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Three Things You're Probably Getting Wrong about Praying to the Saints
Shameless popery ^ | April 20, 2015

Posted on 04/20/2015 1:46:59 PM PDT by NYer

As Christianity Today acknowledges, prayers for and to the Saints date back to the early Church (in fact, these practices date back far earlier, even to Old Testament Judaism, but I'll talk more about that tomorrow). Nevertheless, these practices are controversial within Protestantism. Today, I want to look at just one of them -- prayer to the Saints -- and show why the opposition to it is grounded in a faulty view of life after death. Tomorrow, I'll look at the Biblical support for both prayer to the Saints and prayer for the Saints.

First, a word on why Protestants tend to object to prayer to the Saints. For some people, such prayers are sinful, since they think it gives glory to someone other than God, or that it's equivalent to “consulting the dead.” Others view it simply as impossible, since they think that the Saints can't hear us, or are unconcerned with what's going on here below. But almost all of these arguments are built upon the same three misconceptions about the souls of the Saints who have gone before us. Given this, let's present the Biblical view on each of these three major points:

Johann Michael Rottmayr, Intercession of Charles Borromeo supported by the Virgin Mary (1714)
1. The Saints in Heaven are Alive, not Dead.

The first mistake in opposing “prayers to the dead” is assuming that we're praying to “the dead.” One of the most frequently cited passages against prayer to the Saints in Heaven is Isaiah 8:19,
And when they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the wizards who chirp and mutter,” should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?
Those who oppose prayer to the Saints present a straightforward argument: the faithful departed are dead, and it's sinful to “consult the dead.”

But the first premise -- that the faithful departed are dead -- is false, and directly contrary to Scripture. Jesus actually denounces this view as Biblically ignorant (Mk. 12:24). He reveals the truth about the Saints when He says, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). And in response to the Sadduccees, He says (Mark 12:26-27):
And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.
So the Protestant view that says that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are “dead” is “quite wrong.”

Read the literature written against prayers to the Saints, and see how frequently they're mischaracterized as “the dead.” This isn't a harmless mistake. The passages warning against “the dead” simply don't apply to the question of the Saints. Indeed, a great many popular assumptions about the afterlife are built on the idea that verses like Psalm 115:17 (“The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any that go down into the silence”) apply to the Saints in Heaven. They don't, and Christ tells us that they don't.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent (12th c. icon)
2. The Saints in Heaven are Witnesses, not Sleeping or Ignorant.

Related to the first mistake is the idea that the departed Saints are cut off from us on Earth, and that it's therefore immoral (or at least futile) to communicate with them. This belief takes two general forms: first that the souls of the just are “asleep” until the Resurrection; second, that the souls are isolated in Heaven.

First, soul sleep. The United Church of God argues against praying to “dead” saints:
In addition to all this, praying to dead saints today assumes the doctrine of the immortal soul, which many people are surprised to find is not taught in the Bible. The Bible teaches that death is like sleep that lasts until the resurrection at Jesus Christ's second coming (1 Thessalonians:4:13-16 ).
Now, United Church of God aren't mainstream Protestants by any stretch: they are Sabbatarians (meaning that they reject Sunday worship) and they reject the Trinity. But this notion of soul sleep can be traced to Martin Luther, who wrote:
For the Christian sleeps in death and in that way enters into life, but the godless departs from life and experiences death forever [...] Hence death is also called in the Scriptures a sleep. For just as he who falls asleep does not know how it happens, and he greets the morning when he awakes, so shall we suddenly arise on the last day, and never know how we entered and passed through death.
Even Luther's most militant supporters concede that he held some sort of confused and often-contradictory notion of “soul sleep.” So, too, did many of the Radical Reformers. In this view, the souls of the Saints aren't “conscious,” and so it would be futile to ask them for prayers.

