I fail, at the very least, to see what good praying to someone else for what we are to pray only to God for, is going to do.
Do Catholics really think that God is not going to answer but some redeemed being is? Are they trying to get prayer answered that they are afraid that God won’t answer so they bypass Him?
If God is not going to grant the request for reasons that He alone knows, how is some dead person who is not God going to be able to do it?
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He said,.....
Matthew 6: 9”This, then, is how you should pray:
“ ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Just where is the admonition to pray to dead people, or even living people who have died and are in heaven?
For all the emphasis that the Catholics say they put on the gospels and the dissing for theology that they do to Paul, just where does this concept of praying to saints come from? Where in the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels is that found?
Roman Catholics not only believe that doing penance (performing good works) will pay for their own sins, they also believe doing penance can and will pay for the sins of others.
Roman Catholics believe they can store up good works and if they have more than they need to earn their own salvation they can give these extra credit payments in the form of penance to others to pay for their sins.
It's a primitive system of barter, completely ignoring the only sacrifice for sin that saves anyone -- Christ risen from the cross.
These are some of the best, bald-faced questions about this practice I have seen. Great post.
What I suspect you will be inundated with is that tired old saw that, “The Catholic Church wrote the Bible and therefore we can add to it any theological claim we wish. After all, we are correct because we are correct and it is subject to the Church, not the other way around.”
This is the most common answer I see around here.
INDEED TO THE MAX:
- - -
I fail, at the very least, to see what good praying to someone else for what we are to pray only to God for, is going to do.
Do Catholics really think that God is not going to answer but some redeemed being is? Are they trying to get prayer answered that they are afraid that God won’t answer so they bypass Him?
If God is not going to grant the request for reasons that He alone knows, how is some dead person who is not God going to be able to do it?
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He said,.....
Matthew 6: 9”This, then, is how you should pray:
“ ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Just where is the admonition to pray to dead people, or even living people who have died and are in heaven?
For all the emphasis that the Catholics say they put on the gospels and the dissing for theology that they do to Paul, just where does this concept of praying to saints come from? Where in the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels is that found?