raising of Samuel and the saints?

[brodav9@thicket]

It doesn't make sense to me that one can pray to saints and or pray for the dead, when seeing a parallel in 1 Sam. 28:7 Where Saul seeks a woman who has a familiar spirit. She also talks with the dead. I notice also that she must also be a Necromancer because they talk with the dead.

 

[PloverWing]

I would divide those into two different categories.

1) Praying for the dead: The idea here is that not even the dead are beyond God's power and God's love. Possibly, the dead are even more directly in God's presence than are the living. So we ask for God to act in loving and healing ways toward his beloved children who have died.

2) Praying to saints, or asking for the saints to pray for us, is trickier ground. I've seen this done in ways that are uncomfortably close to polytheism for my tastes. Should I really ask St Joseph to help me sell my house? I dunno... But the positive idea is that the saints are in the presence of God, and might be asked to pray to God on our behalf, much as you might ask me (a living person) to pray to God on your behalf.

 

[brodav9@thicket]

I would divide those into two different categories.

1) Praying for the dead: The idea here is that not even the dead are beyond God's power and God's love. Possibly, the dead are even more directly in God's presence than are the living. So we ask for God to act in loving and healing ways toward his beloved children who have died.

2) Praying to saints, or asking for the saints to pray for us, is trickier ground. I've seen this done in ways that are uncomfortably close to polytheism for my tastes. Should I really ask St Joseph to help me sell my house? I dunno... But the positive idea is that the saints are in the presence of God, and might be asked to pray to God on our behalf, much as you might ask me (a living person) to pray to God on your behalf.

doesn't it look like the father (and Jesus) in John 14:14 would be enough? if you ask (anything in my name) I will do it.

 

[PloverWing]

doesn't it look like the father (and Jesus) in John 14:14 would be enough? if you ask (anything in my name) I will do it.

That's a reasonable objection to #2. I don't think it serves as an objection to prayer for the dead, however.

 

[Paidiske]

The usual objection to prayer for the dead is that it smacks of purgatory. Whatever someone's eternal fate, Anglicanism does not affirm a temporary place of purification from which one might move to a more blessed state, and in which the prayers of the living might assist that process.

There's a fine line, here, because even the most hardcore reformed Anglicans will pray commending the newly departed to God's care, but ongoing prayer for the dead is more fraught, theologically.

 

[Ceallaigh]

Praying for the dead is based on Paul praying for someone who was deceased:

"May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17 On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. 18 May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus." 2 Timothy 1:16-18

 

[RileyG]

Check out the Book of Common Prayer and its catechism. It explains it well.

On a side note, I love the BOC's prayers for the dead. They're beautiful.