Posted on 09/07/2008 12:21:07 AM PDT by guitarplayer1953
Is prayer to saints / Mary Biblical?"
The issue of Catholics praying to saints is one that is full of confusion. It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church that Catholics do not pray TO saints or Mary, but rather that Catholics can ask saints or Mary to pray FOR them. The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that asking saints for their prayers is no different than asking someone here on earth to pray for you. However, the practice of many Catholics diverges from official Roman Catholic teaching. Many Catholics do in fact pray directly to saints and/or Mary, asking them for help – instead of asking the saints and/or Mary to intercede with God for help. Whatever the case, whether a saint or Mary is being prayed to, or asked to pray, neither practice has any Biblical basis.
The Bible nowhere instructs believers in Christ to pray to anyone other than God. The Bible nowhere encourages, or even mentions, believers asking individuals in Heaven for their prayers. Why, then, do many Catholic pray to Mary and/or the saints, or request their prayers? Catholics view Mary and saints as "intercessors" before God. They believe that a saint, who is glorified in Heaven, has more "direct access" to God than we do. Therefore, if a saint delivers a prayer to God, it is more effective than us praying to God directly. This concept is blatantly unbiblical. Hebrews 4:16 tells us that we, believers here on earth, can "...approach the throne of grace with confidence..."
1 Timothy 2:5 declares, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." There is no one else that can mediate with God for us. If Jesus is the ONLY mediator, that indicates Mary and saints cannot be mediators. They cannot mediate our prayer requests to God. Further, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ Himself is interceding for us before the Father, "Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them" (Hebrews 7:25). With Jesus Himself interceding for us, why would we need Mary or the saints to intercede for us? Who would God listen to more closely than His Son? Romans 8:26-27 describes the Holy Spirit interceding for us. With the 2nd and 3rd members of the Trinity already interceding for us before the Father in Heaven, what possible need could there be to have Mary or the saints interceding for us?
Catholics argue that praying to Mary and the saints is no different than asking someone here on earth to pray for you. Let us examine that claim. (1) The Apostle Paul asks other Christians to pray for him in Ephesians 6:19. Many Scriptures describe believers praying for one another (2 Corinthians 1:11; Ephesians 1:16; Philippians 1:19; 2 Timothy 1:3). The Bible nowhere mentions anyone asking for someone in Heaven to pray for them. The Bible nowhere describes anyone in Heaven praying for anyone on earth. (2) The Bible gives absolutely no indication that Mary or the saints can hear our prayers. Mary and the saints are not omniscient. Even glorified in Heaven, they are still finite beings with limitations. How could they possibly hear the prayers of millions of people? Whenever the Bible mentions praying to or speaking with the dead, it is in the context of sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy, and divination - activities the Bible strongly condemns (Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:10-13). The one instance when a "saint" is spoken to, Samuel in 1 Samuel 28:7-19, Samuel was not exactly happy to be disturbed. It is plainly clear that praying to Mary or the saints is completely different from asking someone here on earth to pray for you. One has a strong Biblical basis, the other has no Biblical basis whatsoever.
God does not answer prayers based on who is praying. God answers prayers based on whether they are asked according to His will (1 John 5:14-15). There is absolutely no basis or need to pray to anyone other than God alone. There is no basis for asking those who are in Heaven to pray for us. Only God can hear our prayers. Only God can answer our prayers. No one in Heaven has any greater access to God's throne that we do through prayer (Hebrews 4:16).
Ah, the longer you talk, the more you reveal your true self. LOL. And it ain’t purty.
I’ve heard some suggest that eternity is what you experience when I start trying to explain something. Just sayin’
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Thanks for the laugh, that was funny.
More projection.
You’re the one calling names.
Except for the Last Supper narratives in Matthew, Mark and Luke, John 6 and 1 Cor 11, you'd be right.
I was entirely serious. I will now make a serious face so that you can tell how serious I am.
:-(
See there? Serious!
According to Revelation, a Book is being (or was) written.
I suppose that because Paul was not one of the original Disciples thern his status as an Apostle should be suspect. That could legitimately be argued.