The second camp rejects soul sleep, but thinks that the souls in Heaven are isolated from us. For example, the website “Just for Catholics” acknowledges that the first half of the Hail Mary comes directly from Scripture, but says that these Scriptures aren't permitted to be used as prayer:
Even though the first two sentences are taken from the Bible, it does not mean that it is right to use them as a prayer. Mary could hear the salutations of the Gabriel and Elizabeth because they spoke in her immediate presence. Now Mary is dead and her soul is in heaven. She cannot hear the prayers of thousands and thousands who constantly call upon her name. Only the all-knowing God can hear the prayers of His people.
But Scripture doesn't present the Saints in Heaven as isolated or spiritually asleep. Rather, even in their “rest,” they're presented as alert and aware of the goings-on of Earth (Revelation 6:9-11):
I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.
Perhaps the clearest description of the relationship between the Saints in Heaven and the saints on Earth is in the Book of Hebrews. Chapter 11 is a litany of Saints who lived by faith, leading immediately into this (Heb. 12:1-2):
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.
The spiritual life is compared to competing in a race, an image that Paul uses elsewhere (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 2 Timothy 4:6-7). Here, the imagery is fleshed out to show that the Saints in Heaven are a great crowd of witnesses in the stands. Obviously, this idea of the heavenly Saints as “a crowd of witnesses” is incompatible with the idea that they're either asleep or unavailable to see us.

Matthias Gerung, John's Vision, from the Ottheinrich Bible (1531)
3. The Saints in Heaven are Still Part of the Church.

The Biblical depiction of the Saints as the heavenly witnesses in the grandstands of our spiritual race rebuts a third view: namely, that the Saints are enjoying God's company so much that they've stopped caring about us. For example, a Christian Post column on the subject seems to suggest that the Saints don't do anything for us once they're in Heaven:
So yes, they are not really dead. But that doesn't mean they hear our prayers, or provide even the slightest bit of assistance in answer to our prayers, regardless of how noble their lives may have been while on earth. God doesn't use saints in heaven to bless saints on earth. Instead, God utilizes His holy angels to minister to His children on earth. 
Such a view gets things entirely backwards. Rather, their holiness and their enjoyment of God means that they love us and care for us all the more. That's why they're witnesses to our spiritual race; that's why the martyrs in Heaven are still concerned with justice on Earth. The more we love God, the more we love our neighbor. And the Saints love God with a perfection impossible to us here below.

One way to think about this is to remember the shocking fact that the Saints are still part of the Church. The Bible describeds the Church as both the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. For example, St. Paul tells us that the Church is the Body of Christ (Colossians 1:18, 24), and the Body of Christ is the Church (Ephesians 5:23). The Saints aren't somehow cut off from Christ in Heaven, which is why we see the Holy Spirit presenting the Bride of Christ in Heaven (Revelation 21:9, 22:17). That membership in the Church helps to explain their heavenly intercession (1 Corinthians 12:24-26):
But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member of suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
So both perfect Christian charity and our union in the Body of Christ help to account for why the Saints intercede for us. 

Conclusion

Scripture repeatedly calls for us to pray for one another (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 5:25; 2 Thes. 3:1; Colossians 4:3; Hebrews 13:18), to make “supplications for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18), and for “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings” to be made “for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1). Neither in praying for one another nor in asking one another for prayers do we risk offending God in the slightest. Quite the contrary: “This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3-4).

The Catholic position simply applies these Scriptural teaching to the entire Body of Christ, while the standard Protestant position says that these teachings don't apply to the parts of the Church that are already in Heaven. The view goes awry in calling for us to ignore an entire portion of the Body of Christ: urging us not to pray for the faithful departed, and not to ask the Saints in glory to pray for us. Scripture calls for us to “have the same care for one another,” to suffer and triumph with the other parts of the Body. The Saints' glory is ours; our struggles are theirs. 

As you can see from the above post, many of the most popular arguments against praying to the Saints are based on false ideas about what happens to the souls of the just after death: thinking that the Saints are dead, or asleep, or isolated, or apathetic, or outside the Church. In fact, they're alive and before God, yet still connected to us, witnessing our triumphs, failures and struggles, all the while rooting for us and praying for us. 

With a correct view of the state of the glorified Saints and their role in the Church, most of the arguments against seeking their intercession simply dissolve. There's simply no good reason to cut the heavenly Saints off from the rest of the Body. You're surrounded by Heavenly witnesses who are supporting you in your spiritual race. What's more, they're your brothers and sisters in Christ. Given this, by all means, ask for their spiritual help and encouragement!


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Charismatic Christian; Evangelical Christian; Mainline Protestant; Other Christian; Prayer
KEYWORDS: prayer; prayerstosaints; praying; saints; venoration
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To: NYer

Read the Article I linked, it addresses the issue, your argument and why its prohibited.


61 posted on 04/20/2015 3:17:04 PM PDT by Mechanicos (Nothing's so small it can't be blown out of proportion.)
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To: Boogieman

Satan doesn’t perform miracles that glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan can’t stand Christ. Can’t stand Christian religious observance. Can’t stand the Cross or Holy Water, or even anything symbolic of the Deity. That’s well known.


