Part 13 of She Magnifies the Lord: Why Catholic Devotion to Mary Leads Us to Christ

A Catholic response to common objections about Mary, Scripture, the Church, and the Communion of Saints

New to the series? Start here: Before We Talk About Mary, We Need to Talk About Truth

Missed the previous article?
Read it here: Do We Worship Mary?

In the previous article, we distinguished the honor given to Mary from the adoration owed to God alone. That clears away one accusation, but it does not answer other objections raised against Marian intercession.

In this article we will go over 6 objections I have personnally heard concerning prayer to Mary. From these objections, many questions naturally arise: If every good gift comes from God, how can Mary be said to bring gifts? If Scripture tells us to present our requests to God, why ask the saints to pray? Does the Bible ever show a Christian asking Mary or a saint in heaven for intercession? What do Catholics mean by “praying to” Mary? How should we understand the striking language of St. Alphonsus Liguori? And does Joshua’s pledge, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” exclude Catholic devotion to Mary altogether?

I. The Catholic Claim Must Be Heard

Now that the Catholic framework has been stated positively, we can examine several specific objections commonly raised against Marian intercession and devotion. Each deserves a direct answer because Catholic language can sound alarming when it is separated from the doctrinal framework that gives it meaning.

When we encounter these concerns, they should never be dismissed as foolish or dishonest on their face. Many are understandable, especially when someone has encountered Catholic teaching only in fragments. But the Catholic position cannot be judged fairly until its terms are understood as the Church herself uses them. The following objections will therefore be considered directly, not to mock those who raise them, but to show why the Catholic response is more careful, more biblical, and more centered on Christ than the common caricature allows.

II. Every Good Gift Comes from God

The first objection appeals to James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” The implication is that if every good gift comes from the Father, then Mary cannot be said to “bring us the gifts of eternal salvation.”

But this objection misunderstands the Catholic claim. The Church does not teach that Mary is the source of the gifts of eternal salvation. God is the source. The Father is the giver of every good gift. Christ is the Redeemer who wins salvation. The Holy Spirit applies the grace of Christ to the soul. Mary does not originate grace, possess it independently, or distribute it by her own power.

This distinction is not difficult in ordinary life. If my daughter brings me a meal prepared by my wife, she has truly brought it to me, even though she is not the source of the food, the labor, or the materials from which it came. The gift is really delivered through her, but it does not originate in her. And even that example only reaches so far, because in the deepest sense every created good, e.g., the food, the hands that prepared it, the love that moved the act, and the life by which anyone can give or receive it, comes from God. Catholic theology is careful about this. Creatures can truly cooperate with God and truly serve as instruments of His gifts, but the source of every grace is always God alone.

The Catechism’s language is more precise than the objection allows. CCC 969 says that Mary, by her “manifold intercession,” continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. The phrase “by her manifold intercession” is essential. Mary brings these gifts as an intercessor, not as their source. She petitions God for what God alone can give.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2025 doctrinal note Mater Populi Fidelis states this limit with greater precision. No human person, including Mary, can act as a universal dispenser of grace. God alone bestows sanctifying grace through Jesus Christ and acts within the soul (§§50–53). Mary may intercede for the helps traditionally called actual graces, and her maternal care can help prepare our hearts to receive and grow in the life that God alone gives (§§67–70).

Therefore, saying that Mary “brings us the gifts of eternal salvation” does not mean that grace originates in her or must pass through her before reaching us. It means that, through her manifold intercession, she asks the Lord to grant what He alone possesses and bestows.

This is the same logic at work whenever Christians pray for one another. When Paul asks the Romans to strive together with him in prayer to God on his behalf, he is not treating them as the source of grace (Romans 15:30). When one Christian asks another Christian for prayer, he is not denying James 1:17. He is acknowledging that the God from whom every good gift comes also permits His children to participate in love by praying for one another. Every good gift comes from the Father, including the gift that members of Christ’s Body are allowed to pray for one another.

So James 1:17 does not refute Mary’s intercession. It explains why her intercession can only be understood as dependent on God.

III. Bring Every Request to God

The second objection appeals to Philippians 4, where Paul writes, “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). The implication is that if Scripture tells us to bring our requests to God, then we should not entrust our cares and petitions to Mary.

