Don’t Hail Mary - 17 August 2011 |
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A Roman Catholic friend asked me a few questions recently in connection with this sermon, in which I made some comments in the first few minutes about praying to Mary.
Here are a couple of things I said in reply:
To pray directly to Mary is idolatrous, since prayer is a form of worship, and therefore is to be offered to God alone. Furthemore, it’s folly to ask Mary (or indeed any other saint) to answer our prayers herself, since God alone is sovereign over heaven and earth. She has no more power to grant answers to prayer than do you or I.
Someone might reply, of course, that to ask Mary to intercede for us before God is different from asking her to answer our prayers herself. I’d certainly grant that there is a difference, but problems remain. First, to “ask” Mary to intercede to us involves praying to her. We’re back to the previous problem – prayer is worship, and is to be offered to God alone.
Second, what biblical basis is there for believing that Mary’s prayers are more likely to be effectual than ours? James 5:16 (The prayer of a righteous person has great power) might spring to mind, but James is plainly encouraging his readers to seek the prayers of living people; if he’d wanted to endorse seeking the intercession of the righteous dead he would surely have said so explicitly, especially given the absence of the idea elsewhere in Scipture. But in fact he suggests no such thing. I just can’t think of anywhere in Scripture that gives the slightest encouragement to the practice of asking (praying to) the dead to intercede for us.
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog