Catholic Prayers- How Do They Work ?

[Hiskid1973]

I have always wondered how the prayer works. For example say I have a request for a friend that is a believer who has injuries from a car wreck…

I pray: Lord I come into Your presence and magnify Your name. Lord our are our Savior and also our healer…Lord I lift up Tom to You ,surround him with Your peace that passes understanding…Quickly heal up his breaks. Lord use this to teach him if he needs to learn something and mature because i know all things work together for good for those who love You and are called according to Your will…Thank you Lord for Your faithfulness to us…In the matchless name of Jesus…Amen

I see response’s with just your hail Mary prayer some over and over…I am curious how that works. I know God knows what we pray even before we pray and that we are to pray and communicate to Him and pray fro those around us… I wonder why some don’t go right to Abba Father/Jesus for we are to come boldly to the throne with our petitions…Thanks for comments…I’m here to learn, not to ridicule,Grace and peace to you…Kim

 

[ralphinal]

I have always wondered how the prayer works. For example say I have a request for a friend that is a believer who has injuries from a car wreck…

I pray: Lord I come into Your presence and magnify Your name. Lord our are our Savior and also our healer…Lord I lift up Tom to You ,surround him with Your peace that passes understanding…Quickly heal up his breaks. Lord use this to teach him if he needs to learn something and mature because i know all things work together for good for those who love You and are called according to Your will…Thank you Lord for Your faithfulness to us…In the matchless name of Jesus…Amen

I see response’s with just your hail Mary prayer some over and over…I am curious how that works. I know God knows what we pray even before we pray and that we are to pray and communicate to Him and pray fro those around us… I wonder why some don’t go right to Abba Father/Jesus for we are to come boldly to the throne with our petitions…Thanks for comments…I’m here to learn, not to ridicule,Grace and peace to you…Kim

Basically, what you see is a fraction of the story. Catholics DO pray just like you in that case. That is the most common way. When you see a prayer to a saint (or hear one), it is a request that the saint pray with us for that intention.

It is exactly the same as me telling you that a friend of mine was in a wreck and needs your prayers. Sure, I can go directly to God (and would), but I know that the prayers of the rightous accomplish much.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Um, perhaps your problem is that you assume that Catholics **only **pray in set formulas and that they never pray in other words. . .and you also assume that the ‘set formulas’ never are prayed with deeper meaning.

When I pray the Hail Mary, not only am I remembering that “Hail full of grace” is from Luke chapter 2 (and that Luke is one of the four evangelists, for example), I also am picturing Mary receiving the word that she will bear the Son of God. I picture her setting out to see Elizabeth who greets her with the words, "and who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me? I picture the fruit of Mary’s womb, Jesus; an unborn child, and thus I also pause to remember all the unborn children today especially those in danger of death from abortion. I remember Mary as holy and then think of all those striving to be holy, in following Jesus. I think of how we all should be praying, now and through our lives, uniting our prayers with all Christians through all time, and all for God’s glory.

So, wanna tell me how my ‘hail Mary’ doesn’t mean anything and is a vain repetition? Because that’s just one way in which I meditate on Hail Mary. There are many, many more ways in which I contemplate our Lord and God during this prayer, depending on whom I am saying it for and why.

 

[Hiskid1973]

Basically, what you see is a fraction of the story. Catholics DO pray just like you in that case. That is the most common way. When you see a prayer to a saint (or hear one), it is a request that the saint pray with us for that intention.

It is exactly the same as me telling you that a friend of mine was in a wreck and needs your prayers. Sure, I can go directly to God (and would), but I know that the prayers of the righteous accomplish much.

Thanks…I just have a ? Do you think when he said that it meant those who have gone on to be with the Lord or living believers ?

 

[Jay53]

And to add to what Ralph said, how much more effective do you think our prayers will be to God when we add them to the prayers of Jesus’ own Mother and the saints in Heaven? To me, it’s kind of like getting as many people to pray with you as possible - not just sinners here on earth, but also the saints in Heaven.

 

[Hiskid1973]

Um, perhaps your problem is that you assume that Catholics **only **pray in set formulas and that they never pray in other words. . .and you also assume that the ‘set formulas’ never are prayed with deeper meaning.

.

Man I sense a little unsettledness for an honest ?..I get in prayer threads and see the same people praying the same thing all the time…Just curious how that prayer works…

 

[ralphinal]

Thanks…I just have a ? Do you think when he said that it meant those who have gone on to be with the Lord or living believers ?

There is no such thing as a non-living believer. I know you did not say that exactly.

Jesus made it clear that God is the God of the living and not the dead. Those united in Christ, though they die on earth, are alive in heaven. Further, both Jesus and Revelation show us folks in heaven that are aware of the earth below (in Jesus’s case, those in Hell were, too).

If those who are in Christ are alive, then how much more rightous can they be?

 

[Hiskid1973]

There is no such thing as a non-living believer. I know you did not say that exactly.

Jesus made it clear that God is the God of the living and not the dead. Those united in Christ, though they die on earth, are alive in heaven. Further, both Jesus and Revelation show us folks in heaven that are aware of the earth below (in Jesus’s case, those in Hell were, too).

