Prayer to Mary?

Prayers to saints and to Mary amount to (1) a rejection of the accessibility of God in Christ (the only Mediator) and (2) an ascription of attributes to glorified human beings that belong to God alone (omniscience, omnipresence, and sometimes omnipotence).  Mary is called the “refuge of sinners,” the one who is to be asked to “guide” and “teach” us, who is “never implored in vain,” to whom “fervent prayers are to be addressed,” and the one whose “name alone comforts” (The Catholic Church the Teacher of Mankind).  She solves the problems of rain and drought, famine and plague according to this book designed to instruct “the Catholic child at the mother’s knee” (Title page.  The book was published in New York by the Office of Catholic Publications and bears the imprimatur of Archbishop Johannes W. Farley).  On page 643 we read:

Unfortunately, you are still mastered by many faults which prevent your becoming the pious and dutiful child God wishes you to be.  To be able to cure yourselves of them you must implore the Blessed Virgin.

Words almost fail in replying to such unrestrained idolatry.  This concept of prayer puts Mary in God’s place.  In fact it seems that according to this doctrine of prayer, God has delegated the answering of prayer to Mary.  The response must be this:

(1) Nowhere in all of the Scriptures can any such ideas be found.  One will search in vain to find anyone at any time praying to Mary; nor is there any injunction to do so.  Indeed, the Scriptures tell us to pray exclusively to Go in Christ’s name....  And there is no model of prayer to Mary, any other human being, or to angels.  The biblical picture differs considerably from the Roman Catholic one represented in these words:  “... in his shortcomings, at each instant of his life, and in the hour of his death, the Christian turns to Mary.  Her name alone comforts him, and gives him confidence” (ibid., p. 642).

(2)  When we pray to someone, we thereby ascribe to that one all of God’s attributes.  For example, we must assume that tho one to whom prayer is directed is omnipresent even to be able to hear the millions of prayers that are directed to him from all parts of the earth.  But omnipresence is an attribute of God alone.  Omnipotence likewise is required of the one to whom we pray; he must be able to answer all requests.  Omniscience cannot be divorced from prayer either, since the answer must be given with reference to all other matters of all time (past, present and future).  Does Mary have such attributes?  Some think so (“Mary is all powerful, for she is the mother of God,” ibid., p. 642), others have not carefully thought through the issues involved.

Jay E. Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling, pp.70-71.