Please don’t take this wrong, I am really trying to understand the doctrine and beliefs here—you go with Mary in prayers to have her as a ‘buffer’ between you and Jesus? Wouldn’t that put Mary in the role of High Priest/ess, then? I believe that Jesus Himself holds that role (’after Mechelzidek’) and when He died on the cross, the veil in the Temple was torn in two, signifying that there was no longer a need for anyone to come between man (all of humankind throughout the ages) and God because of Jesus’s sacrifice. Why do Catholics need a ‘buffer’ that can ‘stay His fury’?
Especially considering Christ's very purpose as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world was to pay for the sins of His flock once, in full, forever.
Buffer, schmuffer. Those who believe in Jesus Christ have been acquitted of their sins by Christ on the cross.
"She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet." -- Proverbs 31:21
Who says that "staying his fury" is the role of Mary as intercessor, etc.? Who said anything about "need"? I am taking you seriously in your desire to learn (and I'd recommend "Why Do Catholics do that?" as a pleasant not too inaccurate book as a starting point), but that is a "have you stopped beating your wife?" type of question. We do not "need" Mary, and certainly not to "stay Jesus's fury". We're happy to have her and a whole cloud of witnesses as well.
IF Jesus is High Priest, as we say with you, then is the person who intercedes for us with Jesus, is not necessarily a priest.
(I HAVE (need?) to mention that, to talk to OUR priests here at our parish, we DO have to go through Suzie the secretary - but here the question is who will stay HER fury, not the fury of the priests.)
A friend of mine converted to the RC church. Part of the process is to make your first confession. Understandably she was anxious, needlessly anxious, as she herself realized at the time, but anxious nonetheless. So she asked me to come with her and to sit with her before the confession. (I told her I wanted to be there after the confession to share her happiness.) I wasn't necessary, but even I can be nice to have around.
And she said it was nice to have someone to share the afterwards feeling with too.
I note a number of people coming onto Free Republic with requests for prayers. I imagine some of them are Protestants. We wouldn't say they are asking us to exercise a priestly function when they are already themselves kings and priests to God? It's nice to have friends in one's corner, in good times and bad, and that seems to be true for Protestants as well as Catholics.
Try this concept - before the jackals and hyenas come and rip it to shreds with "over the transom" accusations about things we neither believe nor do: We tend to think, and to demonstrate (or to TRY to demonstrate) not only in our lives but in our devotions and prayers and liturgies, the mind-bogglingly rich, overflowing, ever-new, never in short supply but always astonishingly abundant Love and Grace of God. We trust Him to give not just enough but more than enough, not only happiness but pleasures, for at his right hand is pleasure for evermore (Ps. 16)
He "goes the second mile" before He asks us to. And He does it again after He asks us to.
And, I think, especially for the timid and fearful (and who is not timid and fearful now and again?), he provides helps and encouragements. And the experience of the communion of the Saints, the sharing in Christ's body of all its members , is one such. Certainly, it is always good to cast all one's cares on Him who cares for us. But, when my child was sick unto death (she lived, don't worry) it was nice not only to have my faith and my realtionship with God through Christ(and I was a Calvinistic leaning Episcopalian in them thar days) but my friends.
Now, I just feel like I have more friends. Mary certainly, but two French women? French women of not so long ago? I never in a hundred years would have thought that I would be comforted by Terese and Catherine! And Catherine I just kind of accidentally ran into, so to speak, since I needed to sit down since I had walked much too much 41 days after foot surgery. And a chapel dedicated to Catherine Laboure was the place I sat down. And since I was in a chapel, I decided to pray -- to God, it being Saturday in Easter Week and all ....
Long story short, my tag line is now a prayer revealed to Catherine Laboure, though my time set apart or prayer is still about 90% explicitly spent in prayer to Holy Trinity or one of the Divine Persons.
It's not a need. It's a delight and a help.
Come to think of it, we don't REALLY NEED food, if we're in Christ. But things go a lot better if we can have lunch.
Sorry, after turning aside (or trying to) the classic accusations of subconscious crypto-gnosticism, I wanted to write about something nice.