Saints Deliver Me!
Of course not. God uses lots of ways to bring people to Himself. In fact, I love to hear how God worked in other peoples lives to bring them into the family of God. However, the Scriptures are crystal clear, and replete with examples, that when we pray we should pray to God alone. Show me one example in the Scriptures of a person praying to another human being, even one already deceased, where that could be used as a pattern for Christians to follow.
No but Sacred Scripture is replete with examples of intercessory prayer and that’s what Catholics mean when we say “pray to saints.” Catholics do not “pray to saints” in the same sense that we “pray to the three persons of the Trinity.” We might use the same words as Protestants but in our faith, it means vastly different things. What Catholics mean when they say “pray to saints” is “praying in communion with the saints” or more simply “asking a saint to pray for us”….do “we” always make that clear in Catholic writing? No. Because quite frankly, Catholics generally write for other Catholics and we know what me mean.
From the CCC:
2682 Because of Mary’s singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her.
2850 The last petition to our Father is also included in Jesus’ prayer: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.” It touches each of us personally, but it is always “we” who pray, in communion with the whole Church, for the deliverance of the whole human family. The Lord’s Prayer continually opens us to the range of God’s economy of salvation. Our interdependence in the drama of sin and death is turned into solidarity in the Body of Christ, the “communion of saints.”
Prayer as communion
2565 In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Kingdom is “the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity . . . with the whole human spirit.” Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ. Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ’s love.
That’s just a sample.
Let me be clear here. I am not trying to convince anyone to pray in any way other than they are doing right now. I am simply trying to defend this difficult Catholic practice as someone who has been on both sides of the fence as it were. I am sure that many people who know me now and the Catholic that I am (vocal to be sure but FAR from a good one) and have a hard time believing just how very anti-Catholic I was. I assure that nothing has been said about Catholics by anyone on this forum that I myself did not believe. Unless, it was something nice. The nice things I didn’t believe. So what I would like to do in this post is just explain how I got from there to here with nothing but my Bible.
I will confess here that I went to the Catholic Church unwillingly and with a very bad attitude. I barely accepted God’s clear leading in the issue (and it would have only been slightly more clear had an actual burning bush or talking ass been involved). but I went with a disobedient heart. I was in the Catholic Church praying “Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief.” for a long time and that was more for form than from a genuine hunger for Our Lord to show my my errors. I tell you this because I want you to understand that I was sola scriptura for a long time in the Catholic Church. I accepted that I had to obey in the externals but my heart was far from real obedience. My belief in sola scriptura was actually one of the last things to fall as I truly converted to the Catholic Faith and went from being in the Catholic Church to being Catholic. So when I say that I came to these beliefs with nothing but my Bible, I am deadly serious and I fought the Lord every step of the way. To my great shame.
Let me outline what I see in Sacred Scripture that relates to this issue.
We are ONE Body. I see this clearly depicted in Sacred Scripture.
Colossians 1:18 He is the head of the body, the church He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
1 Corinthians 12:20-27 But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,”nor again the head to the feet, “I do not need you.” Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it,so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If (one) part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.
Ephesians 5:29-30 For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
Romans 12:4-5 For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.
1 Corinthians 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take Christ’s members and make them the members of a prostitute? Of course not!
Jesus only has ONE Body and we are it.
Ephesians 4:4-6 one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful.
Death does not separate us from Christ OR from each other.
Romans 8:35-39 What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Mark 12:26-27 26 As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, (the) God of Isaac, and (the) God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.”
Luke 23:43 He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise .”
Christians are bound together in mutual love and commanded to pray for each other and we imitate the writers of Sacred Scripture when we do so.
Romans12:9-12 Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.
Romans 15:30 I urge you, (brothers,) by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in the struggle by your prayers to God on my behalf,
Colossians 4:2-3 Persevere in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving; at the same time, pray for us, too, that God may open a door to us for the word, to speak of the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison
1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.
1 Thessalonians 5:25 Brothers, pray for us (too).
2 Thessalonians 3:1 Finally, brothers, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you,
Galatians 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Ephesians 6:18-19 With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit. To that end, be watchful with all perseverance and supplication for all the holy ones and also for me, that speech may be given me to open my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel
I have seen you say many times words to the effect of “show me where is says to pray to saints.”
Catholics don’t pray to saints in the sense that we pray to God. We ask them to pray for us. Now I know that many people don’t believe that is what the Catholic Church teaches but there’s not a lot I can do about that. Don’t look at what at Catholic you know says or does, or to any snippet of an Encyclical taken out of context, look to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can read it all at the Vatican Website or here (the latter copy is searchable) That’s what the Catholic Church teaches and while it is individually regrettable that not every Catholic adheres to Catholic teaching that is a human failing and common to every church in every place and time.
