'Our Lady' comes from Judaism; the Collyridians; sacrifice is the line between honour and worship (Chapter 4 · 4.3 Mother of "God with Us")	'Our Lady' is Greek kyria, a royal 'Lady,' the queen. 'Mary is Our Lady… because Jesus actually is king of the universe — not because ancient Christians sold out to paganism. There was no need to borrow the idea of a queen from paganism, since they had already gotten it from Judaism.' The Catechism's summary of the Assumption calls her 'exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things' (CCC 966, in the words of Lumen Gentium 59, which builds on Pius XII's 1950 definition). The one recorded group who did worship Mary, the Collyridians, offered her the sacrificial loaf (kollyra) of the Eucharist, and Epiphanius condemned them with the very Jeremiah passage the Baptist pastor used on Pitre: 'Mary is to be held in honor, but the Lord is to be worshiped!' The criterion is sacrifice: in ancient Judaism and Christianity 'the essence of worship was sacrifice'; honour, petition and praise can all be given to humans. Protestants, whose worship is doxology without sacrifice, therefore read Catholic praise of Mary as idolatry — 'one of the main reasons' the two sides talk past each other.	catena::topic-intercession-of-mary
'Pray for one another' — why stop in heaven? and the earliest recorded prayers to Mary (Chapter 4 · 4.3 Mother of "God with Us")	Pitre's New Testament warrant for asking Mary's intercession is short. Even secular nations honour their leaders, and those who need something from a leader ask the people closest to him. Scripture commands Christians to 'pray for one another' (James 5:16) — 'Why should such prayers cease in heaven (cf. Revelation 5:8)?' — and Mary the queen is alive in heaven (Revelation 12:1). The early Church drew the conclusion: an anonymous Egyptian papyrus prayer of the third or fourth century — 'We take refuge in your mercy, Mother of God. Do not disregard our prayers in troubling times' — Gregory Nazianzen's account of the virgin Justina imploring Mary's help, Sozomen's report of healings credited to 'Mary, the Mother of God,' and John Damascene's 'Queen over all created things.' The link runs from Jesus' divinity, to Mary as Mother of God, to asking her prayers.	catena::topic-intercession-of-mary
A maternal intercessor in heaven — the third-century prayer, Lumen Gentium 62, and Neusner's 'if Rachel, then why not Mary?' (Chapter 7 · 7.3 Mother of the Church)	If Mary was assumed bodily into the heavenly temple, then 'she is most certainly not dead… she is much more alive than any human on earth.' The earliest Christian prayer to her, on an Egyptian papyrus of the third or fourth century, asks exactly what Rachel's children asked: 'We take refuge in your mercy, Mother of God. Do not disregard our prayers in troubling times.' Vatican II teaches it: 'Taken up into heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation.' And the Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner closes the chapter: 'That is why I can find in Mary a Christian, a Catholic Rachel, whose prayers count when the prayers of great men, fathers of the world, fall to the ground… So, yes, if Rachel, then why not Mary?'	catena::topic-intercession-of-mary
Lamentations Rabbah 24 — Rachel outprays Abraham and Moses (Chapter 7 · 7.1 Rachel in Ancient Judaism)	In the rabbinic commentary on Lamentations, after the destruction of the Temple Abraham and Moses come to God weeping and pleading for Israel, and God does not answer. Only when 'the matriarch Rachel' intercedes does he relent: 'Forthwith the mercy of the Holy One, blessed be He, was stirred, and He said, For your sake, Rachel, I will restore Israel to their place' — and the midrash quotes Jeremiah 31:15–16 as its proof. Pitre notes that the belief in Rachel's supremely effective intercession 'is directly based on the prophecy of Jeremiah,' and quotes Jacob Neusner: her intercession 'succeeds when all other intervention fails,' because 'she speaks not of sacrifice but of love.'	catena::topic-intercession-of-mary
Rachel's tomb outside the family tomb — how can she weep centuries later? (Chapter 7 · 7.1 Rachel in Ancient Judaism)	Rachel alone among the matriarchs is not buried with Sarah and Rebekah in the family tomb; she died on the road and Jacob set a pillar on her grave near Bethlehem, a site Genesis says is known 'to this day.' That geography answers the exegetical puzzle of Jeremiah 31: how can Rachel weep centuries after her death? Her tomb lay near the place where the Babylonians staged the exiles for deportation, so the prophet pictures 'the spirit' of Rachel still living, watching her descendants suffer, 'the classic mother who mourns and intercedes for her children' — and her intercession works: in the next verses God tells her that her 'work' will be rewarded and her children will return.	catena::topic-intercession-of-mary
The Old Testament root of asking for Mary's intercession. (Chapter 4 · 4.1 The Queen Mother in Ancient Israel)	The queen mother was the kingdom's chief intercessor. Adonijah asks Bathsheba to petition Solomon, certain 'he will not refuse you'; Solomon rises and seats her at his right hand. Pitre adds the honest qualifier that this particular request — for Abishag, a veiled claim on the throne — was refused and Adonijah executed; 'despite Solomon's abuse of his power,' the episode shows the queen mother's office as royal advocate (p 71). Asking the Queen Mother to bring a request to the King is the biblical pattern behind Marian intercession.	catena::topic-intercession-of-mary
Where does the NT place Rachel's weeping — and why there? (Chapter 7 · 7.2 Mary the New Rachel)	Matthew quotes Jeremiah's Rachel at the Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem. Mary, the mother from Bethlehem, takes up Rachel's role — weeping for and interceding for her children, as Jewish tradition long honored Rachel doing.	catena::topic-intercession-of-mary