62 posted on 04/20/2015 3:17:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("In Christ we form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." Romans 12:5)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Okay. And my post does not deny that. But I do not pray to living people here on earth so why would I pray to a living person who happens to be in Heaven?

As I said, I pray to God and only to God.


63 posted on 04/20/2015 3:18:55 PM PDT by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Asking someone to pray FOR you is not the same as praying TO someone.


64 posted on 04/20/2015 3:22:26 PM PDT by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: DannyTN; Salvation
Hi Danny, and thank you for your ping and comment. You note:

I'm Southern Baptist..here's my take... [snip] The Saints who have passed aren't dead. [snip] Scripture is very supportive of enlisting others to prayer. "where two or more are gathered.." And that's what I understand Roman Catholic theology is basically advocating. [snip] Or to enlist the help of living saints, rather than enlist the help of past saints which may or may not be able to hear or which might be inundated.

Apologies for the snipping but I wanted to trim down your comment. To answer your question, I am going to refer to a fairly recent event (2001-2006) that occurred with a Baptist man, like yourself. This is from the mainstream media, link posted below for the full text:

Phil McCord was not a religious man.

So it was strange when the Baptist caretaker who called himself a “man of science” entered an empty Catholic church one fateful January day in 2001 and offered up an urgent prayer.

“God, you’ve probably heard about my eye problems,” McCord began. His cornea was dying in his right eye, leaving him legally blind. He faced a risky and possibly disfiguring surgery. He had nowhere else to turn. And that’s when he mentioned her — the pilgrim who had established the church where he worked. The nun who had been dead for over a hundred years. And the woman who was in the early stages of canonization.

“Well, Mother Theodore, this is your house. And I am your servant,” he said. “If you have God’s ear. I would appreciate it.”

When he awoke the next morning, he found that the redness in his right eyelid had all but disappeared. His eye no longer drooped. He could see. “Is this real?” he asked himself. After 83 days of nonstop misery, he was finally feeling better.

It was miraculous, McCord thought — and the Vatican agreed, pinning Mother Theodore’s bid for sainthood on this “miracle,” thereby making her only the eighth American to become a Roman Catholic saint. FULL TEXT

BTW, Phil McCord was present at the canonization of Mother Theodore at the Vatican. He has remained Baptist and his story has since been written in a book:

, available through Amazon.com.

So, Danny, you have understood how "prayer" works, albeit when we call upon our friends who are already in the presence of God.

65 posted on 04/20/2015 3:25:29 PM PDT by NYer ("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)
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To: WayneS
We seem to be hindered by a semantic ambiguity over the word "pray". It does not mean "worship," but it does mean "be in contact with."

In that sense, you pray to people here on earth every day.

This was clearer in, say, Shakespeare's day, when "pray" is commonly used by a person making a request:

"I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine."

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you."

"I pray you, tarry. Pause a day or two."

That's the sense in which we're using the word.

We both reach out, get in contact with, ask for help, pray, to people here on earth on a fairly frequent basis. And we both --- I think --- believe in intercessory prayer. So please keep that in mind --- and pray for me, I pray!

66 posted on 04/20/2015 3:30:50 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("In Christ we form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." Romans 12:5)
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To: NYer
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, one of the meanings of the word pray is "to seriously ask (someone) to do something". When you ask your friends to pray to God for you, essentially you are praying to them.

No. That just does not work.

Even the final sentence structure : "your friends to pray to God for you" makes clear that the prayer at issue here is a prayer to God. Incorporating a meaning that is not supported by scripture simply doesn't work. I will try to find time to go through a concordance, but exegesis will likely support my reading on this. The reading you suggest collapses a wholly secular meaning of prayer (any request or supplication) into the sacred meaning of prayer (communication with God in praise, worship, repentance, intervention, or guidance). The word is the same but the senses are entirely different.

67 posted on 04/20/2015 3:36:52 PM PDT by FateAmenableToChange
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To: Mrs. Don-o

I think the usual line is we ask them to pray to God for us ..


68 posted on 04/20/2015 3:37:11 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: WayneS
"Asking someone to pray FOR you is not the same as praying TO someone.:

I think I know what you're saying--- and so, to use the word your way --- we'll call it PrayWS--- I'd say Catholics don't PrayWS "to" saints, in the sense of addressing them as if they were capable of doing mighty works because of their own power or piety, independent of Our Lord.

