Devoted to Jesus or Mary?

Last weekend Pope Benedict was in the news. He had made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, a place where back in the 1800's, a 14-yr. old girl supposedly saw visions of the Virgin Mary and where there is a spring believed to have healing powers because it is blessed. According to the New York Times, the Pope knelt in this shrine and offered prayers to the Virgin. He spent time encouraging worshippers there to recall the innocent victims of war, terrorism, famine, etc., and also those who are suffering from unemployment, illness, loneliness or their situation as immigrants. A columnist for the National Catholic Reporter and a Vatican expert, John Allen wrote that this pope's project is to try and call Catholics back to "a strong sense of their own identity, and there is no more classic marker of Catholic identity than devotion to the Virgin Mary."

Sometimes I read the Bible and there are things which are confusing. There are other things however, which are clear as a bell and stated so simply a child can understand. One of those things, specifically the first and greatest commandment Jesus shared is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. It doesn't take a theologian to explain this: Love Him more than anything or anyone. Period. I don't know how many times He says in the book of John, "Come to ME."

In the book of Luke, He states very clearly, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple ... In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Yes, this passage of Scripture could be called confusing because Jesus calls us to love one another, but when you spend any time at all with Jesus Christ, soaking up His words and getting to know Him so intimately that you begin to understand how He talks ... these words of His make all the sense in the world: Love Him more than even our own parents, spouse, children, grandchildren, and siblings.

A Vatican expert says there is no more classic marker of Catholic identity than devotion to the Virgin Mary. Jesus Christ states emphatically, we are to love no one more than Him; that we are to be devoted to Him only and that anyone or anything that receives our devotion more than our devotion to Him becomes our god or idol. I find it ironic and pathetic that nowhere in this article was the name of Jesus Christ. I really don't understand. We talk about spiritual confusion; we talk about how hard it is to understand God's Holy Word ... and here is a man with the title of Pope; a man who has followed the path of many other men ... and his example and teaching to the Catholic Church is to be devoted to and to pray to the very common and ordinary woman who was chosen to be the one to give birth to Jesus Christ. The teachings of this church contrast greatly with the teaching of Jesus Christ when He is approached by people who want to bring attention to his earthly mother and brothers ... and He emphatically states that those who are His family are those who are obedient to the will of His Father in Heaven. In Matthew 12, and Luke 11, He makes it very clear who is His family.

What I know for sure today is that Jesus calls me to love Him more than anyone or anything. I've never had a vision of Mary, but I have heard the voice of Jesus Christ, and felt His healing touch on my heart ... time after time ... because He resides in me constantly ... but if people were flocking to me ... even canonizing me because I was in the presence of Jesus and felt His touch on my life ... something would be dreadfully wrong. He tells me He is in me ... that He never leaves me ... that because He is in me, His Holy Spirit is in me teaching and directing me all day every day. He tells me of the disastrous danger of listening to teachings that are not of Him and the consequences of ignoring ... or blaspheming ... His Holy Spirit. What I also know for sure is that this is, or is supposed to be the teaching of the Protestant church ... whether it is or isn't, we all stand accountable before Christ ... Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Muslim ... we all stand as individuals and not as an organized church ... with the capacity to think for ourselves ... as individuals who have instant access to His Word ... and His absolute Truth at our fingertips.

We can accept the doctrine and teaching of the church as Catholics, or we can accept the doctrine and teaching of the church as Protestants. Based on the obvious evidence of broken and devastated marriages and families, and by recent studies, statistics show that only 2% of mainline Protestants, and only less than 1/2 of 1% of Catholics have a biblical worldview which includes believing in the absolute moral truth of Jesus Christ. Devoted to Jesus Christ or to the Virgin Mary ... or something or someone else? For myself, my identity is in Jesus Christ alone ... I can't imagine settling for anything less.