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To: Emmett McCarthy
I think your practices are dangerous when contrasted against the scriptures.

If you ask someone to pray for you, they are before you and you see them. When you pray to those who are dead, it requires an act of faith. One doesn't have faith in men, whether living or dead; one has faith in God and His son Jesus Christ.

Jesus made it clear that He was the only way to the father. You pray to God through Christ directly, not through some dead man regardless of how much that man loved God.

The whole point of the second covenant is belief and faith. You are saved thereby. It is scriptural that a righteous man's prayer avails much with God.

Go to God directly; it is your right and your heritage. To pray to men is idolatry through the act of faith it requires.

If you pray for intercession through anyone not God and not the Christ, you are in fact praying to that one and asking for that favor.

67 posted on 10/21/2006 8:03:43 AM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: William Terrell
If you ask someone to pray for you, they are before you and you see them. When you pray to those who are dead, it requires an act of faith. One doesn't have faith in men, whether living or dead; one has faith in God and His son Jesus Christ.

You've subtly confused definitions of the word "faith". You are correct that asking for prayer from someone who is dead requires faith. However, faith means in this instance a belief in something that has no rational explanation. It is not the same as faith in God, which relates to His message and promises of Salvation if we believe in Him.

However, in both cases faith in the former feeds off faith in the latter. We Catholics believe the saints are alive in Heaven in spirit but not body, simply because we believe the Trinitarian God exists and that Christ meant what He said when He said that those that believe in Him will be alive with Him in Heaven and never die, even if their bodies should expire and decay. And conversely, we have faith that God listens to our prayers, even those brought to His attention on our behalf by His beloved saints.
73 posted on 10/21/2006 8:10:08 AM PDT by Conservative til I die
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