But again, the objection proves too much. If Philippians 4 meant that no one may ever bring a request to anyone except God directly, then it would also forbid asking another Christian to pray for us. Yet Paul himself repeatedly asks others to pray for him. He asks the Romans to strive together with him in prayer (Romans 15:30). He asks the Ephesians to pray that words may be given to him in proclaiming the Gospel (Ephesians 6:18–19). He asks the Colossians to pray that God may open a door for the word (Colossians 4:3). So Paul cannot mean that bringing requests to God excludes asking members of Christ’s Body to pray with us or for us.

Philippians 4 establishes the destination of Christian petition: God. It does not deny the communion of intercession by which Christians carry one another’s needs before Him. When Catholics entrust cares and petitions to Mary, they are not stopping with Mary as the final recipient of prayer. They are asking her to bring those cares before God, just as we ask fellow Christians to pray for us. The difference is not that Mary replaces God, but that Mary, alive in Christ and perfectly conformed to Him, prays as a mother within the communion of saints.

The Catholic practice, rightly understood, does exactly what Philippians commands: it brings every request to God, sometimes alone, sometimes with the prayers of the Church on earth, and sometimes with the prayers of those already alive with Christ in glory. So Philippians 4 does not forbid asking Mary or the saints to pray; it teaches that every petition, including theirs, must finally be brought to God.

IV. Does Scripture Show This Prayer?

The third objection asks whether anyone in the Bible ever prays to Mary or to a saint. The honest answer is that Scripture does not record a Christian on earth explicitly asking Mary or a named saint in heaven for intercession. That should be said plainly, because the Catholic answer does not need to pretend the text says something it does not say.

But the objection only works if we first accept a principle the Catholic Church does not accept, and which Scripture itself does not teach: that a Christian practice is false unless it is explicitly recorded in the Bible. That principle is not a biblical doctrine. It is a later theological method. The Church does not believe that the whole life of Christian worship, prayer, doctrine, and discipline must be contained in Scripture as a list of explicit examples before it can be received as faithful.

Christians already recognize this in other areas. Scripture does not give us a verse commanding the annual celebration of Christmas, Easter, or the wider cycle of Christian feast days in the form the Church now observes them. Yet Christians do not therefore conclude that these celebrations are false or forbidden. They are theological and liturgical conclusions drawn from what Scripture reveals: that the Word became flesh, that Christ died and rose again, and that the Church remembers and celebrates the mysteries of His saving work. The question is not whether every later Christian practice appears in Scripture as an explicit example, but whether it grows faithfully from what Scripture reveals and remains ordered to Christ.

The better question is not whether Scripture records someone on earth asking Mary by name for prayer. The better question is whether Scripture shows that the dead in Christ are alive, conscious, present to God, and involved in heavenly prayer. If they are not, then asking for their intercession would make no sense. But if they are, then the Catholic practice is not a leap away from Scripture. It is a conclusion drawn from what Scripture reveals about life in Christ.

Jesus Himself says that God “is not God of the dead, but of the living,” because “all live to him” (Luke 20:38). In Revelation, the souls of the martyrs under the altar cry out to God (Revelation 6:9–10). The elders in heaven offer before the Lamb the prayers of the saints as golden bowls of incense (Revelation 5:8). These passages do not give us a full manual of saintly intercession, but they do show that those in heaven are not unconscious, absent, or cut off from prayer. They are alive before God, worshiping, crying out, and presenting prayer before His throne.

The Catholic argument is not, “Here is a verse where someone explicitly says, Mary, pray for me.” The Catholic argument is deeper: death in Christ does not destroy the communion of Christ’s Body. The saints are alive in Him. They are present before God. They pray. And if members of Christ’s Body may ask one another for prayer on earth, then death does not make the glorified members of that same Body less capable of charity. That addresses the biblical and theological basis for asking the saints to pray. But there is also a separate linguistic concern, because the phrase “praying to Mary” can sound, to modern ears, as though Catholics are giving Mary the worship due to God alone. So the question is not whether Scripture gives a named example of Marian intercession, but whether Scripture reveals a communion in Christ that death does not destroy.

V. What Catholic's Mean When We Say ‘Pray to Mary’

The fourth objection says that Catholics “pray to Mary,” while ordinary Christians do not sit around “praying to their friends.” This objection has force only because the word pray has narrowed in modern English. In older usage, to pray simply meant to ask, request, or petition. That is why older English expressions could say, “I pray thee,” without implying worship. In that sense, asking Mary to pray for us is a form of petition, not adoration.

