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Understanding Catholic Devotion to Mary
by Thomas Merton
This is often forgotten by Catholics themselves, and therefore it is not
surprising that those who are not Catholic often have a completely wrong
conception of Catholic devotion to the Mother of God.
They imagine, and sometimes we can understand their reasons for doing
so, that Catholics treat the Blessed Virgin as an almost divine being
in her own right, as if she had some glory, some power, some majesty
of her own that placed her on a level with Christ Himself.
They regard the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a kind of apotheosis
placed in the Redemption would seem to be equal to that of her Son.
But this is all completely contrary to the true mind of the Catholic Church.
It forgets that Mary's chief glory is in her nothingness,
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