Growing up Catholic, I never liked it. I have always seemed to fight it, wanting to find a different religion I could call my own. I wanted to make the journey towards faith for myself, not defining me by what church my dad goes to. With this being said, I have been in complete denial of all of the saints and the whole Hail Mary prayer for a long while. A few days ago, I was having boy trouble (just the typical teenage girl kind, nothing special). It was the kind of time you just wanted to have a mom to talk to about everything, to listen to the "maybe he likes me" "I don't think he likes me" "He acts like he likes me" worries. That kind of conversation I really did not want to have with my mom though. So instead, I turned to the mother of Jesus.
And for the first time sense fifth grade, I prayed the rosary.
This happened on Tuesday, it is now Saturday and I have prayed it every day sense. Things have happened from this journey, things that absolutely let me know how extremely powerful our Catholic rosary is. From the bottom of my heart, I can honestly say, the rosary has changed my life.
We all have that mother up in heaven rooting for us, and when we are angry, upset, or confused, we can find hope through her story. When you feel that God has abandoned you, you can always ask Mary to help push your point through.
But God didn't abondon you (Rom. 8:38-39). Praying to Mary is just like praying to a dead person-nothing more. Because Mary was just like anyone of us. She does have an inspiring, amazing story. She was chosen out of many to bring Our Savior, Jesus,in His physical body, into the world of man. But that doesn't mean we should worship or pray to her. The Bible doesn't mention anywhere that we shoudl idolize or pray to Mary. Whenever we need someone to talk to turn to God. Mary won't hear or answer you-only God will.
ReplyDeleteIf your mom died, would you still find yourself talking to her in heaven. I know I would.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing as you a while ago. In fact, it sounds like just the thing I would say. And I am still in no way certain of what I believe. It's called "finding faith", not "discussion over being Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Baptist, Atheist, Buddhist". I really do respect your opinion, but what you're trying to convince me of truly does not phase me.
First of all, I am not saying you should be one denomination over the other.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how you slice it, Mary is not my mother. She's not your's either. And I think that talking to someone that we knew personally who was dead would be different than praying to someone who was dead that we never knew (i.e. praying would be making requests while talking would be telling them about our days,etc.).
Like I mentioned earlier, I am not trying to presuade you to follow one denomination over another. But whichever you chose it should be based upon the fact that they teach the Bible. We don't need to rely on feelings, traditions, logic, or philosophy to determine what we believe. Our foundation for our faith should always be the Bible. In the Bible it never mentions that we should pray to or deitize Mary. Let me encourage you to be in God's Word and let that determine what you believe. I'm not trying to offend you or critize your beliefs. But at the same time, there is truth in the world. There is a right and wrong way to worship and believe in God and who He is. Study the Bible, God's holy, infallable, totally efficent Word. There you will find answers.