1.Though English words like 'worship' and 'adoration' are occasionally used to signify only veneration, honor or affection, they are generally understood to refer to that highest type of worship reserved for God alone. In this sense, Catholics do NOT adore or worship Mary, or any other created person or thing.
The Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea in 787 considered the issue of veneration which is not directed to the Divine persons in relation to sacred images. At this Council, the Church taught that the special type of worship called adoration may only be offered to God: Latria from the Greek term for enslavement. However, the Church also acknowledged that certain persons, though only creatures of God, are entitled to honor or veneration of a qualitatively lesser degree than the absolute allegiance owed to God. The Conciliar Fathers termed this lesser devotion: Dulia. Such veneration was proper for Mary and the Saints. In view of Mary's important role in salvation history as Mother of Jesus, the Church recognized that Mary warranted a special degree of honor among the Saints. For this class of devotion, St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) suggested the term hyperdulia.
No, Catholics do not worship Mary, if by worshiping is meant adoring. She is not God for us, has never been and will never be. Addressing prayer to Mary is like asking a dear and close friend for help. Do we make a God of our friend when asking him to keep us in his prayers? Do we divinize him/her when asking for his prayerful support in sickness and the trials of life? Believers on earth and in heaven constitute a living community which the major Christian denominations recognize as the communion of saints. The saints in heaven are not dead. Their Christian example of virtuous living and their closeness to God make of them powerful allies for us struggling mortals. They do not take God's place; they are an expression of his grace.
Likewise, there is nothing in Mary that would not have been in God and come from him. She is a pure product of God; this is the essential meaning of Mary's sinlessness. Never forget: if God wanted the exclusively direct relation between him and you and me he would never send Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, never allow scripture to be the foundation of our faith, never encourage his Son to found the Church or institute the sacraments. Christianity is the religion of mediation, essential and foundational in Christ; participative and subordinate in his Church and in varying degrees in the believers.
2.The traditional story of the rosary was that Mary herself appeared to Saint Dominic in the twelfth century. At that time, tradition says she gave him the rosary and promised Dominic that if he spread devotion to the rosary, his religious order would flourish. It is quite true that Dominic was quite devoted to the Blessed Mother, but no one knows for sure if Our Lady herself gave Dominic the rosary. If she did, it is quite certain that she did not give him a rosary that looks like the one we have today.
Originally the rosary had 150 beads, the same number of psalms in the Bible. In the twelfth century, religious orders recited together the 150 Psalms as a way to mark the hours of the day and the days of the week. Those people who didn’t know how to read wanted to share in this practice, so praying on a string of 150 beads or knots began as a parallel to praying the psalms. It was a way that the illiterate could remember the Lord and his mother throughout the day. The “Divine Office”; the official prayer of the church; is the recitation of the psalms over a four week period, and is still prayed today.
This first rosary was prayed as we do today, a person would pass their fingers over each bead and say a prayer, usually the “Our Father”.
4.The discipline of confessing sins to a priest and having him set a penance to make satisfaction is a practice from the Old Testament (See Numbers 5:5 and Leviticus 5:5). The idea of examination of conscience and the confession of sin was the norm for Jews (e.g., Leviticus 26:40, Ezra 10:1, Nehemiah 9:2-3, Daniel 9:20) especially on the Day of Atonement (e.g., Leviticus 16:21). So much so that St. John could say:
1John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
And St. James:
James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to one
another, and pray for one another, that you
may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man
has great power in its effects.
In the first several Christian Centuries, there was public confession of sin (usually to the Bishop) and public penance. Around the 4th Century, the Monks in Ireland had developed a method for spiritual direction which involved the private confession of sin to a spiritual director. This style of confessing sins in secret was quite successful as a tool for spiritual direction. The Bishops decided to use it as the normative way of hearing confession and absolving from sin. This also was the occasion for the development of less public and less severe penances for sin. Spiritual direction replaced most of the more punitive public penances.
That is where our current custom of confession came from.
(geez nuke. don't ya' got google?)
