Praying to the saints

[BobRyan]

What are your thoughts on what Saint James wrote about praying for others?

I also pray for others (since the Bible tells us to do that). But even the Catholic church rejects the idea of "praying to others" if they are not dead.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I also pray for others (since the Bible tells us to do that). But even the Catholic church rejects the idea of "praying to others" if they are not dead.

Since "pray" as a verb means to "ask", praying to the saints is intended to mean "asking the saints", and in fact the most widely prayed prayer that is directed to a saint - ave Maria - says "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death", which is a request to Blessed Mary to pray for us and the one to whom we ask her to pray is made clear in the liturgy where we ask "pray for us to the Lord out God".

 

[BobRyan]

Since "pray" as a verb means to "ask", praying to the saints is intended to mean "asking the saints",

The Bible refers to living people in the church as 'saints' and we can ask people in church any question we like.

But in the sense of "praying to the saints" even the Catholic church does not allow that when speaking of a living person. You may not get on your knees and pray to some fellow church member across town .. it is not approved of even in the Catholic church.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

in the sense of "praying to the saints" even the Catholic church does not allow that when speaking of a living person.

What you've written above is not true of the Catholic Church. You may ask another person to pray for you to the Lord our God, you can ask on your knees, you can bow to them, you can assume the posture of a supplicant, you can join your hands in an attitude of prayer when you ask them to pray for you to the Lord our God.

 

[BobRyan]

What you've written above is not true of the Catholic Church. You may ask another person to pray for you

but you may not pray to them.... unless they are dead. (see the teaching under "communion with the dead")


958 Communion with the dead. "In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honored with great respect the memory of the dead; and 'because it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins' she offers her suffrages for them."500 Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.

962 "We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion, the merciful love of God and his saints is always [attentive] to our prayers" (Paul VI, CPG § 30).

So yes - you can ask whatever you wish but you are not supposed to pray to the living according to the catholic church.

 

[Zachm531]

Hello,
To anyone interested, I wrote an in-depth article on the Biblical basis for the doctrine of “Intercession/Communion of Saints”

Check it out: The Biblical Basis For The Doctrine Of “intercession Of The Saints”

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

So yes - you can ask whatever you wish but you are not supposed to pray to the living according to the catholic church.

Ask and pray are the same thing, but I think your post is using "pray" for conduct a conversation without another visible person being present. If that is the intended meaning, then a person can talk to another who is not present but the other will not hear what is said (unless one is using a phone, radio, or other tele-communication device) and so it would be a little odd to conduct such a one way 'conversation'.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Frank Turek has offers an insight regarding the priesthood which seems worthy of note

 

[Jipsah]

But in the sense of "praying to the saints" even the Catholic church does not allow that when speaking of a living person. You may not get on your knees and pray to some fellow church member across town .. it is not approved of even in the Catholic church.

I reckon we need SDAs to tell Catholic wat they really believe. Maybe the Catholics will reciprocate by telling the SDAs what they really believe.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Frank Turek has offers an insight regarding the priesthood which seems worthy of note

Mr Turek manages to be wrong on almost every claim he made about what Catholic and Orthodox Christians do and believe. His insights are also stock standard replies that are common errors on discussion boards.

 

[BobRyan]

BobRyan said: ↑
But in the sense of "praying to the saints" even the Catholic church does not allow that when speaking of a living person. You may not get on your knees and pray to some fellow church member across town .. it is not approved of even in the Catholic church.

I reckon we need SDAs to tell Catholic wat they really believe. .

If this is your way of arguing for Catholic endorsement of "praying to the Living" then you might want to expand on that since the Papal Imprimatur is on statements to the contrary.

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958 Communion with the dead. "In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honored with great respect the memory of the dead; and 'because it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins' she offers her suffrages for them."500 Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.

962 "We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion, the merciful love of God and his saints is always [attentive] to our prayers" (Paul VI, CPG § 30).

Catechism of the Catholic Church - PART 1 SECTION 2 CHAPTER 3 ARTICLE 9 PARAGRAPH 5



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From: Why Do Catholics Pray to Saints?
...

“No Contact with the dead”

Sometimes Fundamentalists object to asking our fellow Christians in heaven to pray for us by declaring that God has forbidden contact with the dead in passages such as Deuteronomy 18:10–11. In fact, he has not, because he at times has given it—for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. “There shall not be found among you any one who . . . practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . . . For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed” (Deut. 18:10–15).

God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information; one is to look to God’s prophets instead. Thus, one is not to hold a seance. But anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the vast qualitative difference between holding a seance to have the dead speak through you and a son humbly saying at his mother’s grave, “Mom, please pray to Jesus for me; I’m having a real problem right now.”

Praying to Saints: Overlooking the Obvious

Some objections to the concept of prayer to the saints betray restricted notions of heaven. One comes from anti-Catholic Loraine Boettner:

“How, then, can a human being such as Mary hear the prayers of millions of Roman Catholics, in many different countries, praying in many different languages, all at the same time?

