative sites.

The tagline is from the Song of Songs.