I realized a very long time ago that Scriptural debate is simply not an edifying process. Reasonable people can and usually do disagree.
The Disciples were not chosen to be above the followers. I suppose that a continuation of dialogue regarding Biblical references demonstrating the point would not convince anyone of anything contrary to previously fixed positions.
":....but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
It is after all a work night. I’ll need to read that post more closely when it is not so close to bed time.
I think your observation in the post above the one to which this is a response is on the money. it is good to look at things as carefully as we can but minds change slowly. I am not very good at patience, but I don't doubt that it's a virtue.
Excellent points:
Since there is no Mother of the One True God who is the Queen of Heaven, that pretty much answers your question...
If the Apostle Jude was the 4th part of the Trinity, would God have told us??? Did God mention anything about the Queen of Heaven other than the one who He said to avoid???
If Mary was the Queen of Heaven, would her historical record be dropped, discontinued at Acts 1 in the Scriptures???
And the thousands of witnesses . . . prior to the Jesuit editing, molding, manipulating the record . . .
consistently reported very standard UFO types of observations of the phenomena, craft, disc, light etc.
Even the ‘personage’ that morphed into ‘Mary’ was rather typical of such critters in the INITIAL reports.
Good points.
The Holy Spirit does not go against the Holy Scriptures. If that’s happening in YOUR life or in YOUR church, then it may not be the HOLY Spirit whispering in your ears.
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INDEED.
INDEED.
Man is NOT the measure of GOD.
I suppose this is more bookkeeping or tidying up than serious debate, but I'm content with that. I think we'd say that since he was given the right hand of fellowship his apostleship, which was from the Lord, was confirmed by the others, and is therefore reliable.
The Disciples were not chosen to be above the followers.
Okay in a way they are, but not in every way. The image that I get from the RCIA classes (them's the classes for adults coming into the Church) is that the clergy are like intelligence and quartermaster and logistics, while we laity are the front line troops.
I jokingly call my pastor "Holiness" and have referred to at least one of the other Dominicans, who alas has gone to do doctoral work as "your reverence," but my pastor knows I'll go to the mat with him on certain theological and liturgical issues and will probably emerge triumphant on pastoral psychology issues, and "his reverence", having once or twice withdrawn a bloody stump when he extended a hand to pat me on my theological head, learned not to try that cr*p with me. (Poor sucker didn't realize there were parts of Aquinas I know pretty well, heh heh heh) And we became good friends. And both of them DO serve (or have served) me, and served me well.
Back to the major cultural issues raised in my verbose earlier post: We Americans need to think about what it would be like if there was somebody who deserved to be king. Having had an English mother, I was startled to realize that she loved the Queen, in a way.
Lewis points out in the beginning of Mere Christianity that when people diss the Virgin, we Catholic not only have a theological problem but also have a kind of sense that they are being caddish, low-class. There's a certain desire to slap faces with gloves and challenge to duels or jousts or something. I'm not saying that's right, I'm trying to convey an affect. It's sort of kind of as if they insulted my wife in front of me.
What's the connection? Yeah, well, I'm wondering that too. Oh yeah, it's that according to canon law I am a "subject" of my pastor. If you only knew how that grates on my authority issues .....
But as in our civil polity we are (at least theoretically) protected by the Bill of Rights and so forth, in the RC polity the principle of subsidiarity provides some political protection. But more than that, my pastor is an excellent pastor, just excellent. Experience makes me confident that he will not overstep his bounds knowingly , and that, to the extent possible with sinners, he will do what he does with excellent intentions and considerable wisdom. He has had occasion to yank my chain, and even when he was wrong in the particulars, I profited from the experience.
So under these circumstances I do not mind the limited sense in which he is "over" me. And, mutatis mutandis, Ben XVI, under whom my pastor studied.
All this is exposition, not argumentation. I'm trying to give a sense of what it feels like over here.
Sorry, but fleshing such notes out is such a low priority, not likely to happen this year, if, indeed, in this lifetime.
As a matter of fact, I think we could use a new crusade or two and maybe bring the Templars back.
Haha!
Sounds like the Dawg caught his tail under the rocking chair again... ;)
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