Asking the saints to pray for us or praying to the saints?

[Mommyof02green]

You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t really believe this. You are talking about the inerrant Word of God here. Even your Church does not preach this.

2 Tim. 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Catholics, a little help here please?

Yes Joe isl little misguided on what the CATHOLIC CHURCH teaches.

CCC paragraph 133 states to be ignorant of Scripture means that you are ignorant of Christ.

Also the Catechism of the CATHOLIC CHURCH as OVER 1000 Bible reference, to show and back up things like Holy Orders, Marriage, Baptism, Eucharist, Confession, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick.

The CCC uses Scripture for the Trinity, things re: Mary, and etc, etc, etc. (the list can go on)

Paragraphs 101-141 has to due the Scripture alone, How to read Scripture, Why we should read Scripture, and how Scripture relates to the Church. Click here to read that section You will have to scroll down to Article 3

“The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she venerated the Body of the Lord”: both nourish and govern the whole Christian life. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”(Ps 119:105; cf Isa 50:4).

However with that being said: The bible is not the end all. It’s not the ONLY Source of Truth. After all Scripture does say that the pillar and foundtation of Truth is the Church.

 

[Mickey]

2 Tim. 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The key word here is “useful” - not sufficient in itself, not the only thing, not the be-all and end-all.

Another key word is “All”.
Many people mistakenly read that word to mean “Only”.

 

[JOE_OBERR]

You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t really believe this. You are talking about the inerrant Word of God here. Even your Church does not preach this.

Of course it does. Nowhere does the Catholic Church teach that christianity comes from one’s personal guesswork on inerrant bible verses. Jesus didn’t command the apostles to go out and write. He commanded them to preach, the same method he used. Jesus did not read from the New Testament, nor did the apostles and St. Paul when they spread the Word of God. St. Paul said faith comes by “hearing”, not by reading scripture.

Jesus taught the gospel to the apostles
Mr 4:34 “He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”
John 15:15 “for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 14:26 “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
They passed this gospel on orally when preaching and to their successor bishops, down to this day. This is the only way to know the gospel which includes doctrine, such as praying to the saints (Heb 12:23), the sacrament of confession, purgatory, the Eucharist, etc.

The canon of the bible wasn’t even finalized until the 390s. If Christianity, its doctrine and practice were dependant upon scripture, then were the bible christians who lived until 390 disenfranchised and didn’t know the gospel?

Jesus commanded us to listen to his Church, the “pillar & foundation of truth”, not to formulate doctrine & practice by guessing the meaning of bible verses. This is a man-made tradition that popped up in the 1500’s by a former Catholic priest who rebelled against the authority of the Church Jesus founded.
This man-made church, and its prodigy, over 20,000 differing denominations, has no authority from Jesus whatsoever which is why none of these man-made churches agree on any verse of the bible.

Jesus said we had to believe the gospel as preached by the leaders of his Church (Mk 16:15-16) and be baptized. And since NO book of the bible claims to summarize the gospel as preached by the apostles, then that leaves only one method of learning it - listen to the Church Jesus found and the successors of St. Peter upon whom the Church was founded, “you are rock and upon this rock I will build MY Church” - not a man-made church founded by a human being. Martin Luther did not die for your sins or work any miracles or claim to be God. Why listen to him?

Joe

 

[Saint_Michael]

You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t really believe this. You are talking about the inerrant Word of God here. Even your Church does not preach this.

2 Tim. 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Catholics, a little help here please?

Yes useful for teaching, it says nothing about scripture being the ONLY means of teaching. His point is not to disparage the Bible it is that when you take random verses out of context you build a case for nearly any and all Christian beliefs, and plenty do. The Bible also says PLENTY of obeying the teachings of the Apostles, and holding fast to the traditions fo the Apostles.

Inerrant yes if applied together with the teachings and traditions of the Apostles. Not every personal interpretation of the Bible is inerrant or you couldn’t have so much difference in beliefs about baptism, justification, assurance of salvation etc… No matter what you probably listen to someone teach you what you believe the Bible says whether you realize it or not. If not in war I could start spiking little kids heads off rocks, or rip my eyeballs out after getting a long look at a pretty woman.

