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Darn, just as I have to go display responsibility.

Unless I misread this paragraph it sounds as if you trust and believe in Him more and more because of all the miracles around you. You seem to confirm this with your statement:

I'm going to have to do some personal inventorying before I give a confident answer, but my off the top of my head answer is that I view miracles and emotional experiences as "lollipops". They're not nutritious, but they're fun. In my uncharitable moments (like, when I'm awake) I have been known to disparage what I call "consolation junkies", people whose entire focus seems to be on "special" stuff, and not on the normal day to day wonder that God loves us. But, y'know, every once in a while, I REALLY need a pat on the back, and I'm grateful when I get it.

While miracles do happen, it is dangerous practice to place too much emphasis on them one way or another.

No argument there. Do we love God for who He is, or for the lollipops? (But when He gives me a lollipop, I'm not only not going to throw it away, I'm going to say, Woah! Looky THAT!"

And it occurs to me that it's those exclamations that lead people to think that it's ALL - or too much of -- our discourse. It's funny, what gets the press and sort of dominates the popular discourse is the face of Mary in the grill cheese sammich. But, I spent about half an hour this AM going over an article about "porneia" as used in the LXX, in secular Greek literature, in the NT, and the words in the MT that the LXX use of porneia translates.

If it weren't for the pornographic side of it, that wouldn't be newsworthy at all. When I did the same thing, years ago, about mysterion, who would have cared? (Some guy was saying there's not much evidence of the word outside religious lit so we can't know what it means, so I was checking his assertion. It's not that I (blush) have any, special interst, koff koff, ahem, in, ah porneia, you understand ....) (But I have some Greek vases you really should see .....)(or maybe not.)

Back to my Oxford Eddumicated god-mother: In the Church of England they sing hymns by John Newman. He is known (If lamentend, for kissing the Pope's toe) as an intelligent and learned man. His Apologia pro Vita Sua, is not an enthusiastic simple-minded work.

Yet Godmother Dora characterized RCs as superstitious. This is, I think a result of "the sensational press" which is more fun and diverting than the reality of a 59 year old drinking coffee with some big fat books open in front of him, hoping that his failing memory will be able to retain some of what he reads.

So while Fatima gets the press, and a lot of serious, thoughtful RC are very involved with it (J2P2 sent the bullet which wounded him to the chapel there), it's really not as official as the long, verbose, technical, rarely lovely documents of Vatican II which are our bread and butter (as opposed to lollipops).

Even the inclusion of the so-called Fatima Prayer ("Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy.") after each decade in the Rosary,is merely the popular alteration of what is a popular devotion - admittedly VERY popular. It's a perfectly good Rosary without the Fatima prayer, and when someone says, "But our Lady ASKED us to say it," that's more from enthusiasm than officialdom.

Why should we pray that God reveals to us something new about Mary? What is written in scripture is written and there isn't a whole lot of information in scripture about Mary.

Well, how about this? There is a disagreement between, as it were, two courts, as I said above. So it's time for an appeal. You say, as if it were conclusive, that we already have Scripture (and that what we're asserting is "something new". But we have a different understanding of the role of Scripture in establishing doctrine (and also of the newness of the question.) If one wee to stand back, as if not already in one or the other camp, and pray, that's going to the final authority -- and in my comparison with the court system, an appeal to a higher court for a resolution of conflicting decisions.

One court's saying, "But we're right," is, at this point, sort of irrelevant. We already knew you think you're right.

But look. I say again: A RC says, "Pray to God," and you are saying, "No! Don't! It's dangerous!" And yet we are the ones said to be deficient in trusting God.