Back to the “showing” part. I was like that too. I didn’t see any clear positive indication that we were to ask the saints to pray for us either. And then God slapped me right upside the head….I am so stubborn and disobedient it shames me how often He has had to do that and how often I must confess it to others in order to make my point. I realized that it wasn’t the Catholic Church or Sacred Scripture with the problem.
I was the problem.
I didn’t have faith and I didn’t believe Sacred Scripture.
Let me say that again. I refused to ask Saints to pray to me because I didn’t believe Sacred Scripture. And if I am going to be brutally honest, there was no small amount of feeling holier than those who did ask the saints to pray for them (superstitious nonsense and all of that.)
I asked myself what part of what I have outlined above, didn’t I believe? Which of those scriptures I have quoted didn’t mean what they said? Are we not one body? Are we separated from each other by death because **I** can’t see my brothes and sisters in faith that have gone before me? What about that being “surrounded by a cloud of witnesses” thing? Was I going to blow off that scripture too? Where does scripture place limits on praying for one another? We are part of one body and we are supposed to pray for each other? I couldn’t find any limits on that….I WANTED limits, but they weren’t there.
Hebrews 11:1 Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.
In the end, I realized that to fail to share my burdens with the whole Body of Christ and to fail to pray for the whole Body of Christ was a sinful lack of faith on my part in the Word of God contained in Sacred Scripture….not to mention a sinful lack of faith in the authority He has placed over me but that’s another confession for another day.
Obejctions?
There is only one mediator. Christ. Exactly. I don’t disagree AT ALL. Every Catholic I know agrees 100%. But we aren’t talking about mediating; we are talking about interceding in prayer for each other. If interceding in prayer for each other takes away from the Mediatorship of Christ, then we shouldn’t pray for each other here in the Church Militant (the church here on earth in Catholic speak. The saints in heaven are the Church Triumphant.) either. We have been commanded to intercede in prayer for one another and I can’t see that there were any exceptions made to that command.
They’re dead. No. They’re alive in Christ. (Luke 23:43; Mark 12:26-27)
They can’t hear us. So what if that is true? Is that any different than someone asking me to pray and me saying “Yes” then completely forgetting to do so? If I put a prayer request on an internet forum for prayer requests, I have NO evidence whatsoever that any person will pray for me. Our church chapel has a book of prayer requests in the back of the chapel and I know those requests get prayed for because I often go through them and pray. But if I write a request in it, is it somehow sinful if I am not assured that someone else will do the same for me? I don’t think so. If I ask you face to face, to pray for me I have no evidence that you will follow through. I don’t think it matters. You know why? God who is omniscient and omnipresent, heard me humbly share my burdens. God saw me treat you as my sister in Christ. He saw me step out in love and faith in the Body of Christ. It is obedience to Him that matters. I hope that you would pray for me. I believe that the prayers of others benefit me immensely. I don’t see that I am required to request prayer only of those who I know hear and follow through. Do I think the angels and saints hear us? Yes I do and one scriptural defense of that I have seen lately comes from Randy Alcorn (a noted and respected Protestant) and is up on Cor ad Loquitur Do I think the saints in heaven (including Mary) possess any attributes of divinity such as omniscience or omnipresence? Most emphatically no and the Catholic Church doesn’t teach otherwise. I do believe that praying for each other and sharing our burdens is something Our Lord commanded us to do. I don’t believe that anything He commands us to do, even if we don’t understand it fully, is purposeless. It isn’t my job to work out the details. I have the faithful obedience part.
And let me ask you this? Who would you rather pray for you? Someone in grave sin? Or the best Christians that you know? (James 5:16b “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”; John 9:31, “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.”; Isaiah 59:2 “But you iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”; 1 Peter 3:12, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”; Proverbs 28:9; “One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”) How do we know that the person here on earth that we ask to pray for us isn’t in grave sin and the Lord isn’t listening to him/her? I may have to step out on faith and ask the saints in heaven to pray for me, I may not know exactly how or if they hear me but I do know this; I know that if they hear me and pray for me, the Lord will be listening. It seems to me to run roughly parallel to those I ask to pray for me on earth. I may know they heard me (not always if I leave a prayer request on a bulletin board or a notebook) but I have no assurance that they will follow through or that if they do that there isn’t some grave sin in their lives that has them so far enough from the Lord that He’s not listening.
As Sister Mary Martha (crusty Catholic nun with a blog) says, “It’s a mystery. That’s Catholic-speak for ‘let it go.’”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on The Communion of Saints
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Mary, the Mother of Christ, the Mother of the Church