But using the word as we Catholics have for 20 centuries, we "pray" --- asking for their intercession.

Are they not fellow members of the Body of Christ? Or do they become "less than" members of the Body of Chris when they are in heaven?

69 posted on 04/20/2015 3:37:20 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("In Christ we form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." Romans 12:5)
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To: RnMomof7

YES! That’s it exactly. Well said, RnMomof7.


70 posted on 04/20/2015 3:38:30 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("In Christ we form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." Romans 12:5)
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To: NYer

Again, RCC writers just cannot simply write an article about what they believe without saying what “protestants” - A DEROGATORY TERM, just as I’ve been reminded about what RCC Folks consider derogatory terms - are wrong about.

They can’t help backhand slam other denominations while explaining their own.

Just write what you believe without being dicks to other denominations. To say this is merely instructive is dishonest, it can be done without taking digs into others.


71 posted on 04/20/2015 3:46:33 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; Boogieman

>>>>>>Satan doesn’t perform miracles that glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan can’t stand Christ. Can’t stand Christian religious observance. Can’t stand the Cross or Holy Water, or even anything symbolic of the Deity. That’s well known.<<<<<<<<<<<

>EXCEPT..God does not get the glory ..THE “SAINT’ DOES...

Ummm ever see “Thanks to St. Jude “ for favors granted ??

http://www.atonementfriars.org/masses_and_prayers/thank_you_st_jude.html

How about a “newer one “

http://padrepiodevotions.org/testimonials/

or this one

https://saintgianna.org/readthankyou.php

Nope no glory to God... glory and thanks to the “saints”...that have to “preform’ miracles just to become saints..


72 posted on 04/20/2015 3:47:27 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: Salvation

Because that is the standard reply whenever one of your churchmen disagrees with the FROman Catholic interpretation of things.


73 posted on 04/20/2015 3:47:29 PM PDT by Gamecock (Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered. R.C. Sproul)
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To: NYer

Thanks!


74 posted on 04/20/2015 3:49:15 PM PDT by G Larry (Hillary Hates America, Israel, Capitalism, Freedom, and Christianity.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

I do listen


75 posted on 04/20/2015 3:49:26 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Do you pray for others? Do you ask others to pray for you? If so, why? --- because your question about praying to saints in heaven would have the same answer as the question, "Why do we ask anyone for intercessory prayer?

I've never understood why people equate asking a person face to face or on the phone as the same as asking someone in Heaven.

If I have a conversation with someone, I know they can hear me. "Hey Bob. Would you pray for me?" Bob says "Sure".

It's not possible to have a conversation with someone who can't hear me. "Hey Bob. You're in another state and you can't hear me, but would you pray for me?" Silence, because I'm in Iowa and Bob is in New York and I didn't use the phone.

Asking someone in heaven to pray for me is more like the second example rather than the first. If you have no promise (or reasonable expectation) that someone will hear you, how can you expect your request to be anything other than wasted breath?

76 posted on 04/20/2015 3:55:29 PM PDT by Tao Yin
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To: LearnsFromMistakes
Websters has a definition of the english word used a few hundred years ago to convey a concept.

The concept of praying to the saints, dates back to before the 1st century. That meaning persists.

77 posted on 04/20/2015 3:57:30 PM PDT by NYer ("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; NKP_Vet; RnMomof7
*** We don’t pray to Mary, we ask her to pray for us, just as a Protestant asks their deceased grandparent/parent to watch over them. ***

Thread started by NKP-Vet.

(Oh, we don't ask a deceased grandparent/parent to watch over us.)

78 posted on 04/20/2015 3:57:39 PM PDT by Gamecock (Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered. R.C. Sproul)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

“Satan doesn’t perform miracles that glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan can’t stand Christ. Can’t stand Christian religious observance. Can’t stand the Cross or Holy Water, or even anything symbolic of the Deity. That’s well known.”

Satan knows the Word of God better than any man, he can cite it chapter and verse. Satan was an angel who entered freely into the most sacred part of heaven. Surely he hates God, but the rest of this is superstition and if you test miracles based on superstition, you are in dangerous territory.


79 posted on 04/20/2015 3:58:51 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: I want the USA back
“shameless popery” No bias there, eh?

The blog's name, NOT that of the article.

80 posted on 04/20/2015 4:01:50 PM PDT by NYer ("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)
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