all of you have wonderful opinions and are correct, Jesus, the savior of the world is put first in all we do. as a catholic i would like to not defend but explain our belifs. we do not pray to saints, or mary. we pray to the Lord and we ask saints for interession. the logic is that since all souls who believe in the Lord never die ( John 3:16) that they are alive in heaven. since we hold that to be true we consider the saints avaible to pray for us as well, since no one is dead. if i ask mary for intersession it is similar to you asking a friend at church to pray with you. hopefully that clears up a lot. the same is true for the Holy Rosary. is is a meditative prayer that is again prayed to God not Mary. we all as christian brothers respect the imortant role that mary played in the life of Jesus. i see her as a role model. i do not put her before my God, but i love her as a woman who gave her eveything in the service of our Lord.
another thing that i would like to explain for a catholic perspective is the idea that somone posted about Mary not REALLY being the mother of Jesus because He IS God. Jesus was 100% God and 100% man (i realize that is 200% but come on, it is Jesus! He can do that!) mary was his earthly mother. we are the children of the Father. we are not gods.....she was his mother....and we do not hold her as a God.
unfortunately a lot of people have missunderstandings about the Church (many catholics included) we do not put the church before God but instead belive that GOD IS THE CHURCH....that is to say that the Church is our extension of God on the earth. the people make up the church and we are the body of Christ.
God bless and keep you all. Each one of you are special.