This older usage is not obscure. Shakespeare repeatedly uses “pray” this way. In Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio says, “I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her,” meaning “please tell me honestly what you think of her.” In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hermia says, “I pray thee, tell me then that he is well,” meaning “please tell me that he is well.” The older contraction “prithee” itself comes from “I pray thee,” meaning “I ask you” or “please.” None of these uses imply worship. They simply show that in older English, to “pray” someone could mean to ask or petition that person.

So, when Catholics pray to God, they pray to Him as God: the source of life, the giver of grace, the one who alone is worthy of adoration. When Catholics “pray to” Mary or the saints, they are not addressing them as divine. They are asking members of Christ’s Body, alive in glory, to pray with them and for them. The form of address may sound strange to modern ears, but the structure of the act is intercessory, not worshipful.

That is why the comparison to asking friends for prayer is still valid, even if the language sounds different. We do not worship our friends when we ask them to pray for us. We do not treat them as sources of grace. We ask them to bring our needs before God. Catholics believe the saints can do this more perfectly, not less, because they are alive in Christ, freed from sin, and standing before the throne of God.

The question, then, is not whether Catholics worship Mary when they ask for her prayers. The Church explicitly forbids worshiping any creature. The question is whether death severs the communion of Christ’s Body and ends the charity of those who now see God. If the saints are alive in Christ, and if their love has been perfected rather than diminished, then asking for their prayers is not a denial of Christ. It is an expression of the communion Christ created. So the phrase “pray to Mary” does not mean “worship Mary”; it means asking the Mother of the Lord to pray with us and for us.

VI. Reading St. Alphonsus as a Catholic

The fifth objection concerns quotations from St. Alphonsus Liguori’s The Glories of Mary. This requires careful handling, because some of Alphonsus’s language is striking. If isolated from the whole of Catholic doctrine, it can sound troubling even to faithful Catholics. The answer is not embarrassment, but context and precision.

St. Alphonsus was not writing as a detached academic, but as a saint, bishop, moral theologian, and Doctor of the Church defending Marian devotion in a polemical context where Mary’s role was being diminished and ridiculed. That does not mean every phrase from his devotional writing should be read without care. It does mean that he must be read as a Catholic theologian whose Marian devotion presupposes the whole Catholic faith: Christ is God, Christ is Redeemer, Christ is the source of grace, and Mary is entirely dependent upon Him.

When Alphonsus speaks of Christ as owing something to Mary because He received His human nature from her, he is not teaching that God is legally constrained by a creature. God cannot be placed under external obligation by anyone. The language is analogical and filial. It reflects the mystery that the eternal Son truly became man through Mary and truly honored her as His mother. The same Jesus who is eternally Lord was also the child who was subject to Mary and Joseph in Nazareth (Luke 2:51). At Cana, He freely honored His mother’s intercession even when His first response seemed to create distance from her request (John 2:1–11). Alphonsus is contemplating that maternal relationship in the language of love and gratitude, not placing a legal debt over God.

The same principle applies when Alphonsus says that God became Mary’s debtor so that she might dispense mercy to sinners. The word “debtor” is not meant as though Mary has authority over God by nature or right. It is devotional language expressing that God freely chose to receive His human nature from her and freely chose to associate her maternally with the distribution of His mercy. Mary does not generate mercy. She does not own mercy. She does not possess mercy apart from Christ. If she dispenses mercy, she does so as an instrument of the mercy that comes from God.

Here, Mater Populi Fidelis requires a further distinction. Mary should not be understood as the instrumental agent through whom God must communicate sanctifying grace, nor as a necessary channel between Christ and the soul (§§65–68). The note also rejects any image of Mary as a shield protecting sinners from a less merciful Christ, as though the mercy of God were insufficient without her intervention (§37).

Accordingly, St. Alphonsus’s language about Mary “dispensing mercy” can be received only in a subordinate and maternal sense. Mary intercedes, accompanies, and helps prepare the heart to receive divine mercy. She does not possess mercy apart from God or communicate sanctifying grace into the soul, nor does she complete anything lacking in Christ. Her maternal intercession can truly implore actual graces and help dispose us to receive the sanctifying grace that God alone infuses. God alone is merciful by nature, Christ alone saves, and Mary’s every cooperation depends entirely upon Him.

