I went to a wake one time and heard the priest explain that Catholics do not pray to Mary herself like a god. They simply pray to her because she has significant influence on Jesus. Being raised in a protestant faith this seemed strange to me if not borderline sacrilage. I was always raised that Jesus was our personal conduit to God. The thought that you have some sort of agent in heaven working on your behalf seems a little baseless to me. Surely this can’t be a complete explanation I was given. I’m not intending to put anyone’s beliefs down here, but I was genuinely confused by the statement.
Can someone please explain to me what the significance of Mary and other Saints are to Catholics. Thanks
As Tommndeb put very well–do members of your church pray for each other? Are there requests placed before the congregation to pray for members, or others?
Same thing with praying to Mary: a request for prayer on behalf of someone. The last line of the Hail Mary prayer is “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
The request for prayer simply isn’t limited to the living.
Also, there seems to be some carry-over from the idea of patron deities in polytheistic religions. Lost an object? Call on St. Anthony to help! Traveling? St. Christopher! I imagine the spirits of the actual Anthony and (if he existed) Christopher saying, “What?!! I didn’t sign up for this!”
Although, I would generally consider “pray to St. Eximus for better skin” to be more than a bit superstitious. I have no trouble looking at the development of hagiography among many Catholics to be a diluted form of the social dynamics that lead to polytheism.
That is not the teaching of the Church, but I suspect that it has certainly happened.
As noted, the RCC sees the Body of Christ as the whole of the people, living and dead, who believe. Praying to (in the sense of: petitioning) the saints to intercede for us is no different than asking our pastor or the local parish to pray (petition God) for us.
sometimes a kid will do something their mom asks them to. an example of this would be the water into wine miracle at canaan. mom asked her son to help out at the wedding. he did. so if it worked once…
A couple of views from an unbeliever. One is that the church, through creating saints, helps ordinary folks by creating a vivid image of aspects of faith that they may emulate.
St Joseph the Worker, the virgins who died rather than wed an unbeliever, the various pious youths, Teresa the little flower who sent a shower of roses onto the altar as she ascended. (? after her death? sorry, details hazy)
But the acute foolsguinea captures a more telling aspect. The craving in many humans to appease or beg favours from a spiritual being, usually expressed as a range of gods who have different portfolios, is met by the “patron saint of” feature. I think that’s what tom was saying too.
So some churches feature graven images of these significant features, before which people kneel and pray, offering lit candles as a sign of devotion. Gosh, and I thought there was some commandment on that subject…
There’s a smooth theological explanation of it, of course, but an observer with no connections to the vatican is mghty likely to see it as the smart mother church absorbing whatever worked to get people in and content.
It makes for some fascinating art work. Just be thankful to Martin Luther and Henry Tudor who freed you from this mumbo-jumbo.
Hansel, I’ve grown up in a church where prayers are asked from the congregation when people are sick or having problems. However, I never really understood the purpose of this other than making a statement that the church stands behind its members. I don’t believe that having extra people pray for you is going to somehow sway God more than just having one person praying for you or you praying on your own behalf.
It just seems to me, that if you need to ask God something you should petition him yourself. I don’t see the purpose of asking another person (especially one who is dead) to help you out. Is there truly a beurocracy(sp?) in heaven?
“be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will gaurd your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.” Phillipeans 4:6
Well, God’s real busy these days, y’know? He’s arranging famines and earthquakes and that little girl being raped and murdered in the Bronx, not to mention rainbows and that big concert in Vienna. And it’s cherry blossom time, to boot. You think he’s got time for YOU, and your little prayer for a new Volvo? You’ve got a better chance of getting the ears of Saint Manny, Saint Moe, and Saint Jack, the patrons of New Car Smell. Better yet, get off your duff and do something practical towards making your prayers come true. God helps those that help themselves, Jocko.
I was brung up Catholic, and we were given little books with Lives of the Saints and so on. It was always very clear to me that when one prayed to a saint one was just asking for the saint to intervene – the saint wasn’t seen as a deity in its own right. When I learned that Protestants argued that Catholics were worshipping other gods or false idols I found it odd. It seemed as if they either didn’t understand what was going on, or thought that Catholics were so weak-minded or unsure of their own theology that we were unable to follow the nuances of our creed. One shouldn’t assume that the other fellow is stupid (a rule I follow in trying to understand religions and mythologies).
