I think your whole beautiful post can be reduced to this part, my friend! We are in Communion, community & unity with the Saints because we all worship the same God through the same Christ in the same Church, awake and watching or asleep and at blessed rest. The One Lord of All, The One Faith in Him, The One Baptism into Him, and the one Mother Church espoused to Him - the Jerusalem which is above - these are our instruments of communion as believers. Will He who made the ear not hear, my brother? The saints are asleep. We are left who watch and wait. If I imagine myself a saint (God-willing, some day ), I honestly can't imagine what I'd do when I heard someone on Earth say "Saint Thomas of Halifax, pray for me". I'd already be praying for the silly buggers - it'd be my whole life, in Heaven with God! In prayer, we only ask God for things: for it is His to have mercy, to give life and death, and to do all. This is why even talking to the blessed dead makes no sense to me. Christ said "pray for one another", not "ask one another to pray for one another". It is a commandment for each of us to DO something, not a command for us to make requests to each other. To ask the saints is to assume that they aren't perfectly doing God's will already - in which case they wouldn't be saints! Either way, the poor people are at rest. I'd rather not bother them.
Howdy little brother - you are quite welcome to your opinions on this subject and wish you well in your journey... I might just pop out for a minute and ask St. Francis to keep you in his prayers...
Shame he can't hear you! This is more a matter of fact than theology, really... you're allowed to controvert me; you don't have to play nice.
What did you say sonny....... 7918242962_2abed66f93_b.jpg Seriously though this is where you make yourself look a little silly little brother - you have no idea whether the Saints or our departed loved ones can hear us when we talk to them. Honestly there is no way to prove it either way, so to make statements like that and say it is a fact is in fact a silly thing to do. A reasonable Christian man wouldn't bother to make those types of statements in my humble opinion, but then again I could be wrong.
Funny photo. If we can't really know whether they can hear us, why are you trying to talk to them? We absolutely know God can hear us because He is GOD! Why not go with the more logical practice, and just take things up with your Heavenly Father? God told us to have faith, yes, but He never instructed us that the faith included believing in our ability to talk to the dead; in fact, the Law prohibits Necromancy! This goes too far to be just a playful little issue. We may very well be sinning by trying to talk to the dead.
It would comfort me to believe that we all go to Heaven in the end and God forgives even Satan, but it doesn't seem likely... We absolutely cannot base our prayers, practices, and beliefs on comfort, my brother! It's not at all comforting, being called a hypocrite or a dog, as Jesus called certain people. Why do you have this philosophy? :think:
Of course we can and many do... I have this philosophy because I see the essence of God in everything including those who have gone before us. It really is an amazing feeling to have a conversation with a tree or a flower or a blue tongue lizard... Or to hold a soil in your hand and thank it and God for the food with eat and water we drink.
Revelation 5 depicts the elders presenting "the prayers of the saints" before the Throne. Revelation 6 shows the martyrs petitioning the Lord about their specific concerns. We all know that Revelation has much symbolism, but these are still things that John saw in his vision. We also know that the prayers of the righteous are of great worth (James 5), and the NT is filled with exhortations to pray for others. Who is more righteous than those who have been made righteous? Those who petition the Saints seem them not as sleeping or dead, but as fully alive. And as they are not omniscient, but as they are made perfect in Christ, it is desirable to have their petitions joined with ours. They won't know those petitions unless they hear them. The hows & whys are less important than the prayers themselves.
Saints asleep? Justin Martyr claimed that the souls of the Godly after death and before resurrection remain in a certain better region and unrighteous wicked ones in an evil one. Sermon 3. On the Middle State. Bishop Rattray and the Episcopal Church claimed that , "in the interval betwixt death and resurrection the soul is not in a state of insensibility, but remains in certain regions expecting the resurrection and the judgment!" Scot's catechism. This is backed up by Bishop Bull, about the only Hanoverian Bishop of any depth.
