St Mary of the Annunciation Catholic Church

St Mary of the Annunciation Catholic Church, 97 Ashby Road, Loughborough, LE11 3AB. Tel: 01509 262123

Newsletter for Sunday 13 October 2024

Catholic and Our Lady

As you know, last Sunday was Rosary Sunday, and after Mass I was asked by a couple of students how to respond when we Catholics get accused of worshipping Mary.

Firstly, it’s not the Catholic Church that made Mary important. God made her important! From all eternity, He had chosen her to be the Mother of His Divine Son, JESUS Christ. But we do not worship Mary. We worship only God, Who is a Trinity of Persons; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the special Greek word for this worship is ‘latria’, which means divine worship. There is another word, ‘dulia’, which means veneration or respect, such as we give to our parents, to the Pope and the bishops, to the monarch, to civil leaders, people in authority, and also to the saints who are now in Heaven. But to Mary, we never give her ‘latria’ because that is due to God alone. We give Mary the highest form of veneration and respect, and the word for this is ‘hyperdulia’. This is similar to ‘dulia’ but to a higher degree.

Did JESUS honour His Mother on earth? Of course He did. The fourth commandment is to “honour your father and mother” (Deuteronomy 5:16). Can you imagine Our Lord disrespecting His Mother? The answer is obviously no. Being God He was perfect and kept all the Commandments perfectly. So if He honoured His Mother and we are His followers, we should honour her too. In fact we read in the New Testament that when Mary conceived the Child JESUS in her womb, straight away she visited her cousin Elisabeth, and prophesied in the Magnificat, “for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed” (Luke 1:48).

Then think of the Rosary. Are we worshipping Mary when we say it? We are not. We say the Our Father, the prayer that JESUS taught us. The first part of the Hail Mary comes from St Luke’s Gospel (1:28), and these words were first spoken by the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, and in the middle of it we say, “blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, [JESUS]” (1:42). While reciting those Hail Mary’s we meditate on the mysteries of the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection of JESUS. Then every decade ends with the ‘Glory be’ which is the worship of the Trinity, followed by the Fatima prayer, “O my JESUS, forgive us our sins …” And at the beginning we say the Apostle’s Creed which lays out the entire life of JESUS for us and tells us Who He is. The Rosary is not the worship of Mary. It’s all about JESUS, and the Rosary leads us to Him.

To conclude, there is another thing we Catholics are often criticised for, and that is calling Mary “Mother of God.” It is said this title makes her appear superior to JESUS. It doesn’t. It actually protects the truth of Who JESUS is. It asserts that JESUS Christ is true man, otherwise Mary could not be His Mother. It also asserts that JESUS Christ is true God, because otherwise Mary could not be the Mother of God. If you deny Mary is the Mother of God and say she’s only the mother of the man JESUS, you will more often than not deny that JESUS is divine, or you create two persons in JESUS Christ. Both are heresies. JESUS Christ is one Person with a human nature and a divine nature. This is one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and calling Mary Mother of God safeguards this divinely revealed truth.

Fr Paul Gillham, IC