 

[rr1213]

Of course it does. Nowhere does the Catholic Church teach that christianity comes from one’s personal guesswork on inerrant bible verses. Jesus didn’t command the apostles to go out and write. He commanded them to preach, the same method he used. Jesus did not read from the New Testament, nor did the apostles and St. Paul when they spread the Word of God. St. Paul said faith comes by “hearing”, not by reading scripture.

Jesus taught the gospel to the apostles
Mr 4:34 “He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”
John 15:15 “for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 14:26 “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
They passed this gospel on orally when preaching and to their successor bishops, down to this day. This is the only way to know the gospel which includes doctrine, such as praying to the saints (Heb 12:23), the sacrament of confession, purgatory, the Eucharist, etc.

The canon of the bible wasn’t even finalized until the 390s. If Christianity, its doctrine and practice were dependant upon scripture, then were the bible christians who lived until 390 disenfranchised and didn’t know the gospel?

Jesus commanded us to listen to his Church, the “pillar & foundation of truth”, not to formulate doctrine & practice by guessing the meaning of bible verses. This is a man-made tradition that popped up in the 1500’s by a former Catholic priest who rebelled against the authority of the Church Jesus founded.
This man-made church, and its prodigy, over 20,000 differing denominations, has no authority from Jesus whatsoever which is why none of these man-made churches agree on any verse of the bible.

Jesus said we had to believe the gospel as preached by the leaders of his Church (Mk 16:15-16) and be baptized. And since NO book of the bible claims to summarize the gospel as preached by the apostles, then that leaves only one method of learning it - listen to the Church Jesus found and the successors of St. Peter upon whom the Church was founded, “you are rock and upon this rock I will build MY Church” - not a man-made church founded by a human being. Martin Luther did not die for your sins or work any miracles or claim to be God. Why listen to him?

Joe

Ah, but that is not what you said in the post that I referred to. I quote from your post directly as follows: “Since the bible is not clear on any teaching it is futile to use scripture as a ‘proof’ of any Church teaching…The Church has never said to use the bible as a catechism. It has never said it can be used to prove doctrine…”

To the contrary, the Scriptures are the basis for doctrine. Read the passage from Timothy. Further, Christ himself referred to the Old Testament all the time in order to teach doctrine. It is also a fallacy to say that the early Church had no reference to the Scriptures until they were canonized in the 300s. The letters that comprise the Scriptures were written, for the most part, by contemporaries of Christ. And, for the most part, they were accepted as authoritative at the time they were written since they were written by apostles.

 

[scylla]

The Scriptures are the Word of God, yet our faith from Jesus is the basis of our faith. The Scriptures are used to back up that faith.

Or else our faith would come after Jesus, not from Jesus. The Catholic understanding must put Jesus first then the Bible is used as to support that understanding from God.

This in no way means that Bible is less, just that our faith must come from God, not the Bible, as that is something after which comes directly from the influence of God. So our primary focus must be God who is the cause of the Bible.

So yes the Bible is God inspired, breathed, inerrant holy Scripture. Our faith comes from God first, then that is how we understand the Bible. Yes the Bible understood correctly can be the basis for doctrine, yet if there is other opinions on what it means then someone is misrepresenting the Holy Word of God.

What we must be very careful is any misrepresentation of the Holy Word of God. Because differing opinions of the teaching contained in the Bible would be attributing a lie as God’s truth.
That is blasphemy, no matter how well intentioned.
We must put God first, or risk blaspheming God’s truth.

In Christ
Scylla

 

[JOE_OBERR]

Ah, but that is not what you said in the post that I referred to. I quote from your post directly as follows: “Since the bible is not clear on any teaching it is futile to use scripture as a ‘proof’ of any Church teaching…The Church has never said to use the bible as a catechism. It has never said it can be used to prove doctrine…”

To the contrary, the Scriptures are the basis for doctrine. Read the passage from Timothy.

That quote simply states scripture is useful for teaching. It does not state that teachings originate in Scripture. It doesn’t even say how a man becomes a man of God. It doesn’t even claim that it is Scripture! How do you know that verse is inspired Scripture?

If Scripture is the basis for doctrine then why are we having this discussion? This proves my point that Jesus did not intend Scripture to be the source of the gospel as preached and taught by the apostles as nothing is clear in it.

