Can one be a good Catholic

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And have no inclination to pray to Mary, the Saints, or have any devotions to either?

In listening to Dr. Francis Beckwith on Catholic Answers I got the impression he didn’t have a devotion to the Saints or Mary, and I kinda fall into the same camp. Don’t get me wrong I respect Mary and I do consider her Our Lady. However I am never moved to pray to her or to any other Saint.

I also will not approach a statue and kneel before it and pray. I do have a couple crucifixes and a statue of Mary and St. Jude in my house, but they’re decoration no different than a statue of Joe DiMaggio I have in my sons room (aside from two are great Saints and one was a heck of ball player), and I do not pray before them.

To me it just doesn’t feel right praying to Mary or before a statue. What do I do in this dilemma? Should I just remain doing what I’m doing and forget about praying before statues and to Saints? Does this show a lack of faith in the Church? But when I see an old lady kneel and weep before a statue and touch it, it seems really bizarre to me.
 
Such devotionals are optional, are they not?

I would say that anything which is not obligatory is not necessary to be a “good” Catholic.

Of course, the question of whether any of us can truly be a good Catholic, rather than a “good enough” Catholic, is another matter entirely.
 
Sounds to me like it’s more than just not having an inclination. Sounds like you have a positive determination not to pray to the saints in heaven. Which makes me think you don’t accept the teaching of the Church regarding the communion of saints. Is that the situation?

BTW, on the statues, they are certainly not required for praying to God or the saints.
 
lukewarm said:
And have no inclination to pray to Mary, the Saints, or have any devotions to either?

In To me it just doesn’t feel right praying to Mary or before a statue. What do I do in this dilemma? Should I just remain doing what I’m doing and forget about praying before statues and to Saints? Does this show a lack of faith in the Church? But when I see an old lady kneel and weep before a statue and touch it, it seems really bizarre to me.
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these devotions are entirely optional and not required of Catholics. they are also personal, and linked with cultural and ethnic customs and popular piety. in some cultures family members display their affection for each other more openly and physically, in others, while the love each other just as deeply, overt displays of affection are rare. It is personal and cultural.

what a Catholic must do is accept all the doctrine about Mary and the saints, because this doctrine is based upon doctrine about Christ, his nature, life, death, resurrection and mission.
 
Church_Militant said:
There are a couple of things that you need to better understand.

The Intercession & Communion of Saints

Iconoclasm: Or: Catholics Worship Graven Images …
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I appreciate the apologetics and I did read them. They are well done but it’s not really anything I haven’t read before, I know of the serpant staff and the Cherubim adorning the mercy seat. But to me those were done under God’s strict orders. And the serpants staff of Moses was later destroyed because of the fear that the Iraelites were commiting idolatry.

My real issue with it is the bowing before and kneeling, candle offerings all before the statues, not so much their presence within the Church.

It’s not that I want to be disobedient, I just can’t help feeling wierded out by bowing before or praying before a statue so I choose not to. If it’s a private devotion and it doesn’t affect my ability to be a Catholic I will just continue to not pray before them.
 
Luke,
this is personal experience only so take it for what it is worth…

I use to be the same way. I really didn’t see a ‘need’ to ask Mary and the saints to pray for me. However, inspired by PJP2 going to sleep, i decided to research my faith that i was so, well, lukewarm in.

The first thing I did was research the biggest contention everyone seems to have with the Catholic Faith, Praying with/to the saints.

The first part I had to realize was that, no, we do not pray TO them. I still don’t see it that way. It is more in line with me asking you to pray to me… Something i believe you have said you understand.

The second part for me came when I realized that the prayers of the saints hold great weight. In other words, the more you are in His graces, the more weight your prayers have.

Sooo…

If the Saints in heaven are closer to God than we are (hopefully no one will dispute this) then this means their prayers hold more weight than say yours. (no offense). Many people (including some very close people to me) have pride issues with this… "How come their prayers mean more than mine, aren’t we both members of the ‘body of Christ?’ This is a third thing I needed to get past. That the Prayers of those in heaven mean more than mine.

So, now I had a situation where I still asked those still on Earth to pray for me, but realized that the Saints had more umph in their prayers.

The result was me very tentatively (and even saying before hand, God if this is wrong forgive me) asking the saints in heaven for prayers for my various needs.

At first, many of these prayers where like ‘St Peter, I need help in my Job’ Or ’ Mary, why are my bills so screwy, can you pray for me.’

And while there isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with these prayers, the form of my prayers evolved. I started feeling selfish for asking for things for me. No longer was it ‘St. X I need this’ but it started turning into ‘St X, help pray that I will know his will’

Once I picked up the rosary again after years of neglect, the prayers began evolving further into ‘St. Y help me to understand the meaning of the Transfiguration’

Is praying with the saints required? absolutely not. But in my own personal experience, it was praying with the saints that ultimately led me to a deeper relationship with Him.

