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Zundrah
Guest
Could someone please provide me with some biblical evidence to support our prayers to the Saints (and Mary of course) as being legitimate? Thank you.
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D_Kelly
Guest
This is not biblical, this is just personal. But I started praying to Mary long before I turned Catholic. As far as the Bible goes, I’m not sure if there is anything that spesificly talks about praying to the saints, but your soul is definitely Catholic. I can tell that just by your devotion to the Blessed Mother.
I would suggest that you buy some books on the saints and let their lives and stories touch you and just go from there.
I wish you the best of luck with your search and may God and the Blessed Mother guide and bless you.
I would suggest that you buy some books on the saints and let their lives and stories touch you and just go from there.
I wish you the best of luck with your search and may God and the Blessed Mother guide and bless you.
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Zundrah
Guest
Thank you kelly for your kind words. I millitantly pray my rosary every day and night… I also know for certai9n that the communion of saints are with me, guiding me, and praying for me.
How ever, my problem lies with praying to non-biblical saints…
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RebeccaJ
Guest
What is it that causes you to believe you could not?
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Zundrah
Guest
Because I couldn’t prove that it was biblical practice when my minister asked me for proof that we can do it, without it being a sin; “talking to the dead”…
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ambrosegirl84
Guest
This is something I struggle with, as well, because I’m considering converting. My sister thinks it’s like worshiping someone else than God because you’re asking them for help, and I have a hard time backing it up, since it’s not in the Bible.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
Does this help?
"What God has forbidden is necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. “There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . . . For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed” (Deut. 18:10–15).
God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information; one is to look to God’s prophets instead. Thus one is not to hold a seance. But anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the vast qualitative difference between holding a seance to have the dead speak through you and a son humbly saying at his mother’s grave, “Mom, please pray to Jesus for me; I’m having a real problem right now.” The difference between the two is the difference between night and day. One is an occult practice bent on getting secret information; the other is a humble request for a loved one to pray to God on one’s behalf. "
Also, Catholics (all rites) are not sola-Scriptura. I would bet your minister knows this.
"What God has forbidden is necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. “There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . . . For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed” (Deut. 18:10–15).
God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information; one is to look to God’s prophets instead. Thus one is not to hold a seance. But anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the vast qualitative difference between holding a seance to have the dead speak through you and a son humbly saying at his mother’s grave, “Mom, please pray to Jesus for me; I’m having a real problem right now.” The difference between the two is the difference between night and day. One is an occult practice bent on getting secret information; the other is a humble request for a loved one to pray to God on one’s behalf. "
Also, Catholics (all rites) are not sola-Scriptura. I would bet your minister knows this.
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Zundrah
Guest
It’s the hardest thing since trying to believe in the Holy Eucharist…
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Dan_Parker
Guest
Just curious. If you are not praying out loud, why do you think someone other than God can hear you? If you are praying out loud, what makes you think dead humans have the ability to hear people all over the earth at the same time praying from a great distance away?
Are the dead omniscient?
Dan
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Zundrah
Guest
…I just need to be sure that I am not commiting blasphemy before my God…
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bengland
Guest
While not exactly praying to saints, 2 Maccabees 15 does have saints in heaven (Jeremiah the prophet and Onias the high priest who had died earlier in the book) praying for the people in a “dream to be believed” by Judas Maccabeus. In it he is given a sword which will curse his adversaries. It’s clear from this passage that the people at the time believed that the saints in heaven, this being Onias and Jeremiah, could at least know about the difficulties that the Jews were having, as well as intercede.
In the story of the rich man and Lazarus Abraham communicated with both the rich man and Lazarus and had intimate knowledge of how they lived their lives. Where did he learn all of this?
Furthermore he’s not dead.
At the Transfiguration Jesus is there with Moses and Elijah, and the three Apostles Peter James and John all see them. Jesus also said
In the story of the rich man and Lazarus Abraham communicated with both the rich man and Lazarus and had intimate knowledge of how they lived their lives. Where did he learn all of this?
Furthermore he’s not dead.
At the Transfiguration Jesus is there with Moses and Elijah, and the three Apostles Peter James and John all see them. Jesus also said
They’re not dead. They’re living. Not only that but “they are like the angels in heaven” and angels most certainly can help us and hear us.
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Zundrah
Guest
How is it then that I cannot pray to my nan? How are we sure that we are praying to a Saint? Are they in heaven? Are they like angels now? Why can we pray to them?
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Tomster
Guest
Okay Zundrah, here we go.
We pray for another as Christians, thus acting - in a sense - as mediators. The saints who have died are included in this process, since they are more alive that we are, as is evident in their activities in the Book of Revelation. God is Creator, but He gives us the privilege of procreation, in childbirth and parenthood. Jesus is the “chief” Shepherd of His flock (John 10:11-16; 1 Peter 5:4), yet He assigns lesser shepherds to watch over His own (John 21:15-17; Ephesians 4:11). And He is the supreme judge, but He bids us to judge as well (Matthew 19:28; 1 Corinthians 6:2-3; Revelation 20:4). Several Biblical passages indicate a sort of mediatorship among believers (1 Corinthinians 9:22; Ephesians 3:2; 1Timothy 4:16) and our working together with God (1 Corinthians 3:9; 2 Corinthians 6:1).
None of this is contrary to Jesus being the sole Mediator of our salvation in the ultimate sense, because it is all THROUGH Him, and entirely ENABLED by Him, and is the APPLICATION of His grace to us (just as prayer plays a role in the distribution of God’s blessings or favors). The saints in heaven were never intended by God to be cut off from the Body of Christ on earth. This is observed in their many interactions with those on earth, as the Biblical passages llisted below.
1Samuel 28:12-15
Jeremiah 15:1
2 Maccabees 15:14
2 Maccabees 15:13-16
Matthew 17:1-3
Matthew 22:30 with Luke 15:10 and 1 Corinthians 4:9
Revelation 5:8
Revelation 6:9-10
Revelation 11:13
Catechism of the Catholic Church # 's 946-948, 954-963, 2673-2679 and 2683
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ambrosegirl84
Guest
Yes, that makes sense to me. It also makes sense to me that asking for intercession from a saint is like asking a friend to pray for you. That’s how it was explained to me…that since we have eternal life, that it’s okay to ask a friend in Heaven to pray for you like you would a friend on Earth.
But alas, my “sola scriptura” relatives beg to differ…
But alas, my “sola scriptura” relatives beg to differ…
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Zundrah
Guest
(I don’t have a cathechism! How can I look these up?)
P.S. Thank you very much for getting these for me!
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Zundrah
Guest
Amen!
What is sola scriptua!?
I’m from a Methodist Church, but I’ve never heard of solar scriptura!?
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Tomster
Guest
The saints in heaven are more alive than you or I. They see God as He is and are united to Him forever.
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Dan_Parker
Guest
So because they are united to God, then when someone prays to them, God hears it and tells them?
Dan
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Tomster
Guest
Go to a local bookstore, find a Catholic Catechism on the shelf and stand there and read it.(I don’t have a cathechism! How can I look these up?)
P.S. Thank you very much for getting these for me!
I do it all the time when I have a particular question in mind and I am out and about.
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Zundrah
Guest
My local book stores (chirstian ones anyway) are Anglican and do not have even a Catholic bible in them!
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