Three Things You're Probably Getting Wrong about Praying to the Saints

Shameless popery ^ | April 20, 2015

[Mechanicos]

Read the Article I linked, it addresses the issue, your argument and why its prohibited.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Satan doesn’t perform miracles that glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan can’t stand Christ. Can’t stand Christian religious observance. Can’t stand the Cross or Holy Water, or even anything symbolic of the Deity. That’s well known.

[WayneS]

Okay. And my post does not deny that. But I do not pray to living people here on earth so why would I pray to a living person who happens to be in Heaven?

As I said, I pray to God and only to God.

[WayneS]

Asking someone to pray FOR you is not the same as praying TO someone.

[NYer]

Hi Danny, and thank you for your ping and comment. You note:

I'm Southern Baptist..here's my take... [snip] The Saints who have passed aren't dead. [snip] Scripture is very supportive of enlisting others to prayer. "where two or more are gathered.." And that's what I understand Roman Catholic theology is basically advocating. [snip] Or to enlist the help of living saints, rather than enlist the help of past saints which may or may not be able to hear or which might be inundated.

Apologies for the snipping but I wanted to trim down your comment. To answer your question, I am going to refer to a fairly recent event (2001-2006) that occurred with a Baptist man, like yourself. This is from the mainstream media, link posted below for the full text:

Phil McCord was not a religious man.

So it was strange when the Baptist caretaker who called himself a “man of science” entered an empty Catholic church one fateful January day in 2001 and offered up an urgent prayer.

“God, you’ve probably heard about my eye problems,” McCord began. His cornea was dying in his right eye, leaving him legally blind. He faced a risky and possibly disfiguring surgery. He had nowhere else to turn. And that’s when he mentioned her — the pilgrim who had established the church where he worked. The nun who had been dead for over a hundred years. And the woman who was in the early stages of canonization.

“Well, Mother Theodore, this is your house. And I am your servant,” he said. “If you have God’s ear. I would appreciate it.”

When he awoke the next morning, he found that the redness in his right eyelid had all but disappeared. His eye no longer drooped. He could see. “Is this real?” he asked himself. After 83 days of nonstop misery, he was finally feeling better.

It was miraculous, McCord thought — and the Vatican agreed, pinning Mother Theodore’s bid for sainthood on this “miracle,” thereby making her only the eighth American to become a Roman Catholic saint. FULL TEXT

BTW, Phil McCord was present at the canonization of Mother Theodore at the Vatican. He has remained Baptist and his story has since been written in a book:

, available through Amazon.com.

So, Danny, you have understood how "prayer" works, albeit when we call upon our friends who are already in the presence of God.

[Mrs. Don-o]

We seem to be hindered by a semantic ambiguity over the word "pray". It does not mean "worship," but it does mean "be in contact with."

In that sense, you pray to people here on earth every day.

This was clearer in, say, Shakespeare's day, when "pray" is commonly used by a person making a request:

"I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine."

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you."

"I pray you, tarry. Pause a day or two."

That's the sense in which we're using the word.

We both reach out, get in contact with, ask for help, pray, to people here on earth on a fairly frequent basis. And we both --- I think --- believe in intercessory prayer. So please keep that in mind --- and pray for me, I pray!

[FateAmenableToChange]

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, one of the meanings of the word pray is "to seriously ask (someone) to do something". When you ask your friends to pray to God for you, essentially you are praying to them.

No. That just does not work.

Even the final sentence structure : "your friends to pray to God for you" makes clear that the prayer at issue here is a prayer to God. Incorporating a meaning that is not supported by scripture simply doesn't work. I will try to find time to go through a concordance, but exegesis will likely support my reading on this. The reading you suggest collapses a wholly secular meaning of prayer (any request or supplication) into the sacred meaning of prayer (communication with God in praise, worship, repentance, intervention, or guidance). The word is the same but the senses are entirely different.

[RnMomof7]

I think the usual line is we ask them to pray to God for us ..

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Asking someone to pray FOR you is not the same as praying TO someone.:

I think I know what you're saying--- and so, to use the word your way --- we'll call it Pray^WS--- I'd say Catholics don't Pray^WS "to" saints, in the sense of addressing them as if they were capable of doing mighty works because of their own power or piety, independent of Our Lord.

But using the word as we Catholics have for 20 centuries, we "pray" --- asking for their intercession.

Are they not fellow members of the Body of Christ? Or do they become "less than" members of the Body of Chris when they are in heaven?

[Mrs. Don-o]

YES! That’s it exactly. Well said, RnMomof7.

[Secret Agent Man]

Again, RCC writers just cannot simply write an article about what they believe without saying what “protestants” - A DEROGATORY TERM, just as I’ve been reminded about what RCC Folks consider derogatory terms - are wrong about.

They can’t help backhand slam other denominations while explaining their own.

Just write what you believe without being dicks to other denominations. To say this is merely instructive is dishonest, it can be done without taking digs into others.

[RnMomof7]

>>>>>>Satan doesn’t perform miracles that glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan can’t stand Christ. Can’t stand Christian religious observance. Can’t stand the Cross or Holy Water, or even anything symbolic of the Deity. That’s well known.<<<<<<<<<<<

>EXCEPT..God does not get the glory ..THE “SAINT’ DOES...

Ummm ever see “Thanks to St. Jude “ for favors granted ??

http://www.atonementfriars.org/masses_and_prayers/thank_you_st_jude.html

How about a “newer one “

http://padrepiodevotions.org/testimonials/

or this one

https://saintgianna.org/readthankyou.php

Nope no glory to God... glory and thanks to the “saints”...that have to “preform’ miracles just to become saints..

[Gamecock]

Because that is the standard reply whenever one of your churchmen disagrees with the FROman Catholic interpretation of things.

[G Larry]

Thanks!

[RnMomof7]

I do listen

[Tao Yin]

Do you pray for others? Do you ask others to pray for you? If so, why? --- because your question about praying to saints in heaven would have the same answer as the question, "Why do we ask anyone for intercessory prayer?

I've never understood why people equate asking a person face to face or on the phone as the same as asking someone in Heaven.

If I have a conversation with someone, I know they can hear me. "Hey Bob. Would you pray for me?" Bob says "Sure".

It's not possible to have a conversation with someone who can't hear me. "Hey Bob. You're in another state and you can't hear me, but would you pray for me?" Silence, because I'm in Iowa and Bob is in New York and I didn't use the phone.

Asking someone in heaven to pray for me is more like the second example rather than the first. If you have no promise (or reasonable expectation) that someone will hear you, how can you expect your request to be anything other than wasted breath?

[NYer]

Websters has a definition of the english word used a few hundred years ago to convey a concept.

The concept of praying to the saints, dates back to before the 1st century. That meaning persists.

[Gamecock]

*** We don’t pray to Mary, we ask her to pray for us, just as a Protestant asks their deceased grandparent/parent to watch over them. ***

Thread started by NKP-Vet.

(Oh, we don't ask a deceased grandparent/parent to watch over us.)

[Boogieman]

“Satan doesn’t perform miracles that glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan can’t stand Christ. Can’t stand Christian religious observance. Can’t stand the Cross or Holy Water, or even anything symbolic of the Deity. That’s well known.”

Satan knows the Word of God better than any man, he can cite it chapter and verse. Satan was an angel who entered freely into the most sacred part of heaven. Surely he hates God, but the rest of this is superstition and if you test miracles based on superstition, you are in dangerous territory.

[NYer]

“shameless popery” No bias there, eh?

The blog's name, NOT that of the article.