However, we are all different, and my personal story may not end up being the same for you.

Hope that helps

In Christ
 
The way I overcame my “weird” feelings about praying to Mary or the Saints when I came into the church was to think of them as any other good and holy person still here on Earth. Would I want Pope Benedict to pray for me? Of course! Well, then how much more holy and close to God is a person who has lived a heroically faithful life and the Church (whose judgement in such matters we trust) has declared definitively to be in Heaven? Should I not avail myself of my Catholic brothers and sisters who have gone before me and are now more alive than can be imagined, sitting with the Lord?

I guess it comes down to playing devil’s advocate and asking: Why ever ask anyone to pray for you or help you at all? Can’t you just pray for yourself and let that be enough?

Even the most anti-Catholic protestant would say you should ask for prayers from your friends, family, and fellow parishoners. We just have a MUCH bigger parish! 😃
 
lukewarm said:
And have no inclination to pray to Mary, the Saints, or have any devotions to either?

In listening to Dr. Francis Beckwith on Catholic Answers I got the impression he didn’t have a devotion to the Saints or Mary, and I kinda fall into the same camp. Don’t get me wrong I respect Mary and I do consider her Our Lady. However I am never moved to pray to her or to any other Saint.

I also will not approach a statue and kneel before it and pray. I do have a couple crucifixes and a statue of Mary and St. Jude in my house, but they’re decoration no different than a statue of Joe DiMaggio I have in my sons room (aside from two are great Saints and one was a heck of ball player), and I do not pray before them.

To me it just doesn’t feel right praying to Mary or before a statue. What do I do in this dilemma? Should I just remain doing what I’m doing and forget about praying before statues and to Saints? Does this show a lack of faith in the Church? But when I see an old lady kneel and weep before a statue and touch it, it seems really bizarre to me.
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Relax. When my mother was asked about the statues in her house, she simply asked the person if they had pictures of their children in their homes. What is important is that you are placing your faith in God and giving him all your worship.
Puzzleannie (#5) and chris molter (#8) both provide good posts when it comes to what our personal attitude should be regarding the saints.
In praying the rosary, I pray to God through Mary while reflecting on the Life of Christ. During cathecist training, I learned a simple technique that helps with focus while meditating. I add a simple word or phrase after “and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus ______” that is directly related to the mystery being meditated upon. For instance, while praying the mystery of the nativity, I say, “blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus, Emmanuel.” For the fifth Luminous mystery, I say “blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus, in the Eucharist.”
God needs to be the focus of our prayer.
 
lukewarm said:
And have no inclination to pray to Mary, the Saints, or have any devotions to either?

In listening to Dr. Francis Beckwith on Catholic Answers I got the impression he didn’t have a devotion to the Saints or Mary, and I kinda fall into the same camp. Don’t get me wrong I respect Mary and I do consider her Our Lady. However I am never moved to pray to her or to any other Saint.

I also will not approach a statue and kneel before it and pray. I do have a couple crucifixes and a statue of Mary and St. Jude in my house, but they’re decoration no different than a statue of Joe DiMaggio I have in my sons room (aside from two are great Saints and one was a heck of ball player), and I do not pray before them.

To me it just doesn’t feel right praying to Mary or before a statue. What do I do in this dilemma? Should I just remain doing what I’m doing and forget about praying before statues and to Saints? Does this show a lack of faith in the Church? But when I see an old lady kneel and weep before a statue and touch it, it seems really bizarre to me.
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Like it’s been said you don’t have too have a devotion to Mary. But that you think it’s bizarre is another thing. IMO That you don’t do it is fine; that it doesn’t ‘feel right’ to you makes me think that maybe you don’t fully understand about praying for Mary’s and the saint’s intercession; or about the use of statues and pictures.
 
Greetings! I think my answer on CA was misunderstood. I never said that I had never prayed rosary in my life. I indeed prayed the rosary in my pre-Protestant days when I was very young. Since having returned to the Church I have not prayed the rosary all the way through. I prayed a decade of it for penance. But I have never prayed the rosary all the way through as an expression of Marian devotion since having returned to the Church four months ago. So, that’s what I meant when I said I had not prayed the rosary.

One of the difficulties of answering the question on the radio is that I did not want to hurt the feelings of the woman who asked the question. That’s why I may have sounded a little more hesitant and deliberate than I did with my other comments during the program. I did not want my lack of rosary-praying to seem like a negative judgment upon the caller. So, I tried to frame my answer in a way that would honor her devotion while being truthful about my own walk.

I will say that since my reversion I have prayed to certain saints for intercession, including our Blessed Mother, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Joseph. However, a vast majority of prayers are to the persons of the Trinity.