It DOES seem as if a lot of Christian saints were, indeed, absorbed from the traditions of hierarchies of gods, and in some cases are simply modified versions of the gods themselves. I’ve been told that the Irish words for “Saint” and “god” are identical. A lot of early Catholic saints have the names of Greek and Roman deities, which is suspicious. At least one Catholic saint appears to be Buddha in thin disguise (his life story is identical to the bio of Gautama Siddhartha). Many of the very Early Catholic saints are simply names, with no trustworthy vitae, so they could have come from anywhere.
Nevertheless, if these saints DID start out as “gods” absorbed into the Catholic community of saints, it has to be remarked that the Church was successful in its goal – they DID wean the populace away from its polytheistic beliefs to a monotheism in which there is an invisible world with an essentially powerless hierarchy.
Catholicism is not the only religion with Saints. The Epscopal Church has its own Saints. Mormonism holds out the promise that resurrected beings can become Gods in their own right. Varieties of Buddhism have their own cases of humans who have lived exemplary lives and who may become empowered (Lohans and Boddhisatvas).
For the RCC, the term “church” encompasses all its members both living and deceased. Part of the prayer process, at least, is to build and sustain that community.
A secular example can be found in several threads in the SDMB, where other “community” members “pray” or “send good thoughts/vibes” to other members who have posted about a difficult situation.
In the Catholic heaven are the spirits of enlightened beings, sages, saints and the like. Some of them have the capacity to send healing energies and love to us (as well as guidance). As human beings, they are our brothers and sisters, but we revere them for their saintly qualities.
Do the Protestants have a heaven devoid of such human life?
I can understand the idea of asking a holy person (now dead) to intercede for you. What I don’t understand is why they need to be designated as saints. If the person was a very holy person whose prayers might be answered (in the affirmative, not in the sense that all prayers are answered), why should the designation assigned to them by the Church matter at all?
I think this has been covered fairly well by the posts. But we Christians are called to intercede for each other. And, as noted, the Church (capital C) includes both the people now on Earth and those in Heaven (“living and dead” is completely bizarre in this context). I would have no problem asking another Christian to pray for me – and Tom~ of Tomndebb and Francis of Assisi both qualify as such.
As for GilaB’s last question, God decides who’s a saint and who is not – a “saint” is anybody who has turned to Him and accepted His salvation. What the Catholic Church, and to a lesser extent the Orthodox and Anglican Churches, do is to identify from this collection people who are particularly exemplary in their sanctity of life, role-modelship for others, etc., and officially name them as big-S Saints – not ruling out the others but giving them a special role as examples by the canonization process. For example, Pope John XXIII is in the process of being canonized now. In 1979, the Episcopal Church added to its calendar Phillips Brooks, the saintly Boston minister (and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts) who wrote a lot of useful popular guides to religion and in particular wrote the carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” In most cases, the deceased saint is remembered as a particularly holy person locally and the church investigates, satisfies itself that he or she was in fact a good example, and makes it official through canonization.
That seems a very indirect way of expressing community and support, and perhaps a little faithless as well. It seems like you’re saying that people pray, knowing it will have no effect, for a purpose other than that which is prayed for. That seems disingenous to me.
Frankly, I suspect that no one reflects on it that much, and at worst it’s done in an “it can’t hurt, but it may help” sort of way.
I’m sure you could get into a long theological debate about whether or not intercessory prayer is effective, but I think that’s not really the point. We can agree that most intercessory prayer is done sincerely and to the point–to wit, prayer for the aid of another. As others have pointed out, the Catholic Church includes both the living and the dead, and includes figures who are blessed, or closer to God than others. While some reverance of saints may border on or qualify as idol worship, that’s not the official or taught position of the Catholic Church, and is an error of faith, not dogma.
On the theological hand, though, if God does answer prayers, then logically he would answer intercessory prayers, wouldn’t he? Unless he specifically excludes intercessory prayer from his “to do” list. So having others pray for you should be effective, or at least worth the effort, if you believe (and it’s church doctrine) that prayers in general are answered.
