Three Things You're Probably Getting Wrong about Praying to the Saints

Shameless popery ^ | April 20, 2015

[metmom]

Catholicism’s penchant for decorating dead corpses is now not appropriate for the RF?

Since when?

Some FRoman Catholics think those things are beautiful.

[metmom]

It’s irrelevant.

Contacting the dead is contacting the dead.

[Resettozero]

Contacting the dead is contacting the dead.

Or summoning something else you really don't want to be calling up.

[free_life]

Someone who knows God..that is has a personal relationship with God does not need to ask someone to ask God for anything on their behalf.

I speak directly to God, I can enter into the throne room of God, into his presence boldly with confidence because I have been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. Meanwhile thousands of others are praying to auntie Bessy all at the same time... stop and consider the nonsense of such a superstition.

[metmom]

ME!

I’m seated with Christ in the heavenly places right now.

Ephesians.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Hold your heresy horses, Elsie!

"Any 'miracle' would be GOD's direct doing."

We agree on that! When have I ever disagreed with your good sense?? Never!

"Dead people have NO share in HIS glory!!"

Ah yes, there we disagree: because your opinion does not take into account what Scripture says about God and His glory.

For one thing, saints are not "dead people." Jesus corrected the Pharisees on this point:

Matthew 22:31-32
"Have you not read what was said to you by God, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.’

So we are speaking of the saints living in Heaven: not the dead, but the living.

St. Paul says (Romans 2:6, 10), "God will repay everyone according to his works: eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good work,... there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, Jew first and then Greek."

This is not stealing glory from God, but rather it manifests God's freedom to give glory to those on whom His favor rests. This is a derivative glory, like the light of the moon, which is not independent, but beautifully reflects the light of the sun.

It's also a matter of inheriting glory as joint heirs with Christ:

(Romans 8:16-18)
"The Spirit itself bears witness
with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ
if only we suffer with him
so that we may also be glorified with him."

"I consider that the sufferings of this present time
are as nothing
compared with the glory to be revealed for us."

Romans 8:30
"And those he predestined
he also called;
and those he called
he also justified;
and those he justified
he also glorified."

Paul says the true Israelites were rightly given glory:

Romans 9:4
"They are Israelites;
theirs the adoption,
the glory, the covenants,
the giving of the law,
the worship,
and the promises."

Paul himself claims this glory:

Romans 11:13
"Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I glory in my ministry."

And Paul goes on to explain that in all this, GOD is glorified:

Romans 11:36
For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever.
Amen

This is what we are taking about. Look again at the quotes above. This is about all believers' sharing in God's glory.

God is telling us the truth.

Amen.

[Resettozero]

Absolutely true, according to the Word of God. But...Elsie knows that.

[metmom]

Ping me to any response to this post, if you would.

Not that I’m expecting any, really, but it would be interesting.

[steve86]

...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!

Dopey comment. She doesn't exist in a temporal world. The passage of time is partialed out of her existence like a partial differential equation.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You quote saints as if they were writing defined Catholic dogma. Why is that?

I think it's because you do not recognize he differences between dogma, doctrine, and theological opinion.

You ought to look into this, iscool. For someone who does not believe the Pope is infallible under any circumstances, you seem to think Catholics hold the saints to be infallible in every circumstance.

This is a basic error, and it leads to a lot of confusion on your part, because you have so far not shown the least inclination to distinguish one thing from the other.

That's why you keep getting the vapors about "This is what Catholics believe!" when you have not once (that I know of) tried to distinguish whether it is a teaching of the Church, or not.

[Resettozero]

Stuff a rope or a fish in your ears Elsie! Don’t listen to that singing! There are rocks galore and a shipwreck awaiting!

[daniel1212]

Scripture is very supportive of enlisting others to prayer. "where two or more are gathered.." And that's what I understand Roman Catholic theology is basically advocating. But are the saints omnipresent that they can hear our prayers? or omniscient that they can know our thoughts if the prayer is not voiced? Because if they aren't, then for the saints to hear the prayers, then the Holy Spirit is going to have to pass the prayers to them in order for them to hear.

So without looking down on the catholic practice of praying to the saints, it always made sense to me, to just go straight to the source, to "boldly enter the throne room" and lay our petitions before Him. Or to enlist the help of living saints, rather than enlist the help of past saints which may or may not be able to hear or which might be inundated.

Well said. It simply has no actually support, only Cath attempts to extrapolate it out of earthly relations, which ignores the seperation of realms only God is shown able to ignore.

It is the psychological seduction of a Heavenly Mother that the pagans also found attractive.