Even in ordinary Christian language, we understand this distinction. A priest may dispense absolution without being the source of forgiveness. An apostle may bring the Gospel without being the source of salvation. In the deepest sense, every good thing comes from God. So when Catholic devotional language says that Mary dispenses mercy, it must be read according to the Church’s doctrine: she gives only what she has received, and what she has received comes entirely from Christ.

The quotation about heaven’s gates opening to those who trust in Mary also needs this same Catholic context. Trust in Mary is not an alternative to faith in Christ. It is trust in the Mother whom Christ gave to His disciple, trust that she will do what she always does: lead souls to her Son. Mary does not open heaven by independent authority. Christ holds the keys. Christ is the way. Christ is the Savior. Mary’s role is maternal and intercessory. She leads to the One who saves.

The question, then, is not whether Alphonsus’s devotional language can sound excessive when removed from its Catholic framework. It can. The question is whether, read within that framework, he is teaching Mary as a rival to Christ. He is not. His language belongs to a tradition of intense Marian devotion in which Mary is loved precisely because she belongs entirely to Christ and brings her children to Him. If a phrase from Alphonsus seems to place Mary above Christ, then it has been read against the very faith Alphonsus himself professed. So Alphonsus must be read as a Catholic saint speaking within Catholic doctrine, not as though he were teaching Mary as a rival source of grace beside Christ.

VII. ‘As for Me and My House’

The final objection quotes Joshua 24:15: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Every Catholic should be able to say those words with a full heart. Joshua’s declaration is a confession of exclusive covenant loyalty to the Lord over and against the false gods of the nations. It is not a rejection of the communion of saints, nor is it an argument against honoring the Mother of Christ.

The Catholic position does not ask anyone to serve Mary instead of the Lord. It does not ask anyone to divide allegiance between Mary and God. It does not place Mary among the false gods Joshua rejected. If Marian devotion did any of those things, it would deserve to be rejected. But that is not the Church’s teaching. The Church asks us to receive Mary within the mystery of Christ, as the Mother whom Christ Himself gave to His disciple from the Cross: “Woman, behold your son,” and then, “Behold your mother” (John 19:26–27).

So the question is not whether we will serve the Lord or serve Mary. The question is whether serving the Lord includes receiving what the Lord gives. If Christ, from the Cross, gives His mother to the beloved disciple, then refusing Mary in the name of serving Christ may not be fidelity at all. It may be a refusal of one of Christ’s own gifts.

That is why Joshua 24:15 does not settle the question against the Catholic Church. Catholics serve the Lord. We worship the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. We confess Jesus Christ as the one Mediator, the one Redeemer, the one Savior, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And precisely because we serve Him, we receive His Mother as our mother, honor her as blessed among women, and ask her prayers as one alive in Him.

The Catholic who honors Mary rightly is not saying, “As for me and my house, we will serve Mary.” So, he is saying, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord — and we will not reject any gift the Lord gives.”

In summary

Each of these objections begins with a truth Catholics can affirm. Every good gift comes from God. Every Christian petition reaches its proper end in God. Scripture does not record a Christian on earth explicitly saying, “Mary, pray for me.” The word pray can sound like worship in modern English. Some devotional language from St. Alphonsus requires careful context. Joshua commands exclusive covenant loyalty to the Lord.

None of those truths overturns Catholic teaching. The saints are alive in Christ, remain within His Body, and continue to pray before God. Asking for their intercession does not make them sources of grace or objects of worship. Mary’s prayer is uniquely maternal, but God alone gives grace, Christ alone holds the keys of heaven, and the Trinity alone receives adoration.

Catholics do not serve Mary instead of the Lord. We serve the Lord and receive Mary within the mystery of Christ, as the Mother He gave to His disciple from the Cross. We honor her as blessed, ask for her prayers, and follow her command at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you.”

In the final article, we will turn the examination inward. Where have Catholics themselves spoken carelessly, exaggerated, or caused scandal in Marian devotion? How can we correct real distortions without becoming ashamed of the place Christ has given His Mother? And what final rule gathers every authentic Marian title, doctrine, and devotion into the mystery of Christ?

Until we meet again, go forth in the peace of Christ. Seek truth over victory, speak with charity, and magnify the Lord. Read on.

Part 14 (the finale) of She Magnifies the Lord: Can Love for Mary Go Too Far?

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