To be a little playful, who’s closer to God? The living or the dead (at least, the dead in Heaven)? Also, you can ask God and someone else for little extra effort, and then you’ve got two requests in, in case one gets lost…
If you’re curious about the bureaucracy of Heaven, you should check out a book called “A Dictionary of Angels”, by Gustav Davidson. It’s an encyclopaedic collection of angel mythology in Judaic, Christian, and Muslim apocrypha. It’s a good read; it even has a death spell in it, where you ask Uziel to put poisonous water in someone’s belly, and a knot in their throat. It’s also got a recipe for a magic carpet. It also has lists like the orders of angels (angel, archangel, thrones, powers, kingdoms, seraphim…).
I didn’t know before reading it that the archangel Michael is not the most powerful angel in Heaven. That would be Metatron, who with his brother angel Sandalphon (who is as tall as 500 years), was able to eject from heaven two Egyptian wizards who ascended there by spells, after Michael was unable to do so. Like I said, it’s a neat read.
Needless to say, it’s apocryphal, and violates dogma in a thousand places, and is not accepted theology in any church of which I’m aware.
The Christian faith requires us to believe two separate and seemingly incompatible things. One is that no one but Jesus can judge a soul, and know the truth. The other thing is that anyone who is saved, and invites the spirit of the Lord Jesus into his life will become the living embodiment of His spirit, the Grace of God shining out of him.
Most Christians know that they themselves are frail, and filled with petty human faults. Most of us also know someone who seems not to have such faults; a true Saint. Someone who acts like we feel Jesus himself would act. A kind, and loving person, without the self-aggrandizing awareness of how rare that type of soul really is. To each of us here on earth who feel that way, those people are obviously special.
The Catholic Church approaches this by officially recognizing that there have been such people. It sets very stringent standards for how such people will be recognized by the Church. That practice takes a long time. In the end, I don’t hold the Pope, or his hierarchic designate to be more likely to be able to judge a soul than any other human is. But I understand the idea.
When I feel serene, and strong in my faith, I pray to the Lord. I am calm, and happy with the prospect of Divine Grace. When I am weak, and overwhelmed with guilt for my weakness, I fear the face of my Lord. At times like that, I might whisper to Mrs. Whitmore. She is dead now. While she lived, I never knew a soul more beautiful. I would certainly do for her whatever she asked. In my silly fear, I hope that Jesus might, too, since obviously he would love so great a soul.
This entire matter is logically ridiculous, and theologically insupportable. But I understand it. I don’t think she is a god, or even closer to God than I am. But if I were God, I would listen to her opinion. It couldn’t hurt.
Because people can be fooled or uninformed. The people who followed Jim Jones to Guayana thought he was a very holy person, didn’t they? But I strongly doubt asking ole Jimmy for intercession with the Big Guy would really be useful. The process of designating certain people as saints helps avoid such mistakes. Admittedly, to this former Catholic’s eyes, the process set forth by the church is overly bureaucratic, and the emphasis on miracles confounds me (loved Fr. Guido Sarducci’s bit on an old “SNL” about card tricks in this regard), but I don’t have a problem with the idea of drawing a line.
Does it matter? Except for No. 1 above, not really. If you want to ask through prayer for intercession from that really nice old lady who was always so kind to everyone before she passed away, rather than St. Pilus of Loopapalooza, I know of nothing in Catholic theology that would say this is improper or that the intercessory prayer would be less effective (if that’s the right word).
Actually, candidates for sainthood are different in the Orthodox church. And there are a few levels of martyrdom and the like.
And not every Orthodox church recognizes the same saints-for example, Nicholas II and his family are saints in the Russian Orthodox Church ABROAD (the American-Russian OC). But in the Russian Orthodox Church proper, they are seen as simply passion bearers-who died horrible deaths, but are not canonized, although Alexandra’s sister, who married Nicholas’s uncle and later became a nun, is canonized in both churches.; The Holy Imperial Saint-Martyr, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna.
With God being so busy these days, you need saints for the same reason you need lobbyists in Washinfron DC: They have better access and can get more attention.