Is there a difference of substance between the veneration of Mary, and the worship of God?

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One useful distinction appears in petitionary prayer. We ask both Mary (as well as the other saints) and God to help us by doing things for us. The difference is in what we ask them to do.

For example, the prayer to Mary known as the Litany of Loreto begins by petitioning God in the Trinity, then moves to petitioning Mary, then back to God. But though both God and Mary are asked to do things, they're very different. We ask God:

God the Father, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

And later,

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

In contrast, to Mary we pray;

Mother of Christ, pray for us.
Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
Queen of the most holy Rosary, pray for us.

Only God has the power to grant us graces, and it is only Him whom we ask for actual things. Mary and other saints have no such power, and our reverence to them does not (should not) extend so far as to ask them for things. We can only ask them to pray to God for us.

You can see another difference, perhaps, in this example. Someone who looks up to another, who takes them as a life example and perhaps even thinks of them as a hero, will treat them with great respect and reverence. They may feel a certain sense of awe in their presence. But in the other hand, there's the sense of awe and wonder that many people feel when they look up at the stars, and confront the majesty of the universe. The two feelings are different (I contend) in kind, not just in scale. That's analogous to the difference between our feelings toward Mary and those we have toward God.

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