Why do Catholics pray to Mary?

A common misunderstanding

The phrase "praying to Mary" sometimes generates confusion, especially among non-Catholics, because in English the word "pray" is used in two distinct senses:

1. Worship of God, who alone is the Creator and Lord. This is reserved to God alone in Catholic teaching, and the Catholic Church has consistently condemned any conferral of divine worship upon any creature, including Mary.
2. Asking the intercession of someone (living or in heaven) to bring a petition before God. The English word "pray" preserves this older sense in legal usage ("I pray the court to consider...") and in addressing one's contemporaries ("I pray, sir, give us your name"). It is in this second sense that Catholics pray to Mary.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is precise: "Worship is due to God alone" (CCC 2096). The honor given to Mary is a different category, called hyperdulia, which is higher than the dulia given to the saints but is itself entirely distinct from the latria (worship) due to God alone.¹

The theological foundation

Catholics ask Mary's intercession for three reasons.

1. Mary is in heaven and prays for those on earth

Mary, like all the saints in heaven, is alive in God. The doctrine of the Communion of Saints holds that the saints in heaven, in their participation in the divine love, intercede for the faithful on earth. Mary's intercession is unique in degree, not in kind: she does what every saint in heaven does, but with the unique closeness to Christ of his own mother.

2. Mary was given as Mother to the Church at the foot of the Cross

In the Gospel of Saint John, Christ from the Cross said to the Beloved Disciple, "Behold your mother" (John 19:27). The Catholic tradition has consistently read this as Christ's gift of his mother to the Church and to every disciple. Mary is therefore not only the Mother of Christ, biologically, but the Mother of every Christian, by Christ's own commission. The petitions of a Christian to Mary are the petitions of a child to a mother.²

3. The intercession at Cana

At the Wedding at Cana, the second Luminous Mystery, Mary noticed the need of the bride and groom and brought it to her Son with the simple statement "They have no wine." Christ responded; the first miracle of his public ministry was performed in response to her quiet intercession. The Catholic tradition has always held this scene as the prototype of Marian intercession: she sees the need, she brings it to her Son, the Son responds.

Marian prayer in the Catholic life

The principal Marian prayers of the Catholic life are:

• The Hail Mary, drawn from the angelic salutation at the Annunciation and the words of Saint Elizabeth at the Visitation.
• The Memorare, a prayer of personal entrustment.
• The Hail Holy Queen (the Salve Regina), prayed at the conclusion of the Rosary and as the Marian antiphon of Compline during Ordinary Time.
• The Angelus, prayed three times a day, commemorating the Annunciation.
• The Holy Rosary, a meditation on twenty mysteries from the life of Christ and Mary, structured by Hail Marys.
• The Marian novenas, including the Mary Undoer of Knots Novena, the Miraculous Medal Novena, and the Immaculate Conception Novena, which place specific intentions under Mary's intercession across nine consecutive days.
• The Marian sacramentals, including the Miraculous Medal (revealed at the Rue du Bac apparitions to Saint Catherine Labouré in 1830) and the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (given by Mary to Saint Simon Stock in 1251), which are worn as signs of personal consecration to Mary.

The right ordering of Marian devotion

Authentic Catholic Marian devotion always ends in Christ. Saint Maximilian Kolbe used to say: "We never ask too much of Mary. Through her, we ask of Jesus." The Second Vatican Council put this same principle in Lumen Gentium 67: every Marian devotion in the Church is to be such that, "in the cult given to her, the Son... is rightly known, loved, and glorified."³

For the four Marian dogmas, see What are the four Marian dogmas?.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2096 and 2132, on the distinction between worship of God and veneration of the saints. ↩

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 963 to 975, on Mary as Mother of the Church. ↩

3. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (November 21, 1964), n. 67. ↩