By Michael Pakaluk.

We say that "prayer is conversation with God," but that's not strictly correct. Prayer to God is conversation with God. Prayer to a saint is conversation with a saint. So, rather, prayer is conversation. It gets its name from just one thing we can do in a conversation, which is to ask (Latin,

precare).

Being an interlocutor in a conversation is hardly an incommunicable trait of divinity. Therefore, Protestants make a gross blunder when they accuse Catholics who pray to Mary of idolatry, simply because they converse with her. There is no reason why the only person in Heaven one can have "a personal relationship" with should be Jesus.

In fact, if as Christians we are meant to imitate Jesus, then we must converse with Mary, and not to do so is to fail dramatically to imitate Him.

I assume that Christians, and laypersons in particular, are meant to imitate Jesus in his "hidden life" at home, before he went out to his public ministry. These thirty years were 90 percent of His lifespan. We know almost nothing about them directly. Therefore, we must use what we do know about human nature to draw inferences about it, since he was a "perfect man." We know that he worked, for instance. Therefore, by pondering the best workers, we can infer how he worked.

Boys talk to their moms all the time. But let's go back. The life of a newborn boy begins with him gazing lovingly into the eyes of his mother, nestling and cooing, as he nurses on her breast. His love for her appearance as he gets older is simply a development of this original, "I look at her, and she looks at me." Therefore, if we are to imitate Christ - it follows with iron logic - that we must find ways to gaze upon Mary's face in this way. Perhaps we do so side-by-side with Him - which explains, surely, why Christians have so greatly loved paintings of the Madonna with child.

You may have noticed that, for a toddler or young boy, to think, to be alive, is to say aloud what he is thinking to his mom - spontaneously and naturally. This phenomenon, so endearing to us, would of course only be magnified in a "perfect man" in relation to a "mother most amiable." Therefore - again it follows with iron logic - if we are to imitate Christ well, as spiritual children indeed, we must speak spontaneously to Mary throughout the day, sharing whatever is on our mind.

It would be fair to wonder whether we wouldn't imitate Him well enough by doing so towards our own mom, or perhaps one's spouse. And yet "behold, your mother" (John 19:27), and the fact that she is "the mother of God" (Luke 1:43), and therefore of the supernatural life in Christ that we enjoy. These seem to settle the question.

Also, it seems that the imitation of Christ in some fundamental matter must, by the nature of the case, be always available to us, and not only when some relative of ours is alive and within earshot.

Let us continue, then. As a boy becomes a man, he turns to his mom when he is proud of what he has done, to exult, in a good way. If he were a woodworker, for instance, he would "show off" to his mom the fine things which he built in his shop. Jesus in the movie, The Passion, is believably depicted as doing so with some chairs and a table. Over time, in this way, a young man develops a genuine friendship with his mother.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus stayed at home until He was thirty? There was no period of "adolescence" back then. He would have been regarded as a mature man from age thirteen. Mary had an extended family: therefore, even if Joseph had already passed, Jesus might have left her in their care. Despite his burning desire to redeem - "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" (Luke 12:29) - he stayed with Mary fifteen years longer than was in any sense necessary. Could it be that he loved his friendship with her, so that he lingered as long as he could, rather than leave as soon as he could?

I have not yet mentioned Jesus in the womb, takin...