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Got back to my computer and found some 40 or 50 pings directed to me which I cannot possibly get to, not wanting to give my theological OCD any further encouragement... But though this response is to metmom, maybe the rest of y'uns might want to accept this as if a response to all y'all.

("Y'uns" = "All y'all" though the meaning has a certain latitude due to --- latitude.)

Anyway, listen in and respond if you wish. I probably won't get back to the rest. Like all of us, I have a LAFFR: Life Apart From Free Republic!

So: to metmom.

"Simple conversation is NOT praying as the kind directed towards Mary is."

How would you know? --- you who do not pray to saints? Yes, it is "simple" conversation, in fact it could be any kind of communication: it could be hymnody, something in the grand poetic style, or even Scripture. Anything that might be communicated, to FReeper, queen or cleaning lady, including "Hi."

"Besides, Mary is no longer on this earth. She can’t be communicated with as one would communicate with me."

The evidence that I have communicated with you is, at best, equivocal.

;o0

(Not an insult, just an observation. Like so many FReepers, we do talk past each other: though sometimes by grace-- by His grace --- we connect, yes?)

"And we are forbidden to try to communicate with those whose physical bodies have died."

Oh? We are forbidden to think of those who have passed on, as if they were "dead" as the world supposes. Jesus communicated with those who were "dead" (e.g. Moses and Elijah), and Jesus furthermore taught that "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" are not dead, because:

Mark 12:27
"He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken."

Bu I think you are talking about necromancy --- conjuring the dead, attempting to fortune-tell or cast spells or acquire occult powers through the dead --- and that is forbidden.

But noplace in the Bible is intercessory prayer with and for other members of the Body of Christ, forbidden.

James 5:16
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

James doesn't follow this up with "Except in heaven, where spiritual love and help and effectiveness drop down to zero."

The foundational understanding here, I would say, is the reality of the Body of Christ. We are all members of Christ, and that includes, of course, those who are now in heaven. And the Body of Christ does not consist of large and larger clumps of dead cells as the ages roll on and more and more of the faithful pass beyond the bars of death. We are all still alive in Christ, and that means we are in living, effective contact with each other through Christ, just as the cells, tissues, organs and systems, the limbs and senses are in contact in a living body.

Then Paul says:

1 Cor. 12:20-27

But now indeed there are many members,
yet one body.
And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”;
nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”
No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.
And those members of the body
which we think to be void of honor,
on these we bestow greater honor;
and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty,
but our presentable parts have no need.
But God composed the body,
having given greater honor to that part which lacks it,
that there should be no schism in the body,
but that the members should have the same care for one another.
And if one member suffers,
all the members suffer with it;
or if one member is honored,
all the members rejoice with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of it.

Do you see how tremendous this is? There is no indication whatsoever that there is any “schism” in the Body, or that anyone ceases to have this intimate connection with Christ or with Christ’s other members, when they are in heaven. And we belong not just to Christ, but to all the others IN Him, as Paul says in Romans:

Romans 12:5
In Christ we, though many,
form one body,
and each member belongs to all the others.

Does Paul place any limitations on this? No, indeed! Because there is no limitation to that blessed Body of which Christ is the head. As it says so splendidly in Ephesians 1:

“That He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him…. He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

This is so significant: we -- both in heaven and on earth --- are members of His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.

Can anyone think that those who have gone on before us into heaven are dead clumps in the Body of Christ, who have no living relationship with us, nor we with them? God forbid! As Paul says, “And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

We all participate in payer and carry each other’s prayers to the Father, just as I might carry your prayer to the Father, metmom, and you might carry mine, when we pray or each other. St.John gives us a peek into Heave and lets us see this astonishing things, that with us the creatures and elders of Heaven, and angels, too, participate in this great loving ceremony of prayer:

Revelation 5:8
Now when He [the Lamb] had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Revelation 8:3-4
Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.

I’m amazed and in wonder, at the absolute lively interactive interdependence of His Body, which is all of us as His members, with Him who is our Head.