“I hope that helps you understand that we Catholics don’t view our deceased fellow Christians as dead but MORE fully alive in Christ in heaven than they were on earth.”
I hope you realize that all Christians believe Christians who have passed away here are alive in heaven. :-)
I believe it too - but also that they have no “inside straight with God” that you yourself as a believer have to approach God’s throne in boldness because of Christ.
I find it amazing that God’s inspired and Holy Word never commands Christians to pray to departed Christians, nor encourages us to pray to departed Christians - nor angels. If this was important at all - or was a possible source of aid - God would have done so. He doesn’t.
Instead, we are commanded to pray ourselves and assured He will hear and answer. That is a blessing.
blessings to you.
Now I think I understand you from another angle. No wonder it makes no sense to you that I would ask someone in heaven to offer up a prayer on my behalf. I believe that those in heaven have the veil lifted, can see more clearly, and can approach God in ways that I cannot do here on earth.
I also believe as you do that I still have to approach God "in boldness." But sometimes I want reinforcement and ask others to assist me with their prayers, those who I believe are now in God's presence in a way I cannot be while on earth.
I find it amazing that God’s inspired and Holy Word never commands Christians to pray to departed Christians, nor encourages us to pray to departed Christians - nor angels. If this was important at all - or was a possible source of aid - God would have done so. He doesn’t.
The Lord commanded us to pray to "our" father not "my" father, and so I am comfortable with a communal aspect of prayer, both with my fellow earthly pilgrims and those who've traveled into eternity ahead of me.
You believe that God's instructions/commands must be contained in scripture. I believe that scripture, oral tradition, and the church's magisterium all support each other in putting forth God's instructions. I know we differ on that. So I'll leave you with one last verse.
In 1 Thes 2:13, Paul writes, "And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers." (Underline emphasis mine, of course.) As 1 Thes is viewed by many as the first of Paul's letters and perhaps the oldest book in the NT, I understand Paul to mean that his orally transmitted teaching, including that given before he wrote his first letter, is the word of God. Please understand that I don't include this verse to be argumentative, but to show that Catholics do have scriptural basis to accept oral tradition as the word of God.
Blessings on this Independence Day to you too! And thanks for the civil dialogue :)