If Scripture were so clear there would only be one Protestant denomination, but there are well over 20,000 worldwide and that’s according to the Protestant publication Dictionary of Christianity in America (a U.N. report lists even more). Utter confusion is what results when man thinks Christianity is derived from one’s personal guesswork on bible verses.

If we would listen to Jesus there would be no doubt as to the content of the gospel, the oral Word of God, that Sts Paul, Peter et al, preached. Jesus said in Mk 16.15-16 that our being saved is contingent on our believing the gospel the apostles preached, not wrote, and being baptized.

This is how ALL the bible christians learned the gospel that Sts Peter & Paul preached as there is NO book of the bible that claims to summarize this gospel. All the bible christians learned by hearing as Scripture is not a catechism, it is a narrative of salvation history. The ex catholic priest, Martin Luther, originated the man made tradition that one could reject the authority of the Church Jesus himself founded and be saved by faith alone and scripture alone.

But funny thing, even Martin Luther realized what I just said is true because he had to write two catechisms, the small & large, which summarized HIS interpretation of scripture. Of course his spiritual descendants did the same thing which accounts for the 20,000 plus denominations as why should anyone believe M. Luther’s interpretation? He’s a man just like you and me with absolutely no authority whatsoever from God to start a church.

Jesus’ Church says to use the innerant written Word of God as illumination and nourishment for the gospel preached by the apostles and their successors, but not as the source because the bible doesn’t claim it is the source of the preached gospel. Again, that is a man-made tradition by a man who rejected the authority of the Church Jesus founded.

Use the bible to learn about Jesus, how he lived, what he said, how he acted and loved us while walking the earth. But one has to read the Church’s catechism to know what the gospel is as preached and taught by the apostles. The Catholic Catechism and papal teachings contain the Word of God as handed down by the apostles to the current generation.

Joe

 

[rr1213]

Well, I’m afraid this is one that we’re going to have to differ on. Certainly, you can have documents that interpret Scripture. The CCC is one such document, as are Luther’s Large & Small Catechisms, the Book of Concord, the Anglicans’ 39 Articles, the Westminster Confession, etc. However, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Protestant confessions purport to place themselves above the written Word of God. From what I’ve seen, I think that you are in error in thinking that the CCC of the Catholic Church purports to do this either. The CCC is full of Scriptural references and cites these references as proof sources for the statements made therein. Sure, the Catholic Church also believes in Holy Tradition but as I understand it the Church states that Holy Tradition cannot contradict the Written Scriptures and, if one believes that it does, that person simply does not understand the Scriptures. So, in the end, both Catholics and Protestants consider the Bible to be the standard, but disagree on what the standard says.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

I advise you to be careful with this issue. Even if you can get them to accept that asking Saints to pray for you is Biblical, they may turn around and insist that this isn’t in fact what Catholics do. My sister did this to me. After all of the Biblical and logical evidence had taken care of all of her arguments she went back to “Yes, but Catholics really are asking Saints to do things for them, not just asking Saints to pray with them.” This of course coming from someone who doesn’t really know anything about Catholicism, but I couldn’t convince her on that…

Here is a prayer to Mary by Pope Pius XII who died in 1958. I’m old - I can remember when he died !!!

**“O Mary Mother of Mercy and Refuge of Sinners! We beseech thee to look with pitying eyes on poor heretics and schismatics. Do thou, who art the Seat of Wisdom, enlighten the minds wretchedly enfolded in the darkness of ignorance and sin, that they may clearly recognize the Holy, Catholic, Roman Church to be the only true Church of Jesus Christ, outside of which neither sanctity nor salvation can be found.”
**~ Pope Pius XII, died 1958

 

[MyPhilomena]

Damo, see this:

catholic.com/library/Praying_to_the_Saints.asp

 

[valient_Lucy]

I have been asked to prove that we can pray to saints, so first i need to understand. i believe it is asking them to pray for us, just like asking another christian to pray for you am i right ?

