Isn’t Mary dead, how can she hear our prayers?
The claim that Mary, who is dead by the way, can answer prayer is troubling to me. Doesn’t this mean Catholic think of her as some sort of deity?
No one teaches that Mary is a Deity. The fact that someone has a “place” in the Kingdom of God, an elevated place of honour and power does not make them equal or hierarchically close to God. Christ said his Apostles would sit on 12 thrones “judging the twelve tribes of Israel”. This is possible since the power of God is infinite, and no honour he confers to a mortal being can ever diminish his glory and honour. He is Infinite and “cannot” create another Infinity, for could infinity be created, the very fact of its creatural nature makes it finite, gives it a beginning in time and therefore unequal to God who is infinite.
So the Saints, including Mary, aren’t dead. They are more alive than those of us still on earth. They are not hindered by time or space, they’re not hindered by many sicknesses and worries. They are free and are way more powerful than you can tell.
Mary hears our prayers, she hears the prayers of a multitude of people who come to her only because God has given her power and office of distributing his mercies on her children. This does not make her a deity but makes her co-worker with her Son in the salvation of mankind.
