Nowhere in Scripture are we told to pray to anyone but God who alone hears and answers our prayers.
Repent of the blasphemy that makes idols of dead men and fools of living ones, and in so doing, seeks to obscure the clear word of God and His Second Commandment which Rome regularly breaks with brazen hubris.
From Vatican.va...
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the "Mother of Mercy," the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender "the hour of our death" wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son's death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing38 to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise. 2677 - Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, "And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"36 Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: "Let it be to me according to your word."37 By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: "Thy will be done."
How blind does a person have to be to not understand the complete perversion of Christianity that lies at the heart of this nonsense?
Roman Catholics give themselves over to Mary at the hour of their death???
Roman Catholics entrust all their prayers and concerns to Mary???
God help all RCs to know the truth of God's word and will.
Jesus Christ, our only Mediator, Intercessor, Lord, King, Savior and God.
"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." -- Matthew 12:37
Repent of the blasphemy that makes idols of dead men and fools of living ones
Nowhere in Scripture are we told to pray to anyone but God who alone hears and answers our prayers.
1. Concerning that ‘God alone hears’
In Revelation 8:3-4 an angel is given incense to mingle with the prayers of the saints and ‘the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God.’
The angel is aware of the prayers of the Saints, and is allowed to present them before God. This is not to say that God was not aware of the prayers before and needed the angel to enlighten Him—He has been aware of the prayers from all eternity—but He allows creatures to partake in His Divine governance. Indeed, it is Catholic teaching that even our own prayers are not done for the sake of enlightening God, who is aware of what we need before we need it, and aware of what we will pray before we pray it—not only because He is omnicient but also because we cannot truly pray without first being prompted by His grace—but because God has ordered that certain things be caused through prayer so that we will be more fully aware of the supernatural order in general, and our dependence upon it in particular. Having others pray for us helps us to realize that we are one body in Christ.
2. “God alone answers”
In a certain fundamental sense yes, just as God alone is the author of life. But again, God allows creatures to participate in His governance, and so allows them to be part of answering prayer. In Luke 22:43 the Father answers Our Lord’s prayer by sending an angel to strengthen Him. God chooses to answer even His own prayer through a creature.
We are commanded to pray for our fellow man and to the Triune God alone.
Other people might be more inclined to direct our requests to their own end—indeed we ourselves are often inclined to pray for our own will to be accomplished rather than the will of God. By having Mary pray with us, God’s grace reminds us that prayer is about creatures conforming their wills to God, not having God conform His will to theirs.
Such trust in the Will of God is especially necessary at the hour of death—only a fool would want to go before God clinging to having things done his way rather than God’s way. God gave Mary the grace to conform to His will, and she did not reject it, which is why Gabriel said ‘hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you (Luke 1:28), and because she continued to cooperate with God in Luke 1:38, the Holy Spirit says of her, through Elizabeth in Luke 1:41-42 ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’
I am inclined to trust the judgment of the Holy Spirit and of Gabriel concerning Mary and her character. I would like to have my will conform to God’s will as perfectly as her will conforms, and so I ask her to pray with me.
Of course, for you, there is the obstacle that you think she is dead.
Which brings me back to the statement of yours in post 266 which is what I have been interested in having you defend for some time, asserting that people such as Our Lady are dead. I have put forward arguments to the contrary, summarized in my third point in post 436. Your response to the third point in 437 consists in using the word dead again. This is not a reply, it is repeating.
Are you going to deal with Matthew 22:32 beyond calling Our Lord’s arguments flimsy? In point 3 of post 436, I think I do a reasonable job of showing that scripture supports Him.
If you don’t care to defend and discuss this point, I would be happy to discuss your charge of idolatry if you would do me the favour of precisely defining what you understand the word idol to mean.
However, if you are not interested in having a dialogue on
a fixed topic, but merely wish to diverge onto some other track and ignore what I say, I do not see much point in saying any more.
Ora pro nobis.
(For the moderator—that is: pray for us)