Honoring Mary is always honoring Jesus

All the graces that Mary received - her immaculate conception, her virgin motherhood, her perpetual virginity and even her glorious assumption - underline the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. 

All Mary's graces, all her privileges, are merely the jewel case that showcases the pearl: Jesus is God. Therefore honoring Mary is always honoring Jesus. 

When promulgating the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, Blessed Pius IX wrote: 

“As the only-begotten Son has a Father in heaven, whom the seraphim proclaim thrice holy, it was absolutely fitting that he should have a Mother on earth in whom the radiance of his holiness would never fade.” 

Sinful man stammers before such a great miracle; he doesn't know what to say: 

Is not original sin, which affects us all, transmitted with the very nature we receive from our fathers? Is this nature not fallen? How could Mary be exempt from such heredity? 

The Second Vatican Council sheds light on this mystery: Mary, it says, was “redeemed in an eminent way in consideration of the merits of her Son, and, free from every stain of sin, having been as it were kneaded by the Holy Spirit, [she was] formed as a new creature.”

Bishop Raymond Centène of Vannes, homily of December 7, 2012