said better than I could *thumbs up* Highchurchman, I don't think any of us are arguing that the saints are insensible
I did a quick search of the gospels and it appears that Jesus either says for us to pray to the Father, or when we pray for one another -- it is in reference to praying for our enemies. Paul's epistles though do concern praying for each other -- the living though. As a young Catholic boy I always thought it made more sense to go straight to the "top guy", the CEO, etc. Mediatrix -- there is a very specific and limiting definition of the term -- however many go far beyond and claim that all graces are poured out (dispensed) though Mary -- not just 2000 years ago when she said yes to God and gave birth to the Son -- but does so even today at this very hour. Even in the Catholic church we are called to "know" who Jesus is yet how can we know him if were talking (praying) to everyone but him? If we can't pray except by grace of the Spirit, and if by this grace we already have a communion with God, then why are we then stepping back down (so to speak) to ask a human (a created being) to pray for us or to help us?
Dave, I personally think Rome's obsession with saints is because of the theology. There is a persisting notion of a treasury of merit built up by both the Lord and holy men & women throughout the ages. Christ was so utterly perfect in the incarnation, in death, in rising, and in ascending, that we unholy, imperfect, dirty things cannot even approach him of ourselves. Each saint has his or her perfection or merit in which he or she lived Christ's perfection, they say. We must, therefore, pray to the saints to pray for us to the Mediator so He can pray to the Father. We are like peasants and they are like the royal court, in this allegory. A common yarn spun by Catholic priests in my diocese is: since Mary, especially, "merited" to be the Mother of God by her "Yes" to the Angel Gabriel, it follows that we thus must put all our confidence and trust in our Mother, Queen of Heaven & Earth. She alone can purify our sinful intentions and smooth our rough prayers. I once heard a horrid metaphor that we are like peasants in the street of a great capital city, who see the King pass by. We want to give him a little present, say an apple, but He is too great, noble, and majestic to even register us on His radar. After he goes by, however, His queen mother stops and takes the apple from us, washes it off, and presents it to her Son. This is why the Catechism gets away with referring to Mary as "The All-Holy One" (capitalised in English) in paragraph 2677. This is all ghastly, rubbish, and downright blasphemous. Christ Himself told us all to come directly to Him and find Comfort in His Person and in His Spirit. All who are burdened, heavy-laden, and do hard labour (i.e. everyone under the curse of sin) should go to HIM. He even says "Who are my mother and brethren? Those who hear my word and do it". We are all the saints, so asking anyone - alive or dead - to pray for us is destroying an assumption that should be there already. We only ask the living to pray because we often forget to do it, in our sinfulness, pride, and busy lives. Asking the saints to pray is dangerous and insulting, because 1. we don't know who exactly is in Heaven, 2. we must assume Almighty qualities for them to hear us all, and 3. it insults them by assuming that they need to be reminded to pray or us when it is the only thing they can possibly be engaged in, in Heaven.
mark1, I sang a Litany of the Saints similar to that one at the easter vigil of 2011. How I regret that rash decision! Forever branded to Rome's evil ways! At least I can repent of such idolatry!
Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. LotS isn't really idolatry. Idolatry can happen when people kneel at the feet of a life-sized statue, offering it gifts and pouring out their hearts to it. Idolatry happens when people claim that Mary is the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, etc. LotS isn't really like that. At least, that's what I believe. Some Anglican churches pray it, in fact.
I'm just worried that the claim of the ability of Christians to pray to the saints everywhere at all times, can only be justified by saying that the saints have divine characteristics (omnipresence). This belief would be blasphemy, which is a sin. Destroy.
It seems like we will be talking/arguing about the Saints, until The Saints Go Marching In. lol Remember that old hymn? We are trav'ling in the footsteps Of those who've gone before, And we'll all be reunited, On a new and sunlit shore, Oh, when the saints go marching in Oh, when the saints go marching in Lord how I want to be in that number When the saints go marching in And when the sun begins to shine And when the sun begins to shine Lord, how I want to be in that number When the sun begins to shine Oh, when the trumpet sounds its call Oh, when the trumpet sounds its call Lord, how I want to be in that number When the trumpet sounds its call Some say this world of trouble, Is the only one we need, But I'm waiting for that morning, When the new world is revealed.