[daniel1212]

Three Things You're Probably Getting Wrong about Praying to the Saints

1. The Saints in Heaven are Alive, not Dead, as their spirits are with the Lord, the only place that that Scripture clearly teaches is the next place for believers after this life, not Cath. purgatory, wherever Scripture manifestly deals with this issue. (Lk. 23:39-43; Acts 7:59; Phil. 1:21-23; 2Cor. 5:8; 1Thes. 4:17)

Nor are the Saints a distinct class of believers, as Scripture teaches that all believers are saints, using the word interchangeably for believers , as even the Corinthians were washed, sanctified and justified in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit of God. (1Cor. 6:11). already accepted in the Beloved and seated with Christ, (Eph. 1:6; 2:6)

And in Scripture all sanctifying work is done in this world with its trials and temptations, in which there is an sinful alternative to suffering. And thus it was here that the Lord was made "perfect," in the sense being tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. (Heb. 4:15)

Meanwhile, the only postmortem suffering spoken of is that of suffering the loss of rewards, and thus the grievous shame of the Lord's disapproval, at the judgment seat of Christ, and which is at the return of the Lord, not commencing at death. See here .

Even the EO's tend to reject Rome's purgatory (though they have a theory of preparation)

Also, the Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatorial punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corrolated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church, and when they were enforced and applied they brought about evil practices at the expense of the prevailing Truths of the Church. If Almighty God in His merciful loving-kindness changes the dreadful situation of the sinner, it is unknown to the Church of Christ. The Church lived for fifteen hundred years without such a theory. — http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7076

2. The Saints in Heaven are Witnesses, not Sleeping or Ignorant, but Rv. 6:9-11 that the RCs compel to support them only shows they crying out for judgment, which could have been due to the increase of martyred souls arriving in Heaven, indicating the time of judgment should be near.

Likewise, RCs compel Heb. 12:1-2 to support them, but which is not speaking about communicating with the departed, but in context (Heb. 11) that of being in the company of such as part of the same body.

In any case, this query for judgment simply does not support created beings in Heaven being able to hear prayers addressed to them and respond , not does offering up prayers as a memorial at the time of the day of the Lord.

In fact, nowhere does the Spirit ever record even one prayer, supplications or offerings addressed to anyone else by God - except by pagans - even though He records over 200 in Scripture! Argument by silence much?

3. The Saints in Heaven are Still Part of the Church, yet neither this, nor exhortations to pray for each others teach that created beings in Heaven are able to hear and respond to prayer from earth addressed to them in Heaven, and do so.

Moreover, from what I see, all two-way communication required both created beings to somehow be consciously operating in the same realm.

“What saith the Scriptures?” (Rm. 4:3; 11:2; Gal. 4:30) “Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (Proverbs 30:6)”
1	Prayers in Scripture addressed to God in Heaven	Over 200 prayers, besides instruction on prayer to Heaven. (“Our Father who art in Heaven,” not “Out Mother.”)
	Prayers in Scripture addressed to any created beings in Heaven	ZERO prayers or examples, or in instruction on prayer to Heaven
2	Examples or teaching showing God being able to hear and respond to prayer from earth addressed to Him in Heaven.	Multiple. “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee..” (2 Kings 20:5; cf. Ps. 65:2; 66:19,20; Lk 1:13)
	Examples or teaching showing created beings being able to hear and respond to prayer from earth addressed to them in Heaven.	ZERO. Angels and elders offering up prayers before the judgments of the last days in memorial (Rev. 5:8 and 8:3,4; f. Lv. 2:2,15,16; 24:7; Num. 5:15) does not constitute this ability, which is unique to God.
3	Examples or teaching showing God able to personally communicate with man from Heaven.	Many. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:8-9)
	Examples or teaching showing created beings being able to converse with man from Heaven.	ZERO. From what I see, all two-way communication required both created beings to somehow be consciously operating in the same realm.
4	Examples or teaching Christ as being the heavenly intercessor between man and God.	Many. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; (1 Timothy 2:5) For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. (Hebrews 2:18) For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16) Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)
	Examples or teaching any as created beings as heavenly intercessor between man and God.	ZERO. See under 2 above.

[Mark17]

If you read the Bible, how do you know what it means unless there is a priest or bishop there to explain it to you?

