The Virgin Mary/ Catholicism

Actually, in Catholicism, the Virgin Mary is regarded as a sacred figure because she is the mother of Jesus. The Catholic belief is that as the mother of Jesus, who is the son of God and who is also God, that makes her the Mother of God as well. That is a very simplistic explanation, I know. We go through a lifetime of studying Catholic doctrine, and it's still pretty convoluted. LOL! But, to simply things, there you go. The Virgin Mary was also present when Jesus performed his first public miracle, transforming the water into wine at the wedding at Cana. She was present at his death and remained at the foot of the cross. Before his death, Jesus asked John, the most beloved of his disciples, to care for his mother and to treat her as his own. I can't remember the exact words in scripture, but those words are what we Catholics look to as far as revering Mary as our own Mother.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
-- Charles Bukowski, From "Betting on the Muse"

since this character believes he is being visited by Mary, do some research about the miracle of Lourdes where Mary visited the children. there have been many sightings

I would read about the Bernadette of Lourdes (only one visionary there), also the sightings at Medjugorje where there were several visionaries. Also the visionaries at Fatima.

As the previous poster stated, Mary is venerated as the Mother of God (since Jesus is believed to be an incarnation of God). She was, Catholics believe, granted special graces by God. One of these graces was that she was born without the taint of Original Sin, hence her title The Immaculate Conception. Another grace granted to her was that upon her death, she was assumed body and soul into heaven, instead of the soul being separated from the body until the day of judgment. Another Catholic belief is that Mary was crowned Queen of Heaven after she was assumed into heaven.

There are a couple of distinctly Marion prayers that you might want to look up.

One is the Angelus. Another, of course, is the Hail Mary. Also, Hail Holy Queen. Any cradle Catholic would know these by heart.

Other things your mentally ill young man might do is join the Legion of Mary and/or wear the Brown Scapular. He may also make the act of Consecration to Mary.

As you said he's mentally ill, then it doesn't really matter what he says that she's telling him, since this wouldn't be an authentic apparition.

One important mistake many non-Catholics make: Catholics do NOT worship Mary. We Honor her because she is the mother of our Savior. she was born without original sin, and had a great deal to do with Jesus's public works. it was she who incited him to perform his first miracle, changing the water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. she personifies complete obediance to God, and really, if you think about it, she was a pretty amazing person. she was only fourteen when she was visited by an angel asking her to be the mother of the son of God. it was an incredible risk for her to take; to be unwed and pregnant at the time could result in execution by stoning, but she did it anyway. she said yes to God, let him do what he wanted with her life. at the end of her life, she was assumed into heaven, body and soul, as far as we know the only person to which this has happened. she has performed many miracles through the years; people have already responded about several visitations.she has many different titles: Queen of Heaven, Tower of Ivory, Mystical Rose, all have important and complex symbolism.
the most common marian devotion is the rosary, which consists of five decades, each decade being comprised of ten hail mary's and one our father and a glory be.
Hail mary:
Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.

another great prayer i forget what it's called:
Hail, holy queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. to thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. oh clement, oh loving oh sweet virgin Mary, Pray for us oh holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

When you're falling of the cliff, it's too late to wonder whether there might have been a better way up the mountain.-- Terry Pratchett

So far all the comments are good. I won't add to them. I will add that I'm Catholic, a seminary graduate with a degree in theology, and currently teach theology and spiritual life to professed religious in one of the major Orders of the Church. I didn't go on the Experts List because I only joined on November 2nd. I can be NaNoMailed with specific questions, i.e., 'is such-and-such held to be doctrine, or not?' My answers will be concise. I may ask for clarification on a question that doesn't admit of a concise answer--if I do that, it's not a putdown, just an effort to conserve time and energy. I won't respond to anyone who seems interested only in controversy.

"And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--" "Skip a bit, brother."

Rosaries should not be worn as jewelry, that's the only faux pas that comes to mind.

