Do evangelists believe that saint are in heaven and can see us?

[TheBreak]

English is not my native language, I’m sorry for any misspellings.

My sister seeing the Christ and she also saw saint Mary, she showed up to her only when my sister was sad and in very emotional pain. also she saw the Christ and 15 saint around him and also they was teaching her the bible and faith.

Anyway, Do the evangelists believe in all that? Do they believe that saints can show up to people and do what they did?

 

[TimothyH]

I think you mean Evangelicals, not evangelists.

Evangelicals do not, for the most part, believe in the Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints and intercessory prayer. Rather, they believe that when one dies they go straight to heaven or hell and have no further contact with the material world. Since the dead in heaven cannot experience our sin, they are correct in that one sense.

But Catholics believe that the saints can hear our prayers and intercede for us.

What your sister saw was for her only, and not for anyone else. She is free to believe that what she saw was real or believe that it was her own imagination, but if it is real then it is only for her because God showed it to her only and not to anyone else. . What your sister thinks she saw is called a “Private revelation” and no christian should be concerned one way or the other about it.

Personally, I am sceptical of such things. I have thought that I have seen things like this, but I prefer to dismiss them as my own overactive imagination. I don’t think God will be insulted if I am very careful and if I distrust myself, but prefer to seek knowledge of God through what God has chosen to reveal through his Church.

-Tim–

 

[R_C]

English is not my native language, I’m sorry for any misspellings.

My sister seeing the Christ and she also saw saint Mary, she showed up to her only when my sister was sad and in very emotional pain. also she saw the Christ and 15 saint around him and also they was teaching her the bible and faith.

Anyway, Do the evangelists believe in all that? Do they believe that saints can show up to people and do what they did?

Anything born after the so-called “reform” in 1500 basically deviates from Catholicism by removing parts of Scripture and Tradition and adding man-made ideas. Since there are over 40,000 such communities, honestly I don’t quite know what each of them believes.

I do know what the fullness of the Christian tradition is, as preserved and taught by the Catholic Church. Yes, we have always believed (in fact, it has been part of our Profession of Faith since around 300 AD) in the Communion of Saints, which includes:

• the living people in a state of grace (Church Militant)
• the holy souls in a state of purification, in Purgatory (Church Penitent)
• the holy souls before the Beatific Vision in Heaven (Church Triumphant)

When we say in our Profession of Faith: “I believe the Communion of Saints”, we mean that we believe that each of us, living people (regardless of whether we are alive or not, since in Christ we all live forever) pray for one another and intercede for one another. And while it is not very common, the Lord does allow both souls from Purgatory and from Heaven to visit some of us sometimes.

The Catholic Church has extensive experience with this mystical phenomena over 20 centuries, and usually the best thing to do would be to speak to a priest in confession and ask for spiritual direction on these matters. Sometimes it has happened that pure spirits take the form of the Lord or His holy ones to subtly deceive people, and this has happened even to very holy saints, so it is good to approach a priest and discuss these matters. This is pleasing to Christ, and when we read the biographies of the friends of Christ who experienced such visions, we find that even during those times when the confessor suggested that they did not speak to the vision, Christ himself would gladly comply with the confessor’s request and direct the person to be very obedient to his superiors on these matters, even and above what He himself would say, for they were His ministers and He acted through them.

And as mentioned above, sometimes our mind can actually be responsible for many things…this is not just a skeptical remark, but a very prudent one…and you find similar prudent remarks in the writings of s. John of the Cross, who is honored as the “mystical doctor” of the Church. So we shouldn’t always presume that everything that looks supernatural is supernatural.

Anyways I pray that your sister and you are drawn closer to Christ and to His Church

 

[ltwin]

Anyway, Do the evangelists believe in all that? Do they believe that saints can show up to people and do what they did?

I assume you are referring to Evangelical Christians, who are adherents of the pan-denominational Protestant movement known as Evangelicalism. An evangelist, on the other hand, is a person who evangelizes.

Before I get into your question, let me just say that Evangelicals do not pray to saints. We do not pray to Mary, the Mother of God. We only pray to God the Father, God the Son, the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity together. We believe that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us. We also believe that Christ is at the right hand of the Father interceding for us.

When it comes to visions and private revelation, different types of Evangelicals will give you different answers.

There are some Evangelicals who would tend to rule out all manner of modern day miracles and supernatural revelations. These tend to be cessationists. In their case, any supernatural vision of any kind would be suspect.

Other Evangelicals, such as Pentecostals and those inclined to more charismatic spirituality, will accept that supernatural visions and revelations continue to the present day. They would believe that an individual could receive a vision of Christ or angels or other spiritual beings. However, the individual would be cautioned to test such visions, because demons can take the form of angels of light and thereby attempt to deceive even the godly.

As a Pentecostal, I was always cautioned that seeing visions of deceased persons was most likely a demonic delusion. This is also the explanation for such phenomenon as ghosts. After death, a human spirit is either in the presence of God in some undefined intermediate state, or the human spirit is in hell.

Therefore, when Evangelicals do claim to receive visions, it will most likely be of Christ or angels.