Replies

I read your entire post, and will reply to a few salient points in it. If I miss anything of substance, please feel free to point to it; remember that brevity gets my attention better than verbosity, especially if you have little to say. The objection is praying to anyone other than the Creator.

Again, for a Jew that would be a natural objection; for someone who calls himself Christian this is a grave theological error that contradicts the Holy Scripture and does not recognize the reality of the Communion of saints. In the New Testament, we see multiple instances when intercessory prayer is both offered and asked for. See Romans 15:30, 2 Corinthians 13:7-9, Acts 8:24, 1 Timothy 2:1-6, James 5:16. It is of course true that any prayer to a saint is a prayer to Christ, but if you understood the nature of Catohlic prayer you would not be "objecting".

I still don't understand how the superior faculties of saints compared to me who have not yet tasted death and went to heaven are not proven definitively by the scripture in focus. Here it is again, for your convenience (from my 169):

I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
This shows that a life of a saint is abundant compared to unbeliever; "that they may have" indicates that it is the life not yet given them rather the natural life they already have. This alone should destroy the Protestant superstition that saints are somehow dead, cannot respond to prayers, etc.

in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven.(Matthew 22:30)

This shows that the saint is like an angel. But what is an angel? - A messenger of God. Saints therefore can and do fulfill requests from God and interact with us like angels do.

Know you not that we shall judge angels? (1 Corinthians 6:3)

This shows that the state of a saint is higher than an angel; while the saint possesses the faculties of an angel, his are even greater.

We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known (1 Corinthians 13:12)

This shows that the intellectual ability of a saint exceeds our abilities before death.

I understand that the focus of these passages is sometime other than what a saint can or cannot do; but nevertheless this is Holy Inerrant Scripture referring to their faculties in a direct unambiguous way, and I believe the scripture, and you should too.

Romans 8:27

That indeed shows that the Holy Spirit indwells in a saint and acts through him (see also Philippians 2:13, for example). It does not mean a saint, driven by the same Holy Spirit cannot intercede to Christ for us. onsider, for example,

I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times (1 Timothy 2:1-6)

Here, of course, we see living Christians praying for others, not yet saints in heaven praying. But the principle of intercessory prayer is therefore firmly biblical. Surely we don’t imagine St. Paul telling Timothy: "once you die and go to heaven, don’t forget to stop all your prayers at once". The Holy Scripture is given us to shape our behavior both now and after we die.

Neither do I understand what your problem with the translation of Martyrdom of St. Polycarp is, that I use. do you have a different translation? Bring it up. Do you have the original? Let us look at it together.

If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! (Gal. 1:9)

Indeed; this is why the Holy Church would not canonize a heretic with his own gospel, like Luther or Calvin or the rest of the Protestant gang of shysters. They are all anathema (different gospel) and so will remain.

This shows that a life of a saint is abundant compared to unbeliever;

it does NOT! (Well; using YOUR church's definition it does.)

This shows that a life of a ~~saint~~ BELIEVER is abundant compared to unbeliever;

There: I fixed it for you.

This shows that the state of a saint is higher than an angel; while the saint possesses the faculties of an angel, his are even greater.

it does NOT! It 'shows' that someone is capable of LOOKING at EVIDENCE and JUDGING whether certain conditions have been met.

(Where'd you learn English?)

You are a lost cause, annalex, and I mean that in the nicest of ways.