Why Are Protestants Afraid of Mary?

Gospel	Luke 1:39-45 ©

Why should I be honored with a visit from the mother of my Lord?

Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honored with a visit from the mother of my Lord? For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’

Well, here we are.  Yes, the fourth week of Advent is upon us. In my mind, I can still remember the Thanksgiving turkey and all of the trimmings that we enjoyed.  Christmas seemed so very far away that day.  But today, like a thief in the night, the fourth Sunday of Advent is here and the fourth Advent candle joins the other three beacons of hope in announcing our wait is almost over. 

Two thousand years ago, a young virgin, who was with child, went to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth.  No sooner did Elizabeth lay eyes on Mary when the child in her womb "leaped for joy."  John the Baptist knew he was in the presence of the Messiah and joy filled his still developing body and he could not be restrained as the love he had compelled him to honor the Christ Child and he did so with an embryonic dance of love.

Our Protestant brothers and sisters have a great fear of Mary.  They are afraid that showing her the honor due to the Mother of Christ will in some manner anger Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit because it takes honor from Them and deposits it on Mary, a mere mortal. We, on the other hand, know that the first person who gave Mary the honor befitting the Mother of God was her Son, Jesus. 

There can be no argument that Jesus kept all ten of the commandments faithfully throughout His whole life without breaking even one of them, as a matter of fact, he never, ever, came close to breaking a commandment as demonstrated on how He bested the devil in the desert causing him to flee to await another opportunity.  So, in His perfect example of obedience to the standards set by the Father on Mount Sinai so many years ago.  

The obedience of Jesus would have included the fourth commandment which was "Honor your father and mother."  In the Scripture, we see that Jesus took this commandment very seriously indeed.  As a boy, once he was reunited with his parents in the temple, he went with them and was subject to them.  Imagine, the Son of God listening to a man and woman, creatures that he created. But obedience was what Christ was all about. 

The wedding feast at Cana was where we can see the obedience and respect that Jesus paid to Mary very clearly.  I can see Him looking into the eyes of His mother stating, "Mom, I am not ready yet."  Mary for her part gave Him the Mother's Stare and a smile and told the servants to "Do whatever He tells you."  So, Mary, like a good mother should launched her Son out of the nest and freed Him to begin to fulfill the work He was sent to do.   At the cross we see how much Jesus loved His mother as in His last moments He summoned almost super-human strength and placed Mary, a widow with no additional offspring, in the care of John the apostle.

Such is the care that Jesus took of His mother.  We Catholics recognize the love Jesus had for Mary and the love Mary had for Jesus.  Our Protestant friends who look to the Bible alone for all of their inspiration do not understand how very special this woman was. They are suspicious of honoring her and heaven forbid praying to her as we Catholics do.  For them, prayer is addressed to Jesus or the Father alone.  To offer prayers to someone who, when all was said and done was a mere mortal seems to them to be a very special form of idolatry that infects the Catholic Church and which leads to all sorts of forbidden things.  They fear offending God by giving Mary her due honor. They could not be more wrong.  

Jesus never sinned and He honored Mary.  We do what our Savior did for Mary is our Mother too. We ascribe no divinity no Mary, she has no powers that approach that of Jesus, as a matter of fact, the only power she has is the same one that we exercise on a daily basis, the power to pray for one another.  Addressing a prayer to Mary causes Protestants to rage at our idolatry because addressing a prayer to a mere mortal takes away that which belongs to God alone, it is sinful!  This argument falls apart when you consider the fact that each of us mortals accepts the task to pray for one another as a routine task.  Protestants consider death a door that nothing can penetrate.  For them, you are either alive or you are dead.  If you are alive, well then you can pray for someone else, even though you are acting as a mediator between them and Christ.  What?  Horror of horrors!  Perhaps praying for one another is sinful?  (Hint: it is not sinful to pray for one another and it is okay to be a mediator for your brother or sister when you pray for them.)

In actuality, death is not a door, it is a portal to the world of God which we call heaven.  We lose our bodies when we die but we do not lose that which God created in His image and likeness, our souls.  We are dead in body but really alive in spirit and we join with the uncounted millions upon millions of souls that went before you know, people like mom, dad, grandfathers, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and sometimes even our children.  They are not dead, they live with God, Jesus, The Spirit, and yes, Mary in heaven.  These "dead" relatives form one arm of the Communion of Saints.  We know that those in heaven view the Majesty of God in real-time and without the veils that are present during our encounters with the Trinity on earth.  Even Mary did not get the invitation from an appearance of God to her, but from the Angel Gabriel who was the Father's special messenger. 

So, Protestants of the world, do not be afraid of honoring Mary because the practice was not started by the Catholic Church but rather it was started by the founder of the Catholic Church, a fellow named Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, and after a fruitful life of sewing seeds and growing HIS Church, He chose to die for all of us on the Cross.  He started the practice of honoring Mary as the Mother of God,  we Catholics are just following the example He gave us as recorded in the Bible.