When I was a catholic, many years ago, I had unanswered questions, so I went to my catholic priest in Grand Forks, ND. I wanted to know why am I here, what am I supposed to be doing, and where am I going? He just said, well, the church teaches this and the church teaches that, but I left even more frustrated than when I started. This particular priest never told me not to read the Bible for myself, but my parents certainly did. Being as I was an absolutely TOTALLY rebellious person, after my parents told me that, the first thing I did, was to sneak our catholic family Bible to my room at night, and read it, just to spite them. 😱 The Word of God had a profound impact on my life, and the rest is history, as they say. Now, I no longer have any unanswered questions.

[ealgeone]

You quote saints as if they were writing defined Catholic dogma. Why is that?

Because they are!!!!! There is so much false teaching on Mary the catholic can't keep up with all of it....or they don't want to.....maybe both.

I think it's because you do not recognize he differences between dogma, doctrine, and theological opinion.

You ought to look into this, iscool. For someone who does not believe the Pope is infallible under any circumstances, you seem to think Catholics hold the saints to be infallible in every circumstance.

Then the pope needs to start clarifying what is not correct about these writings....but he can't as we'll show below.

This is a basic error, and it leads to a lot of confusion on your part, because you have so far not shown the least inclination to distinguish one thing from the other.

That's why you keep getting the vapors about "This is what Catholics believe!" when you have not once (that I know of) tried to distinguish whether it is a teaching of the Church, or not.

I notice you do not refute any of this. That is telling.

You're actually trying to hide behind the differences between dogma, doctrine, or theological opinion?! That's weak.

The same saints I am quoting are the ones catholics claim they pray to with the exception of Manteau-Bonamy. But he was an expert theologian at the 2nd Vatican Council.

This is the danger of catholic "tradition" and why it is rejected by Christians.

If these are saints who have received their authority from apostolic succession then how can the catholic reject these??

If these writings are not reflective of catholic teaching/belief, then the Vatican needs to start getting out memos to that effect.

But they can't because the current pope has quoted from the "Glories of Mary". You will note that two of the quotes in my previous post are from this "work".

In the same talk, the pope spoke again about how he recently read “The Glories of Mary,” a hefty book written in 1750 by St. Alphonsus Liguori. “In this book, I like reading the stories about Mary that are behind each chapter; in them you see how Mary always leads us to Jesus http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/04/20/mother-and-son-pope-francis-has-a-personal-intimate-devotion-to-mary/

You will note that the pope did not disclaim any of these.

Regarding Eadmer....he must also be credited with being one of the first serious proponents of the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary when he defended popular traditions in his De Conceptione sanctae Mariae.

So you see, these are not just some willy nilly quotes that have been selected. These are from accredited saints in the roman catholic church. These are "approved" if you will.

It is my hope that catholics come out of the roman catholic cult and become a follower of Christ.

[DannyTN]

The fact that Moses and Elias met Jesus on the mountain is pretty solid evidence that we won’t sleep and we die. Mat 17:3

[DannyTN]

and we die —> when we die

[Oratam]

Because I believe in the fullness of the truth of the Gospel, I petition those who have gone before me, united with all the faithful in His Mystical Body, to pray for me. Because Christ is not a liar.

[Mark17]

None of my DEAD friends get asked very much these days.

I know you and CB are the elder statesman around here. 😄😃😀😂😱😇 I am not that far behind you, but the elder I become, the more my friends become exactly that, DEAD, so they also do not get asked much either. In the meantime, we keep on trucking.

[PieterCasparzen]

There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide;

If merely 1% of them 'ask' Mary for help just once each day;

that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day.

Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds)

...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!

Purty good fer someone NOT 'divine'!

When you write high-performance software, like a database server, you need to take into account that the activity is not spread evenly, but will only total to such an amount. What we'd see would be slower volume certain times of day, as well as bursts where the volume was greater.

Mary's burst rate would have to be capable of a quite a bit more throughput to ensure that no prayers were "dropped", i.e., missed altogether, during peak prayer hours.

Of course, my database server can't understand the semantics of the text of prayers, so my database server would pretty much be relegated to giving a response not unlike a fortune cookie, e.g., "good luck with that".

Of course, RCC laiety generally say that Mary is not divine, so she would not be responding to the prayers. I guess she would theoretically be functioning as sort of a message forwarding service, having some sort of interface to Jesus Christ, where she simply dispatches the prayers to Jesus. Since she is theoretically "interceding" on behalf of the person praying, she would have to take the time (a millisecond or so, perhaps, to allow for 500 or 1,000 prayers per second during peak hours) to consider each prayer and decide how much she wants to add in her own emphasis, i.e., how much of her "influence" with Jesus Christ she wants to use to promote him granting the request(s) of each praying RCC person. The whole idea is really starting to sound like a modern-day Frank Capra movie, no ?