One might wonder, incidentally, why pray to Our Lady (or to any of the saints) when one can pray directly to Christ, or to God the Father (or to some other, less orthodox, conception of the Godhead). And the answer is that while one can do whatever one pleases, according to one’s will, one will discover, if one participates in the life of the Church, that the communion of saints (and, to a greater extent, the person of Our Lady) has, over time, been revealed to be integral to the salvific mission of the Church, with regard to both the individual and the world.