Asking help from a saint

[SAHM02]

that’s why we were all put on this earth: to know, love and serve God!

That is almost exactly what I was taught:

I was taught, God made me to know, love and serve HIM in this world, and to be happy forever.

 

[onmywayagain]

How do you know your saints hear your prayers?

I’m not pretending to know the supernatural. It takes faith. My faith says that folks in Heaven watch over us and tell God when something goes wrong and ask God to help us (by praying).
You’re trying to use logic here and it’s not working. It’s a matter of faith and what you believe. I believe one thing, you another.
Why can’t you let it go?

You are contradicting your last couple of statements. Why would the folks in heaven have to watch over us and go ask God to help us, when you, say that you should do that yourself with no help. Why would they have to tell God when something goes wrong? Can’t God see it for himself?

 

[onmywayagain]

They are dead to the world. They are in Heaven with God and watch over us here on earth. When they see that we are in distress or something, they ask God to watch over us.
That’s what I believe, anyways. I’m sure Catholics are taught differently but that’s what I believe.

Isn’t that what we Catholics believe that the angels and saint’s help us in our time of need?

 

[contemplative]

Dear open mind,
Try reading ‘Making Saints’ by Kenneth Woodward. It contains an excellent comprehensive look at how saints have been recognized and canonized thoughout history. Reading this book will answer your questions plus more. I’m not even 1/2 way through the book and already I am enlightened. The book contains over 400 pages…expect much very interesting information.
Contemplative

…to be sure this doesn’t get lost…here it is again…

 

[LilyM]

You are contradicting your last couple of statements. Why would the folks in heaven have to watch over us and go ask God to help us, when you, say that you should do that yourself with no help. Why would they have to tell God when something goes wrong? Can’t God see it for himself?

Of course God knows all things and can do all things without having to be asked. But he likes to be asked!!! It’s like a husband and wife - they each know that the other loves them, but they each like to HEAR the other say ‘I love you’ occasionally as well.

 

[onmywayagain]

Of course God knows all things and can do all things without having to be asked. But he likes to be asked!!! It’s like a husband and wife - they each know that the other loves them, but they each like to HEAR the other say ‘I love you’ occasionally as well.

I understand what you are saying, but I am not the one who is confused or contradicting myself. One cannot say one thing in one statement then say somethng else in another.

 

[Blue_Serenity]

You are contradicting your last couple of statements. Why would the folks in heaven have to watch over us and go ask God to help us, when you, say that you should do that yourself with no help. Why would they have to tell God when something goes wrong? Can’t God see it for himself?

I didn’t say that we have to do it with no help. I ask my fellow brothers and sisters to pray for me all the time.
All I was saying was that the folks who have died and are in heaven (like our grandparents, for example) are watching over us and if they see that we are in distress, they can ask God to help us, in union with our prayers and the prayers of those praying for us.
Understand?

 

[Ladybug42]

Blue Serenity,
There have been times that I have been unable to pray to God, but able to ask others to pray for me, and I believe it made a huge difference in my being able to approach God in repentance and love. Some folks ask those who are already in Heaven to pray for them. They are Saints, and they have nothing else to do but pray for us. As long as it isn’t detracting from one’s relationship with the Lord, then asking a Saint to pray for you is fine.

We are not to consult the dead. Asking a Saint to pray for you is not the same as consulting a Saint-- that would be a no-no. Not that a Saint would ever respond to such a request–if they are in Heaven, then they will not try to usurp God’s place. That’s what the angels who rebelled, Satan and his bunch, would do. Consulting the dead was to divine for answers from someone other than God. Asking a brother or sister in Christ, dead or alive, to pray for you, is just fine. We are all one in body–in Christ. We are one family, and we look out for one another. We are encouraged throughout Scripture to lift one another up in prayer.

Also, as far as asking someone dead to pray for you…Mary is not dead. She was assumed. She never died, God spared her that for her suffering obedience to His will. Mary was saved from original sin just like the rest of us, but never sinned after that. So she’s probably the best sister in Christ I can think of to ask to pray for me or anyone else.

 

[Mommyof02green]

Also, as far as asking someone dead to pray for you…Mary is not dead. She was assumed. She never died, God spared her that for her suffering obedience to His will. Mary was saved from original sin just like the rest of us, but never sinned after that. So she’s probably the best sister in Christ I can think of to ask to pray for me or anyone else.

Actually the doctrine on the Assumption does declare that Mary did not die, nor does it declare that she did die.

The Church has NEVER OFFICALLY said either way:

The doctrine of the Assumption says that at the end of her life on earth Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven, just as Enoch, Elijah, and perhaps others had been before her. It’s also necessary to keep in mind what the Assumption is not. Some people think Catholics believe Mary “ascended” into heaven. That’s not correct. Christ, by his own power, ascended into heaven. Mary was assumed or taken up into heaven by God. She didn’t do it under her own power.

The Church has never formally defined whether she died or not, and the integrity of the doctrine of the Assumption would not be impaired if she did not in fact die, but the almost universal consensus is that she did die. Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus (1950), defined that Mary, “after the completion of her earthly life” (note the silence regarding her death), “was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.”

Source: catholic.com/library/immaculate_conception_and_assum.asp

It is NOT wrong for you to believe that she did not die.
However at the same time it is NOT wrong for me to believe that she did die.

The only thing that is required for us Catholic to believe is that at the end she was ASSUMED into heaven body and soul.