Biblical evidence only because they will not except anything else

Yeah, you’re right. We ask the saints to pray for us, just like a Christian on earth.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Damo, see this:

catholic.com/library/Praying_to_the_Saints.asp

We have had this interesting discussion previously in another section of the Forum and Catholics have indicated that this article may be verging slightly outside Catholic teaching since it appears to contradict the Catechism of the Catholic Church which teaches that one can pray TO Mary and WITH Mary. The article seems to take pains to avoid saying that we can pray TO Mary (and TO the Saints.) If it contradicts the Catechism in this regard, their advice was to treat it with caution.

CCC 2679 Mary is the perfect Orans (pray-er), a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple we welcome Jesus’ mother into our homes, (cf. Jn 19:27) for she has become the mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her.

 

[JOE_OBERR]

Well, I’m afraid this is one that we’re going to have to differ on.

But which argument has truth on its side? The method used by Jesus of spreading the gospel, the Word of God, through oral teaching & preaching, and his command to the apostles, and their successors, to use the same method (Mt 28:19-20, Mk 16:15-16, Lk 24:47)? Or a man-made method and tradition introduced in 1520 which contradicts Jesus’ method by using only the written Word of God as found in Sacred Scripture? (And since SS doesn’t interpret itself or force its explanation on anyone, it comes down to everyone trying to learn the gospel of Jesus Christ by his/her own personal guesswork on bible verses.)

Joe

 

[JOE_OBERR]

quote=rr1213;1606587]
**The issue is not Sola Scriptura and/or Holy Tradition but, rather, whether the Scriptures provide a standard for doctrine and teaching. **
.

rr1213
**How can SS provide a standard when the Word of God as preached by Jesus, the apostles in the NT, starting with St Peter on Pentecost (and their successors until this day) preceded the first book of the NT by at least 10 years? And the rest were written over the next 40 years or so. Along with all the competing books, over 270, that some thought were inspired, as well as some of the 27 of the NT which were not considered inspired. How could a standard of anything be developed with such a moving, unknown target? **

**On top of that SS is a narrative of salvation history. It is not a catechism which is why Luther et al had to write catechisms even though they proclaimed SS was sufficient. If it was such a clear standard then everyone would agree on the exegesis of every bible verse, but you & I and 800 million Protestants worldwide know that is not the case. **

Of course there is no bible verse stating that the bible alone is sufficient for doctrine & morals. If there was why did it take 1,500 for someone to suddenly “discover” it? Answer: Luther made it up.

If SS was sufficient then why write a catechism? Luther contradicted himself. And if their catechisms were not above the Word of God, then why listen to them? They were just Luther’s summary of his personal guesswork on bible verses.

**I also keep reminding you that Jesus never said to spread the gospel by writing, but orally, which Luther contradicted. And nowhere does SS claim to have a summary of this orally preached gospel. So if one wants to find out what this gospel is he has to look elsewhere. Which is what all Christians did for 1,500 years before Martin Luther made up his man-made tradition of sola scriptura. **

**Did God err for 1,500 years in spreading his gospel? Possible, I guess, but not likely. But look at the result of Luther’s man-made tradition. Total confusion. Over 20,000 world-wide denominations and counting with competing and contradictory claims even though all ministers claim to be led by the Holy Spirit! **

**But this is to be expected when man decides to put his faith in another man, Luther, Calvin et al, instead of Jesus. The “Christian” Tower of Babel results. This would be akin to the founding fathers of the **US saying we will let every man/woman decide for himself how to interpret the constitution – sola constitution, and therefore there is no need for a teaching authority, the Supreme Court. There would be pure & total chaos.

**We have better sense in temporal matters but somehow lose it when it comes to faith in Jesus by obeying him when it comes to learning his gospel versus making up our own based on our personal guesswork on bible verses. **

Bible verses are great to support and illuminate the teachings of the oral Word of God as passed down from the apostles, but not as the standard or basis. 20,000 differing denominations are proof the bible cannot be a standard for doctrine.

Joe

 

[apple72]

prayer is a very personal thing, the scriptures is a compilation made by the human beings whose lives have been touched by God through their communion(interaction, witness, visions etc.) with Him. there will always be arguments and attacks as far as the role of the saints in the catholic church but nobody can take away the fact that all of us are but human beings and that prayer and asking somebody to pray for us is but natural all religion pray to their God. is that a crime?