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I find it silly, myself.

BUT I can see it.

FIRST (I was just reading Crazy Louie, as I think of St Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort — and when he is not going WAY overboard he is VERY clear that Mary is a creature.)

So the first thing is to say is what was said. If it ain’t the head it’s body.

Now, UNDER those premises, we do say, eagerly, that Mary is, ahem, Queen of Saints. It is another instance of “primus inter pares(in her case “prima” of course.) She is a CREATURE, and in her we Catholics see the magnificent fulfillment of the promises God makes to CREATURES qua creatures.

Of course, Jesus and the Coming of the Kingdom is THE Fulfillment of the promise as giver. Mary is, to us, the, what preeminent instance of the fulfillment of the promise as recipient.

So, for instance, in one way I model myself after Jesus, (No comments needed about what a lousy job I’m doing) since He is the perfection of Humanity.

But in that modelling, Immediately am aware of my utter incapacity, no less and no more, in principle, than that of Mary. But she is, how to say it, an instance of the promise working wonderfully in somebody’s life. So I look at her to see how that went.

And about all I can find, but it’s a lot, is this: She gave her will, her self, her body, her life to God. As a result LOVE was conceived in her and she brought Love into the world. And when Love was in the world, she nurtured it, reared it, focussed on it, and when Love was a grown Man, and she saw a problem, she went directly to Love and said, “They have no wine.”

SO, I resolve to make my life an “Amen”, a “fiat”. I try to bear and nurture Love. I try to remember that in any problem (or any joy, for that matter) the first thing to do is to go to Love and set it before Him.

And then the hint in Colossians 1:24, and elsewhere in Paul, is that when we are remade and reborn, when and to the extent that the old man has died and a new life is growing within us, that new life is the Spirit of Christ. And that Spirit calls and enables us to share in Christ’s ‘work.’

SO (pause for breath, ...), IF Mary is the pre-eminent example of the fulfillment of the promises made in Christ to humankind, then she will (a)have her will perfectly united with Christ’s, and (b)share his mediating and intercessory ‘work’.

We saved sinners already share this work in little ways. In proclaiming the Gospel, in praying for one another and for the world, in walking in the good works that have been prepared for us to walk in in such a way, we hope and pray, that in the sandwich served at the soup kitchen or the kitchen built in Haiti some one will experience not how terrific we are but how amazing GOd is. That’s mediation, that’s intercession, that’s the Work which, BECAUSE it is uniquely proper to Christ, is proper to those in whom His spirit abides, those who abide in Him who abides in them.

That’s the best I can do.