“Let any priest or layman try to converse with only three people at the same time and see how impossible that is for a human being. . . . The objections against prayers to Mary apply equally against prayers to the saints. For they too are only creatures, infinitely less than God, able to be at only one place at a time and to do only one thing at a time.

“How, then, can they listen to and answer thousands upon thousands of petitions made simultaneously in many different lands and in many different languages? Many such petitions are expressed, not orally, but only mentally, silently. How can Mary and the saints, without being like God, be present everywhere and know the secrets of all hearts?” (Roman Catholicism, 142-143).

If being in heaven were like being in the next room, then of course these objections would be valid. A mortal, unglorified person in the next room would indeed suffer the restrictions imposed by the way space and time work in our universe. But the saints are not in the next room, and they are not subject to the time/space limitations of this life.​

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as for why it is "left to me" to point out these statements affirmed by that papal impramatur as being the blessed affirmed position of the Catholic Church -- well hmmmmm.... that is a good question.

======================

Ask and pray are the same thing, but I think your post is using "pray" for conduct a conversation without another visible person being

As we see in the text above - they are not - and the RCC admits that if you tried this with the living - it is obvious that the living could not hear you. If all Catholics said that tomorrow they would pray to some guy in New Jersey for requests regarding finding a lost article - that would not work because that person would have no way of hearing or even knowing about such spoken prayers.

(assuming communion with the dead statements in the Catholic documents above are not about using the internet of course).

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

as for why it is "left to me" to point out these statements affirmed by that papal impramatur as being the blessed affirmed position of the Catholic Church -- well hmmmmm.... that is a good question.

An imprimatur is permission to print not some mystical papal blessing. Our English word "imprint" comes from the same Latin source word. Thus, an imprimatur issued by a bishop means "let it be printed". The pope plays no role in this matter in most cases. And being printed does not make the content of a book "Catholic Doctrine" any more than having a sermon preached by an SDA pastor makes every idea in the sermon SDA church doctrine.

As we see in the text above - they are not - and the RCC admits that if you tried this with the living - it is obvious that the living could not hear you.

I often ask friends to pray for me and I often pray for them. I have no trouble hearing their requests nor they mine. But you are treating "prayer" as if it is some act of special religious devotion which can only be directed to God while I point out that the word "pray" means ask. I pray you, consult a dictionary to verify the definition.

If all Catholics said that tomorrow they would pray to some guy in New Jersey for requests regarding finding a lost article - that would not work because that person would have no way of hearing or even knowing about such spoken prayers.

Why would anyone do as you suggest?

However, regarding the saints in heaven, God enables them to hear prayers and because they exist where God is and with God, they no longer have the constraint of time as we on Earth do.

 

[RileyG]

I also pray for others (since the Bible tells us to do that). But even the Catholic church rejects the idea of "praying to others" if they are not dead.

We ask the living to pray for us, yes.

 

[RileyG]

Our God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. This is why we ask those in heaven to pray for us. Does prayer cease in heaven? When we get to heaven will we no longer pray? Of course not!

 

[Zachm531]

the Bible nowhere commands or allows us to pray to saints in heaven or ask saints in heaven to pray, Jesus never said that.

Yes it does: The Biblical Basis For The Doctrine Of “intercession Of The Saints”

 

[Zachm531]

Isn't praying a form of worship, which should then be directed to God alone who deserves it? There's also the risk of invoking names who might not be in heaven, only God sees the heart after all and we're told hell is full of religious people.

No, its biblical:
The Biblical Basis For The Doctrine Of “intercession Of The Saints”

 

[Zachm531]

where does the Bible say to ask Saints in heaven to pray for you? Bible says we go to Jesus directly he is our mediator

Here: The Biblical Basis For The Doctrine Of “intercession Of The Saints”

Bible never says “pray to the Holy Ghost” either.

 

[Zachm531]

You mean a living person? If so, no I do not eliminate them from joining me in my supplications and thanks to our Father. The dead have no part in this.
Blessings.

The Bible says that you are wrong:
The Biblical Basis For The Doctrine Of “intercession Of The Saints”

 

[Zachm531]

I also pray for others (since the Bible tells us to do that). But even the Catholic church rejects the idea of "praying to others" if they are not dead.

Sir, your objection is faulty, and are trying to present a quick “gotcha” refutation.

When we “pray to saints/ask for their intercession” in Heaven, we recognize that their only role/response is to pray to God on our behalf.

On earth when we pray to /ask other believers to pray for us, we recognize that their only role/response is to pray to God on our behalf.

The bible teaches us to ask living and dead Saints to intercede for us. See here: The Biblical Basis For The Doctrine Of “intercession Of The Saints”

 

[Maria Billingsley]

The Bible says that you are wrong:
The Biblical Basis For The Doctrine Of “intercession Of The Saints”

Thank you ! Interesting read! However, there is no solid biblical passage that teaches or encourages a Christian to pray to dead loved ones.

One thing you have not addressed:
All Christians are saints .

That being said , I could make my dead mother my intercesor but that would just not be appropriate.
Blessings.