If those who are in Christ are alive, then how much more rightous can they be?

I have no problem with the spirits of saints gone on and a great cloud of witnesses…I’m just wonder who you thought he meant when he wrote
it…Like living believers are righteous (in God’s eyes) or he was talking about those gone on…

 

[Tantum_ergo]

No, I’m not unsettled. I guess perhaps your ‘senser’ needs adjustment!

 

[Hiskid1973]

No, I’m not unsettled. I guess perhaps your ‘senser’ needs adjustment!

Just the way you phrased the sentence " assumed and all’ like I’m’ some wise guy just trying to cause trouble… I asked what I felt was an honest ? from what I have observed here and what I read in the scripture and observe in my walk in Christ…

 

[Tantum_ergo]

if you re-read you’ll see I said perhaps. and in no way did I impugn your honesty.

 

[Hiskid1973]

if you re-read you’ll see I said perhaps. and in no way did I impugn your honesty.

Opps your right, my bad…I’m a little slow…I fell from a railcar years ago…My back hit the rail and my head/shoulders hit the macadam… Wasn’t to good for my head …Could have went with Jesus but it wasn’t my time…

 

[puzzleannie]

I have always wondered how the prayer works. For example say I have a request for a friend that is a believer who has injuries from a car wreck…

I pray: Lord I come into Your presence and magnify Your name. Lord our are our Savior and also our healer…Lord I lift up Tom to You ,surround him with Your peace that passes understanding…Quickly heal up his breaks. Lord use this to teach him if he needs to learn something and mature because i know all things work together for good for those who love You and are called according to Your will…Thank you Lord for Your faithfulness to us…In the matchless name of Jesus…Amen

I see response’s with just your hail Mary prayer some over and over…I am curious how that works. I know God knows what we pray even before we pray and that we are to pray and communicate to Him and pray fro those around us… I wonder why some don’t go right to Abba Father/Jesus for we are to come boldly to the throne with our petitions…Thanks for comments…I’m here to learn, not to ridicule,Grace and peace to you…Kim

HI very good question
your example means you have to make up some words, some of which are a formula often used “we lift up ----, Father God, in the matcheless name of Jesus” etc. and some which are your own thoughts–and notice that in this type of prayer we often have the tendency to dictate to God what we think should be done for this person. Catholics fall into the same trap all the time. for instance sometimes during Daily Mass we are invited to add our own prayer petitions to those prayed for the whole church: “Dear Lord, please make John stop running around with that slut at the truck stop and return to his faithful wife Doris and get off his duff and get a job.”

The way Catholics might pray for special intentions like your friend is this: we have a rosary group that meets at our church to pray weekly for all the sick of the parish and for everyone who enters their intention in a book kept in back of church for this purpose. There are too many to read them all, so the leader just says,
Lord we offer this prayer to you, through Mary, for all of the intentions listed in this book, in Your Name we pray, and
then recite the rosary together.

Pay particular attention to the Hail Mary prayer: what is the centerpiece? the Name of Jesus, the hinge of every prayer. It is not vain and repetitious in the manner of the heathen to repeat the Holy Name. The prayer echoes the passages in Luke’s gospel that relate the annunciation and visitation, the time when Jesus the Son of God entered human history, took on our likeness, and took on our sin and sorrow.

If you entered the home of the king to ask him for anything, would you ignore his mother who is in the same room?

 

[Tyrel777]

Here’s an easy answer.
Several times in the NT, it says that both Christ and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.
Paul even says that “the Spirit intercedes for the saints” but in that context he means that, true Christians (denomination doesnt matter) have the gift of the Holy Spirit through Christ so that we may truly be directly connected with God and that all true believers (in accordance with Scripture) are sanctified by the Blood of Christ as it is written “in the blink of an eye”.
Paul is saying, all believers, those who are sanctified by Jesus, who CHOOSE to repent and CHOOSE to be baptized in following Him, are SAINTS.
we can’t claim someone IS in Heaven especially since one of the “saints” (forgot his name…) was a pagan his whole life. he was simply NAMED a saint because he was (pushed to be) the head of the Church of England. its all really sandy foundation my friend.
God doesnt hear hollow, scripted, robotic prayers. He hears the Holy Spirit groaning for us when we dont even know what to pray (Romans 8).
the Bible teaches that Christ, by his death and resurrection, built a BRIDGE for us! to be directly connected to God!
but…i have seen and learned for myself that the Catholic dogma teaches Christ died to built a DOCK… to which we must be carried by saints, Mary, and priests and whoever.
THIS brother, its the GOOD NEWS!!!
Hope this helps you!!!

 

[Hiskid1973]

Thanks for helping me try to understand…The veil was torn, we boldly approach the throne. Jesus is at His right hand…I humbly present my case…My High Priest is right there praying for me…All from scripture…Honest…

 

[ralphinal]

I have no problem with the spirits of saints gone on and a great cloud of witnesses…I’m just wonder who you thought he meant when he wrote
it…Like living believers are righteous (in God’s eyes) or he was talking about those gone on…

He was talking about both. Those who have died on this earth while part of the Body of Christ are as alive and aware as either of us. Actually, more so