I'm not sure if it exactly answers your question, but when you asked about faux pas, what springs to mind is hearing 'messages' that obviously wouldn't come from God/ through Mary. On the serious extreme of this, you might research some of the appearances that are not confirmed by the Catholic Church and why. They examine the reported appearances quite carefully to verify that "Mary" has not said anything contradictory to the Bible or to anything she's said in previous, confirmed apparitions. On the humorous extreme, your character might be convinced (he's partially crazy, right?) that Mary has required him to eat only a diet of grilled cheese sandwiches and two lattes a day in order to be holy enough to hear her messages-- or anything along the lines of believing he must do something ridiculous to carry out her message.

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enTWINed, working title, 07
Sins of the Fathers, 06, won
Blue Bells of Scotland, 05, won

There are probably 1,001 ways you can take this....since the guy is delusional and not Catholic, he would naturally get some mistaken ideas about Mary and all the things the Catholics recite (I'm not sure if that's what Catechism refers to...as a Protestant, I was taught that Mary is the mother of Jesus and that's it.) Your character could think that Mary was Jesus' best friend and/or that Jesus actually sprung from an olive tree and/or that the main character is really Jesus being visited by his mother and/or....you get the picture. If the character is Catholic - or was raised Catholic - perhaps he could think the Hail Mary or some other thing Catholics recite is speaking directly to him and/or is a prophecy about him and/or whatever....

You might need a Catholic character to let the other characters know what's real and not real, though.

lol, all these comments are really good. Since your character isn't familiar with Catholicism, someone has to tell him at least a little about it, lest Mary comes to him saying "Yo homie. Dude let's be chillin'"

Another thing might be that a Catholic might refer to the Virgin Mary as Our Lady. I don't know whether this is old fashioned or peculiarly English or what. If I were talking to another Catholic I would probably say Our Lady. If I was talking to a non-Catholic I would say the Virgin Mary to make myself clear. Also there are a lot of aspects of Mary that people think about. People have particular attachments to Our Lady as patron of seafarers (Our Lady Star of the Sea), as patron of scholars (Our Lady Seat of Wisdom- she was patron of my university) or of a particular city or institution, as well as just the Mother of Jesus. Basically if you are Catholic she gets everywhere! If you are thinking about Marian visions and so on the look at Fatima and Medjugorje as well as Lourdes. And don't wear a rosary as jewellery. It's just wrong!

If you'd checked the list of experts, I'm listed for Catholicism, though not specifically for the Virgin Mary.

She's considered holy because God chose her to be the Mother of God. She was human like we are, but she was preserved from the personal-sin-desiring effects of original sin so that she could make a truly free choice when asked if she would be the mother of God. We revere her more than we revere any of the saints, but we don't worship her - that's for God alone. We also believe that Mary was perpetually a virgin - even after Jesus's birth, she never had children, or even anything sexual, even though she was married. (Marriages like this in the middle ages were called "Josephite" marriages, and the Church doesn't see anything necessarily wrong with them.)

One big faux pas would be for him to say (and mean, but even just to say) that he was worshipping Mary, even if he didn't add "just like Catholics do". Or for him to say something along the lines of, well, if she's the mother of God, she's got to be better / more powerful than God, or must have existed before God.

Besides the Hail Mary, there's other short prayers, which your character might find easier to memorize.
"O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!"
"Sweet heart of Mary, be my salvation!"
"Mary, our hope, have pity on us!"
"Mary, my Queen, my mother! Remember I am thine own; keep me and guard me as thy property and possession!"

The Salve Regina is longer than the Hail Mary, but might be interesting:
"Hail, holy queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary! Pray for us, O holy mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ."

Your character might be told in a vision that all the passages of the Bible that refer to women "really" refer to Mary. (They don't, in case you're curious.) This could be interesting since there are stories about both good and bad women in the Bible.

If you have more questions, feel free to send me a nanomail. :)

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It's simple, Skyler. You've seen what food processors do to food, right?

Wow, such a great host of comments and information already. I really appreciate it!

I'm working (not writing, boo!) at the moment, but I will pour over these later and definitely make some notes. Will probably come back with general or specific questions to some of you later. :)

Just a note too: I'm not intending for the novel itself to be anti-Catholic or intentionally offensive. The aim is humorous at best, the novel is actually more anti-government and pro-spiritual than anything. xD Just wanted to clarify that for any who might be worried on that regard.

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