Replies

Holy helpers, feast days, honoring this person and that person is there a point to all this pomp and circumstance? Is it a matter of tradition?

There seems to be so much extra 'stuff' within the Catholic faith my question is genuine although somewhat vague but I am trying to understand the reasoning behind these things.

Thanks for any insight any have to offer.

A fair enough question...

Think about it this way...Being Christian means never having to be alone. We can have our faith strengthened by others, and we can help others strengthen their faith. This is not ``going around God,'' it's accepting His gifts to us. God grants His Grace in many ways, including the cloud of witnesses:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.[Hebrews 12:1]

As Paul explains, the cloud of witnesses helps us to ``persevere in running the race'' and ``keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.''

Paul talks about our connection as the Body of Christ even more in 1 Corinthians 12:

But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. [1 Corinthians 12:24-27]

Being a Christian is not supposed to be a ``solo act.'' As Paul makes clear, Jesus intends for us to work together. We can draw on the strengths of saints and martyrs, to build our own faith. Not only is this not offensive to God, to do otherwise would be to spurn one of His powerful gifts of Grace.

I hope this helped.

I cannot answer for the Latin west where the doctrine of salvation has been somewhat modified. In the Orthodox Church, however, the veneration of the saints and their relics, and our confidence in their intercessions for various causes has its roots in our doctrine of salvation.

The saints whom we honor are those among the saved whose salvation in Christ has been made clear to the Church. The saved are saved by grace, which is participation in the Uncreated Energies of God. Participation of the whole person, not the soul alone, as the fact of the bodily resurrection shows. That participation is not disolved by bodily death, and thus the saint, praying before the throne of God and his or her relic remaining with us still participate in God's Uncreated Energies. They are thus, by the power of God's grace able to work wonders.

The recollection of those who have "completed the race", as called for by the Synaxarion, also edifies the faithful by providing less lofty examples than Our Lord Himself, and examples more directly applicable to circumstances closer to our own.