11. Why Do Catholics Honor Mary And The Saints?

"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." - Luke 1:42

Catholics honor Mary and the saints because God has honored them, because they belong to Christ, because they show the fruit of grace, and because the members of Christ's Body are not separated from one another by death.

The catechism answer is simple: Catholics honor Mary and the saints because they are God's friends in heaven, because their holiness glorifies God, and because they pray for us. We worship God alone.

This last sentence must be clear. Catholics do not worship Mary. Catholics do not worship the saints. Worship belongs to God alone.

The question is not first, "Does this feel unfamiliar?" It is not first, "Do some people misunderstand it?" The question is: "What has God done in His saints, and how should the Church honor His work?"

God is glorified in His saints. Their holiness is not competition with Christ. It is the fruit of Christ's grace. To honor a saint rightly is to honor what God has done in a soul.

This is why Catholic devotion is not a distraction from God when it is rightly ordered. It leads the soul to praise God more fully.

Worship, strictly speaking, belongs only to God. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost alone are adored as God. No creature may receive divine worship.

Catholics distinguish adoration from honor. God receives adoration. The saints receive honor. Mary receives the highest honor among creatures because she is the Mother of God, but she is still a creature. She is not God.

This distinction protects Catholic devotion from confusion. The soul should love Mary and the saints deeply, but never as though they replaced God. Their whole glory comes from Him.

Mary is honored above all saints because she is the Mother of God. The Son she bore is not a mere man. He is the eternal Son of God made flesh. Therefore Mary is truly Theotokos, Mother of God.

The angel Gabriel greeted her: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee."[1] St. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, called her "blessed" and "the mother of my Lord."[2] Mary herself prophesied: "Behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."[3]

Catholic honor for Mary therefore begins in Scripture. The Church calls her blessed because God made her blessed.

True devotion to Mary leads to Christ. At Cana, Mary says, "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye."[4] This is her rule. She does not gather souls away from her Son. She forms them in obedience to Him.

Mary is the New Eve, the Woman, the Mother at the Cross, and the image of the Church in perfect fidelity. She teaches the soul to receive God's word, keep it, suffer with Christ, and remain faithful when many flee.

A beginner should therefore not fear Mary. He should learn to love her as Christ's Mother and as the Mother given to the faithful disciple at Calvary.

The saints are men and women who lived and died in God's grace and now behold Him in heaven. They are not dead in the sense of being cut off from Christ. Christ says that God is "not the God of the dead, but of the living."[5]

The saints show what grace can do. Some were martyrs. Some were confessors. Some were virgins, widows, bishops, priests, monks, mothers, kings, scholars, penitents, missionaries, and hidden souls. Their states of life differ, but their holiness comes from Christ.

To honor the saints is to honor the victory of grace in them.

The Church is one in Christ: the Church Militant on earth, the Church Suffering in purgatory, and the Church Triumphant in heaven. Death does not break the charity of Christ's Body.

This is called the communion of saints. The faithful on earth pray for one another. The souls in purgatory are helped by the prayers and suffrages of the Church. The saints in heaven pray for us.

This makes Catholic life larger than what is visible on earth. The Christian does not walk alone. He belongs to a living communion under Christ the Head.

Catholics ask Mary and the saints to pray for them. This is called intercession. It is not worship. It is asking members of Christ who are already with Him to pray for us.

If it is good to ask a faithful Christian on earth to pray for us, it is not wrong to ask the saints in heaven, who are more alive in Christ and more perfectly united to God.

The Hail Mary shows this simply: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." The request is for prayer. It is not adoration.

Catholics also honor holy images and relics. This does not mean worshiping wood, paint, cloth, or bones. Honor given to an image passes to the person represented. A family may kiss a photograph of a loved one without loving paper more than the person. In a higher and sacred way, holy images help the soul remember and honor Christ, Our Lady, and the saints.

Relics are honored because the bodies of the saints were temples of the Holy Ghost and instruments of holy works. Scripture itself shows extraordinary graces associated with the bones of Eliseus and with cloths touched by St. Paul.[6]

Catholic use of images and relics must be reverent and doctrinally clear. It is not superstition. It is honor given according to Catholic faith.

Many Protestants object that honoring Mary and the saints takes glory from Christ. The Catholic answer is that true honor of Mary and the saints gives glory to Christ because their holiness comes from Him.

No Catholic should speak as though Mary saves apart from Christ. No saint has grace apart from Christ. No intercession works apart from Christ. Christ is the one Mediator as God and man. The saints intercede as His members, by His grace, under His lordship.

The error is not honoring God's work in His saints. The error is treating the family of God as though death destroyed charity or as though Christ were less glorified by the holiness He produces.

A beginner should begin simply:

• pray the Hail Mary with attention;
• ask Our Lady to lead him to Christ;
• learn the lives of the saints;
• choose a patron saint;
• ask the saints for prayers;
• honor holy images without superstition;
• imitate the virtues of the saints;
• remember that worship belongs to God alone.

Devotion should produce imitation. A person who honors Mary should learn humility, purity, obedience, and fidelity. A person who honors the martyrs should learn courage. A person who honors penitents should repent.

The soul must learn that God alone is worshiped.

The soul must learn that Mary is honored above all saints because she is the Mother of God.

The soul must learn that true Marian devotion leads to obedience to Christ.

The soul must learn that the saints are alive in Christ and pray for us.

The soul must learn that images and relics are honored according to Catholic faith, not worshiped as idols.

Catholics honor Mary and the saints because they are God's friends in heaven, because their holiness glorifies God, and because they pray for us. We worship God alone.

A beginner should ask: Do I understand the difference between worship and honor? Do I call Mary blessed as Scripture teaches? Do I ask the saints to pray for me? Do I imitate their virtues? Does my devotion lead me closer to Christ?

Mary and the saints are not rivals to Christ. They are His triumph in human souls. To honor them rightly is to praise the grace of God.