Philothei
Love never fails
My prayer life and Christian walk is more fulfilling now that I am not a Roman Catholic. I'd rather have Jesus intercede for me, thank you.
We never claimed that praying to the saints either excluded praying to Jesus or it is mandatory... either...
"Legendary" Saints: During the 20th century some former Catholic saints, such as St. Christopher, St. Valentine, St. Philomena, St. Nicholas et al., were down-graded by the Church to the status of mere "legends" because there was no documentation that they had ever lived. This did not stop their veneration in the nations which had been the centers of their cults, and for that reason they are still believed to be patron saints by many Catholics.
Maybe it is true maybe not.. To be honest the synaxaria(collections) of saint's lives are lost into the centuries ... We beleive them as the little archeological (or sometimes a lot) sources point to them... We know about St. Paraskevi through "stories" and each generation of course by the time things get added on. All agiologists (who write the life of a saint) are aware that there is the human element in telling the story. We believe in that what it was written for at the end of he line there were actually some who did know about the saint and since we have "modern" era saints who were miraculous in their lives on earth we know for sure that the same (through tradition) criteria used to announce a saint. For example Ptrotomartyr Stephen. His story is in the Bible. We have tons of accounts though like Stephen's written somewhere else. The accounts are so very similar though even if they are not accounted in the Bible...The fathers could not canonize all these writtings...but that does not mean that the accounts of martyrs were not valid.
But we ask each other to pray to God for us this is not intercession?That's why you should only pray to God, through His Son.
[/QUOTE]For those that have ears to hear, let them hear.
We are all human and need a Saviour. Pray and worship Him, not others with their human frailty. Can you ever be certain anyone else has enough good works to merit heaven?
so when you have your pastor (since you are protestant) praying for you he is not intercessing to God? Christ did not ask for his Apostles to pray for him in the Gesthemane? Why did he said to them to pray to his Father for Him? Why did Christ said 'whenever one or two are gathered there I am in their midst"?
We are told to pray for each other and in groups to God are we not. The saints are called upon when we pray so we do pray in unison (unity?) with them. Why would that be different?
We beleive they are alive and living with God in Heaven in the bossom of His Father...
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