For me, the sacrament of reconciliation has been a wonderful instrument of God’s grace in my walk with the Lord. Ironically, it is in my penance that engage in prayers to Mary. In fact, just the other day my priest suggested I start praying the rosary. So, maybe the Lord is trying to tell me something! 😉
 
Dear OP:

It’s kind of hard to go to Mass and not pray to Mary and the Saints. In the confetior (“I confess”) we ask their interecession 🙂

Do you ever ask others to pray for you? If you do that, why not also ask Mary too?
 
Dr. Beckwith I didn’t mean to call you out or anything just you got me thinking about my issues with Mary and the Saints as well as the use of icons and imagery in prayer. But as a recent revert your lack of praying to the Saints is understandable. I’m a cradle Catholic who struggles with it, I’m out of excuses…

I enjoyed your show BTW I found it an incredible reversion story. Believe it or not stories like yours help strengthen lukewarm Catholics like myself a lot.
 
lukewarm said:
Dr. Beckwith I didn’t mean to call you out or anything just you got me thinking about my issues with Mary and the Saints as well as the use of icons and imagery in prayer. But as a recent revert your lack of praying to the Saints is understandable. I’m a cradle Catholic who struggles with it, I’m out of excuses…

I enjoyed your show BTW I found it an incredible reversion story. Believe it or not stories like yours help strengthen lukewarm Catholics like myself a lot.
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No worries. I’m glad you brought this question up. Of all the things I said on the radio show, that particular exchange has gotten the most attention. So, I’m glad you gave me an opportunity to clarify how I perceived the caller and what my real views are.
 
lukewarm said:
I know of the serpant staff and the Cherubim adorning the mercy seat. But to me those were done under God’s strict orders. And the serpants staff of Moses was later destroyed because of the fear that the Iraelites were commiting idolatry.
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What sort of thing would God order? Could He order someone to sin? No, rather, He only orders something that is in line with His nature, and is therefore a good thing.
 
Spirithound said:
What sort of thing would God order? Could He order someone to sin? No, rather, He only orders something that is in line with His nature, and is therefore a good thing.
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That’s really the crux of it, isn’t it?

Sin represents a turning away from God—it isn’t what He would have us do. It is a terrible thing to presume God, fully and supernaturally righteous, would mandate sin or create souls to fill the pits of Hell.

If sin was part of the plan, why does God get so angry over it? Why does Christ?

The essential problem I have with Calvinists is that they seem to propose some sort of sock puppetry on the part of God, some sort of kabuki theater for an unknown audience, wherein God writes all the parts, pulls all the strings, and punishes or rewards the players out of pique or whimsy.

We are free, or we are slaves. If the former, sin is our fault. If the latter, it is God’s. All of Scripture demonstrates that we are free and sin is our fault.
 
As Christ hung upon the cross, shortly before He expired, He said,

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’. Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!’ (Jn 19:26-27)

The Holy Spirit did not inspire St. John to write these words if the Blessed Virgin Mary was only to be without Jesus for three days while He was in the tomb. The mere fact that it is recorded in the Holy Bible that Jesus gave us His mother, at the most powerful moment in Jesus’ triumph over the Devil, can only be something perpetual, not just some temporal thing.

Meditate on this; put yourself in the place of “the disciple whom he loved”, next to Mary at the foot of the Cross. Follow her example of how she followed Jesus all her life and imitate her.

St. Paul says, 1 Cor 11:1
Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.
This is what a Saint is; Mary being the greatest of all Saints. It only follows that devotion to her, leads to a greater devotion to Christ, otherwise, St. Paul has introduced an obstacle in our faith by saying “be imitators of me” when he could have just say, “be imitators of Christ”. There is a VERY good reason why, the Holy Spirit, speaking through the pen of St. Paul, teaches us to imitate others to gain knowledge of Christ - Communion of the Saints.

God bless.
 
This is indeed a matter of struggle for many Catholics who have a genuine desire for obedience to Christ, and are not sure on this issue. The writings of the Church Fathers are not as crystal clear here as say, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
With the exception of if asked to in Penance, we are not, to my knowledge, required to pray to the saints and Mary. As long as you don’t point a finger of judgment at those who do, I would say it is fine that you don’t pray to saints and Mary, but that is merely my opinion.
As for statues, I don’t do that either. Realize, however, as you likely already know, that this does NOT constitute worship. In Japan, for example, people greet one another with a bow. It is a sign of respect, but NOT worship. After a stage performance, an actor bows to the audience, but this is by no means a worship of the audience. If someone sucker punches you in the stomach, you may bow over to them, but that is not worship.
In my understanding, iconoclasm has its origins in Islam, and I just read something that suggested that the Turks’ attitude towards the Koran was what influenced Martin Luther’s idea to apply, “Sola-Scriptura” to Christianity. So, if your reason for not praying to the saints and Mary is that you don’t see a clear Scriptural indication that we should do such, realize the origins of that mindset, too.
 
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