Honest question "re: Praying to the Saints"

...assuming I understood what FM told me that praying to Mary (or the other Saints) is like asking a friend to pray for you, do Catholics also hold the understanding or belief that say your mother, who is a devout Catholic (or believer, whatever) died you could pray to her, and ask her to pray on your behalf? Or does this only apply to Saints?

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There are at present two ways in which the Church allows public worship to be paid those who have lived in the fame of sanctity or died as martyrs. Of these some are beatified, others are canonized. (See BEATIFICATION AND CANONIZATION). Beatification is a permission for public worship restricted to certain places and to certain acts. In the more recent discipline of the Church, the pope alone can beatify, though formerly bishops could grant the honour of beatification to those of the faithful who had shed their blood for Christ or lived lives of heroic virtue. All those permissions for public worship which in the early ages of the Church were granted to particular churches and spread thence with the sanction of other bishops to other congregations, to be finally made a matter a precept for the universal Church by the Roman pontiff, constituted beatification and canonization in the exact sense of the word. It was only beatification while the cult, of the martyr for instance, was restricted to the place where he had suffered, but became canonization when it was received in the entire Church. The difference between canonization and beatification lies in the presence or absence of two elements which are found united in canonization and either separate or entirely absent from beatification, though generally only one is lacking. These elements are:

• the precepts regarding public worship, and
• its extention to the whole Church.

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O Blessed Trinity
We thank You for having graced the Church
with Pope John Paul II
and for allowing the tenderness of your Fatherly care,
the glory of the cross of Christ,
and the splendor of the Holy Spirit,
to shine through him.
Trusting fully in Your infinite mercy
and in the maternal intercession of Mary,
he has given us a living image of Jesus the Good Shepherd,
and has shown us that holiness
is the necessary measure of ordinary Christian life
and is the way of achieving eternal communion with you.
Grant us, by his intercession, and according to Your will,
the graces we implore,
hoping that he will soon be numbered
among your saints.
Amen.

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Sign Of The Fish Burger said:

Well that was an easy answer

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Do Catholics regularly practice this? To be quite honest I find it a beautiful part of the Catholic Faith. Maybe it's because I recently lost a family member, but there is something comforting in knowing that you can keep that line...

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Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God...

...you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel...

...Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.

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Interesting. Thanks for answering. I always feel bad asking questions because I'm scared you guys will think I'm trolling...

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Sign Of The Fish Burger said:

Interesting. Thanks for answering. I always feel bad asking questions because I'm scared you guys will think I'm trolling

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I can't imagine how old that one must get...

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