Posted on 01/30/2006 7:43:33 AM PST by NYer
How is that different from "praying" to someone?
The implication in the story is that she prayed to JPII for healing and he healed her, that conclusion I can understand your problem with.
Would you please pray for me? Thanks, I could use the extra prayers.
Praying to doesn't have the same meaning and conotation as you think or as the article interprets.
Hey! Did you just pray to me?
;^P
And since the big guns might be busy listening to somebody else's prayer, you would want to cover as many bases as possible. I'm sure the ex-pope is very busy these days hearing all those prayers being directed his way. I mean, does he have to take them one at a time? Does he put you on call waiting while he deals with the current crisis? Image if just 1% of all the world's Roman Catholics (not to mention some errant protestants or Orthodox) starting praying to the pope at the same time. And how do you know he's not handing the calls off to some long forgotten popes from, say, the 11th or 12th century with extra bandwidth?
It certainly seems preferable to go right to Christ since we know as God He has the bandwidth to deal with all those requests.
Ping.
For those unclear of the concept.............
in·ter·ces·sion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ntr-sshn)
n.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
intercession
n 1: a prayer to God on behalf of another person 2: the act of intervening (as to mediate a dispute) [syn: intervention]in·ter·cede ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ntr-sd)
intr.v. in·ter·ced·ed, in·ter·ced·ing, in·ter·cedes
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
intercede
v : act between parties with a view to reconciling differences; "He interceded in the family dispute"; "He mediated a settlement" [syn: mediate, intermediate, liaise, arbitrate]
Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University |
No, I don't agree with it. There is a critical distinction which can easily be missed. The original poster implied that JPII was the end point of her prayers and I've been trying to point out that this is not the case. I hope I didn't appear to be chastising anyone. Trying to enlighten, would be more accurate.
The poster to whom I addressed my original post implied that she was praying to a man, instead of to God. There's an important theological point here which CNN's unfortunate choice of words confuses, although it clarified the situation later in the article. My response was to point out that we can ask others to intercede before God on our behalf. This not the same thing as praying the psalms or the "Our Father". This does not detract from God nor give false worship to a man as the original poster implied. That's because the end point of all prayer is God.
Other members of the Church (alive or dead) may be asked to intercede for us before God. This is not praying to them, even if CNN says it is. No disprespect to CNN but it's not the Catholic journal of record. As Catholics, we believe that we are all part of the same Church, irrespective of whether we have died in faith and gone to heaven or are still on earth and on the journey. The Church in heaven we call the Church Triumphant. The Church on earth is the Church Militant. Different branches but the same Church. This explains why it is possible to ask (or "pray to" in CNN's lingo) JPII to intercede before God for us.
Another common inaccuracy you may also see associated with this type of article from time to time is that "St. X healed me". Same mistake.
No, St. X didn't heal you. God healed you through the intercession of the saint.
My only question is how do we know God has done so? It might help if God would send down some more stone tablets saying who the real saints are. Pope John Paul along with many others have done many great things but this whole sainthood thing seems ridiculous and unnecessary to me.
Why does it bother you so much what Catholic do?
I don't care a twit what other religions believe. For example, the Mormons can baptize as many of my ancestors as they want to. It means nothing to me because I do not believe what they are doing "works."
So, if a Cahtolic asks a saint to pray for them, why does it bother you?
I don't think it matters, prays to, intercedes, prays for, living or dead.... the fact is, we're all fallen, limited creatures. Meditating on the good lives of people like John Paul can't be a bad thing. Focusing our energy or prayers or thoughts on his life is a positive thing to do. The Rosary for example (since this thread isn't quite riled up enough yet. :-) ) But the Rosary, like Dante's Divine Comedy, is a mediation on scripture as well as on the life of our Lord's mother. In fact, the Luminous mysteries hardly touch on her life at all. Yet a lot of non-Catholics (and Catholics too sadly) think it's just a rote recitation. I was at a seminar this past week where there was role playing which involved a mother who had recovered from alcohol and become a Buddhist. The description said she meditated. The woman next to me said she meditated - mentioned some technique which I had never heard of - I gave her a positive response and she asked whether I meditated. I told her "yes" on the Bible and by saying the Rosary. She was a bit put off by that for some reason.
Just wondering, please don't interpret this post as being some kind of Catholic bash. Why don't ya just go ahead and make him a saint already? Seems as tho most Catholics on FR are for it. I've seen numberous posts to that end. Do you really need to try and justify doing it by whats described in this article?
I wonder this because you can strongly assume but in the end you really can't prove that this particular healing or any healing for that matter was the result of any one particular prayer. Thanx.
God, yes. A dead ex-pope. Not exactly. He couldn't do it while he was on earth, in spite of the truth that with God all things are possible. We have no reason to believe he can do it now.
Greetings, btw :-)
Hey!
Great to see you!
To be quite honest with you II, I'm not a really huge fan of JPII. I think he will achieve sainthood just because so many Catholics think highly of him. I'm with you, get it done and overwith and lets stop trying to justify it. The Vatican, however, does have rules that it must follow.
However, I am a really huge fan of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church to be specific. I'm just here to note the crassness of those who just come here to slam doctrine.
I think yours is a very good question. I love it when people want to discuss, not just tell us that we are wrong.
Well, this is an irrational faith. I can imagine all sorts of things based on this "no limits" theory, like they are sitting around eating peanut butter sandwiches or off creating new worlds populated with Smurfs. But of course I have nothing to back that up except, perhaps, what I would like to believe is happening.
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