Transcript

I used to think it was strange when I was learning about the Catholic Church that Catholics pray to the saints, they pray to Mary.

And I didn't really understand the need to pray to anyone other than Jesus.

One of the hardest topics to really come to an understanding of as I was converting to Catholicism was the Catholic devotion to Mary.

As a Protestant, we didn't really spend much time learning about Mary.

We would trot her out every year at the Christmas pageant, but that's all we really, uh, did to interact with her, and I didn't understand why Catholics paid so much attention to her.

And because I couldn't find all of her dogmas that we believe as Catholics rooted in scripture, it, it puzzled me.

And so, it took me a very long time to come to a devotion to Mary.

So, Mary.

This was a really big deal to me, because I knew that becoming Catholic meant accepting the teachings of the Church.

And I w- was very interested in learning about Mary, but not at all sure that I was going to be able to really believe what the Church teaches about Mary.

And so, when I, I called one of my Catholic friends who had formerly been Protestant, and he said, and it was good advice, Just give it time.

Just think of her as a friend.

So after, um, a night at, um, at church, um, after attending RCIA, um, Ivan and I were driving home, and he had a question about Mary.

He made a comment that, you know, Do we worship Mary?

Um, and for me, it was to have him understand that we, we don't worship Mary.

However, we do honor our Blessed Mother.

Um, she, she holds an important, um, piece of our heart.

Um, while we do only, uh, worship God alone, we do honor her, and we do pray to her, and, um, and, and see, um, her as a guidance to, in our lives.

My mother was a saintly woman, and I think it was my relationship with her growing up that prepared me for a relationship with Mary, our Mother, our Lady.

But I finally came to understand, uh, among other things, that on the cross, when Jesus had the, the most difficult time, painful, excruciating moment of his life, loved his mother enough to give her into the care of Saint John, his disciple.

And then, to go beyond that and to, to say to John that This is your mother, I realized there was something profound in that.

So many other things he could've talked about.

The, the pain could've pressed him in so many directions or even left him silent.

But instead, he, he loved his mother so much and cared for her that he gave her into his, to John's keeping.

But he loved John so much that he gave John a mother, his mother.

And I came to realize as, the Catholic Church teaches, that in giving her to John, he gave her to the whole Church as a spiritual mother.

Growing up, I heard my grandparents and also friends, um, other, other kids I was in school with, refer to Catholics as Mary worshipers, and it was confusing to me.

Um, however, um, going through the RCIA process, I learned that while worship is reserved for God alone, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would place his mother on a very high pedestal.

Um, she's someone that we can look up to, that we can ask for help, and I do on a daily basis.

Um, she helps me as a Catholic mother.

Um, I'm constantly knocking on her door asking, um, for her intercession.

And as the mother of Jesus, she's got the most direct line to him.

Um, so I call on her regularly.

Um, and a friend once told me when I was, when I was trying to discern my way through this topic, she said, You're not praying to the saint, like you're praying to Jesus.

You're asking the saint, you're asking Mary, to pray for you, to pro- to, to help you, to intercede for you, um, in whatever difficult time, whatever, whatever your intention is at that time, to help you get through that.

So, in- that clicked for me in a way, because it, I wouldn't think twice about asking my next door neighbor, Please pray for me.

Um, I'm sick, or, My husband's sick, or, My husband's having difficulties with this.

Please pray for us.

You're asking the saint to pray for you in the exact same way.

And they're in Heaven with God, and they were on Earth and struggled through the same things as, as we do here now.

And, um, in a way, it's just really cool to acknowledge that, that once someone passes away, they're not gone from this world forever.

They're, they're in Heaven, and they, they want to work on our behalf.

What I did when I was in RCIA is begin praying the rosary every day.

I thought that as I if I would spend time meditating on the mysteries of the life of our Lord and of Our Lady, I would eventually come to understand her better, and that's exactly what happened.

In the course of about a year, or a year and a half, I, I began to find myself more readily turning to her in times of need.

And as a Catholic, I, I turned to her every single day.

Several years ago, I made a consecration, a 33-day consecration to Our Lady, using a formula developed by Saint Louis de Montfort, one of the great Marian saints of our Church, and it changed my life.

It changed the way that I not only look at Mary, but also how I relate to her.

and I feel her presence.

I know that she's with me.

I know that I can turn to her with any need and that she's going to be there to help me.

Yeah, I think, I think, uh, it's, it's very interesting because when I think about Mary, uh, it's the mother of God, and it's really, it's the, shows us this kind of more soft, uh, side of the church where, you know, the motherly love to, you know, to, to the children and, and we're, we're really a part of it.

And that really makes me think that You know, when I, when I think about Mary, I think about how my mom treats me, how my mom think about me.

Um, all the love that she had for me.

No matter what I did, she would always love me.

And I think that really applies in the church and, and that's, that, you know, with Maya's explanation, it just makes me understand that a lot, a lot better.

Uh, yeah, we do not worship Mary, but we honor her and, and we share the love that she has, uh, with Jesus and the love that she has for us.

We often ask, um, our friends to help us, um, to pray for us, to intercede for us in a difficult situation.

And when I realize that it's the exact same thing, um, with the saints.

That you can talk to them, you can ask them to help you, to intercede for you, to pray for you, to go to Jesus on your behalf and, and ask him.

They have a direct line.

Um, we're sinful, we're broken, we're fallen, um, but they've made it, right?

Our goal is to get to heaven and they're there already.

I love St. Therese of Lisieux.

Um, she, she's a doctor of the church and her, she taught her little way.

Small sacrifices, little acts of love, um, that was her path to heaven.

And that's something that I can really connect with.

It's something, um, that I feel is attainable for me.

You know, the big grandiose, you know, make it to heaven, and that is the goal, right?

But what do you do?

How do you get there along the way?

And St. Therese says, you know, Just make small sacrifices every day.

Do little things, little acts of love, little acts of kindness.

That's something that I can, that's something I can do in, in the c- chaos of my life with my 12 children and running here, there, and yon, and all of the activities.

Um, I can still find time to make those small sacrifices, those small acts.

And she became that mother to me.

And, and something of the, the sweetness, I can only say the sweetness, that I, I feel spiritually when I think of my own mother and her saintliness.

But that same sweetness I find in, in Mary, our mother.

And that she has, has come to mean so much to me because I realized that the, the sweetness, the saintliness in my own mother was in many ways just an echo of what we find in the mother of our Lord Jesus.

When I started pursuing a relationship with Mary, I had to draw on faith.

And what I heard a Catholic teacher say was, Faith is a, an act of your will.

It's a decision.

It is not an emotion.

And I really couldn't drum up emotions for Mary.

Why?

Because I was Protestant.

We don't know Mary in, as Protestants.

She's the mother of Jesus and that's great at Christmastime, but otherwise we don't know her.

Most of what we know about her is that the Catholics worship her.

So I made a decision in faith because I trusted, my trust in the church was growing.

And I thought, Okay, I'm going to go for this.

I truly made a decision, I'm gonna go, I'm going to seek to understand and know Mary.

And that was the best decision I could've made because once I let my guard down, I discovered how much I had always needed Mary as a mother.

And so getting to know her has been wonderful and comforting and daily and just profound.

And, um, now I can't imagine not having Mary.

And I'm just moving forward in that and really grateful.

It's another wonderful gift of the church.