Dear Vincent:

The word "pray" has several meanings. One meaning includes worship that is due only to God, but another meaning is "to petition, to ask".

Shakespeare used the word "pray" in the manner of "to ask". In that manner, if I ask you to pass the potatoes at the supper table, I have prayed to you. It is correct English to say, "I pray thee to pass me the potatoes."

In a court-of-law today in legal briefs, for example, may be a section called "The Prayer". As my lawyer friend says, "I guarantee you I am not worshipping the judge." In this case the word "Prayer" is being used as "The Petition".

Protestants tend to think of prayer as a form of worship only due to God. When it is explained to them most understand. There are those, however, whose anti-Catholic hatred is so strong that they will not accept the other definitions of "prayer" and maintain Catholic worship Mary by praying to her.

One ant-Catholic hate-monger, on her website, actually dealt with this explanation of "prayer". She maintained that Catholic are lying about this. She quoted the defintion of "prayer" from the Random House Unabridge Dictionary, 3rd Edition. Well, I have that edition of the Dictionary on my desk. So, I looked up the word "prayer". Indeed, the first definition included the concept of worship, but the second definition was "to petition, to ask". This anti-Catholic deliberately omitted the second definition because it did not serve her hated for the Catholic Church. That, frankly, is downright evil.

Using the term "ask" is not less confusing. It is more confusing. First of all, it is disingenuous to do that because we do pray to Mary. Second, if we do not use the word "prayer" with Protestants they will have fuel for their prejudice since they can easily find books and documents, including official Church documents, that reference prayer to Mary and the Saints. When they see that they will accuse us of lying.

It is also not more appropriate to use a different word. Why would that be? The word "pray" and "prayer" are perfectly good English words that mean precisely what we intend them to mean in reference to praying to the Saints.

The solution to misunderstandings is not to hide the use of the word (which will backfire on us), but to educate. If people are illiterate as to not know the meaning of prayer, then we need to educate them. Those are are bigots, no explanations or use of alternative phrases will satisfy them.

We cannot change our language based on ignorance and prejudice. If we do that then we serve the devil's purpose. The devil is the spirit of confusion. If we were to change our language because of the ignorance and prejudice we would have to stop using the words Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, transubstantiation, Assumption, and a whole host of words. Satan would love this. All he has to do is get a bunch of nimrods to misuse words, or be confused by words, and then we have to change our language. Satan has already done this with some success with symbols. The upside-down cross, for example, is not a Satanic symbol. Anti-Catholics like to say the Catholic Church is evil because we use this symbol. Point-of-fact, however, the upside-down Cross is a symbol of St. Peter who was crucified upside-down and was used by the Church since the early centuries as a symbol of St. Peter. The upside-down Cross used as mockery of Christ is a phenomena of the 20th Century. We will not allow them to co-opt a perfectly good symbol like that.

No. We shall not submit to the tyranny of the prejudiced, the perpetually offended, or the ignorant.

We do not worship anyone but God. We do pray to Mary and to the Saints. That is the teaching of the Church in the dogma of the Communion of the Saints. We need not be embarrassed by that practice or apologetic because misinformed or bigoted people think what they do.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary