How and why to pray through Mary?

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LilyM said:
Praying to the saints isn’t just about asking for favours or attention, any more than praying direct to Christ or the Father is. It’s also about acknowledging and giving thanks for the merits the Saints have achieved through God’s grace, and the example they have set us, and the good that their intercession does for us (since, like Mary at Cana, they intercede whether we ask them to or not).
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Do the saints need us to give them a ‘well done’?
 
Eilish_Maura said:
We are totally free to ask for prayers, and freer still to pray for others -but Paul’s own actions does not make me ‘wrong’.

It almost looks like you have this only counts if you are asking for stuff.
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Well, I occasionally inadvertently fall into the trap common to many of us, of overgeneralising and associating prayer only with intercession. As I indicated in a previous post, of course prayer is much more than intercession, and I didn’t mean to give the impression that I was only thinking of intercession.

Moving on to St Paul, what we need to understand is that he didn’t merely suggest or say it was a nice idea to pray for, to and with others, any more than Christ Himself merely suggested or said it was a nice idea that we pray in the first place. Both of these are given more or less in the form of orders or commands, things that are essential for anyone who would follow their teaching. And praying to and with others, for whatever reason, is essential to the unity of Christ’s body. Christ wants us to be close with our fellow Christians with the closeness that He and the father share, which is difficult without shared prayer!

More importantly, if you want to be a true follower of Christ, as St Paul was, and follow their example, why would you quibble about whether such things were out-and-out commands or not? Wouldn’t you want to do them anyway?
 
Eilish_Maura said:
Do the saints need us to give them a ‘well done’?
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No, and Christ doesn’t either, nonetheless we are given by Him a model of prayer that is about praise and thanksgiving as well as petition. It is good for us to be thankful and grateful for the good things God gives - to us and to others - regardless of whether it’s strictly necessary.

For me to have a relationship with anyone - friends, parents, spouse, Christ or the saints - I need above all to communicate with them. It may be to ask them for things, it may be just to talk about what’s on my mind at that moment, or to say thanks or well-done. Communication is necessary, but it obviously can’t and mustn’t all be about asking for favours.
 
Beliefs must stand to at least some modicum of reason. Now, i’m going to walk through this and place hypothetical extensions in parenthesis:

1) God’s word is either universally true for all times and places or it is not (if, however, it is not universally true, then God is not perfect in all areas and all times and therefore is not worth worshiping… ergo, God’s word MUST be universally true in all times and places)

2) God commands that we pray for one another (this means that, per point 1, in all places and times, all the living must pray for others)

3) there is life after death or there is not (either we believe God’s word that those who die in the grace of God have eternal life or we doubt the word of God. If we doubt the word of God, then what point is there in worship? ergo, there IS life after death)

4) Heaven is a place and a “time,” though that time is different in nature from ours in a sense that we cannot know… such as it may be an eternal present. (If this is the case, then by extension from point 1 God’s command to the living applies in heaven as well).

Conclusion: Heaven is a place in time where the LIVING saints who have been judged worth by the Grace of God reside. Because they are ALIVE in heaven where the UNIVERSAL command of God to pray for others without ceasing is in effect there is absolutely NO reason whatsoever to believe that they cannot or would not pray for us. Now that we have logically proven that the saints in heaven MUST be praying for us (else violating the command of God) then throw it back on your protestant friend to prove, at least scripturally, that they aren’t.
 
I like to use the logic approach. Follow this line of thought:
  1. Is God’s word eternal (perhaps requiring explanation that if God’s word is truely perfect, then it is perfect for all time and… by extension… applicable at all times)?
    They again should answer yes.
  2. Is God’s word universal (explaining, if God’s word is perfect and true, it should be applicable throughout the universe and in all places, including heaven and hell)?
  3. If 1 and 2 are true, Then can we safely say that God’s word is good and holy and to be followed by ALL christians alive or dead (obviously we’re not allowed to stop following the will of God just because we’re dead and in heaven, right?)?
  4. Does God tell His followers to pray for each other fervantly and without ceasing?
  5. If 3 and 4 are true, then we KNOW the saints MUST be praying for us in heaven, as they are commanded to do so and, since 1 and 2 are true, then we know that that command extends both universally and eternally.
  6. Is it also acceptable for us to ask Christians around us to pray for our needs and wants?
  7. When we die, if we go to heaven are we still alive in Christ?
If 5, 6, and 7 are true, then by extension we arrive at one conclusion. 7 shows that saints are living participants in the Christians faith. 6 shows that it is acceptable to ask living participants who are following God’s command to pray for one another for specific prayers, and 5 proves that the saints fit perfectly into that category.

Thus by logical exegisis as well as scriptural one either affirms that the saints do pray for us in heaven, or that God’s word is not universally or eternally applicable (thereby one states that there is a flaw to God’s word, and therefore God’s word isn’t perfect). The ONLY logical conclusion is the catholic truth.

When I was Protestant, I had massive problems with the view many Protestants have that when we die, we’ll just go to heaven and live in bliss, in a new world, no longer heeding what goes on at Earth at all. I knew that for myself, simply as a matter of conscience, I’d have to be interacting with people on Earth or at least praying for them. I couldn’t just enjoy paradise while my fellow believers suffer.

The Epistles say that when one member of the body suffers, all of the body suffers, and therefore when one member of the Body of Christ suffers, all suffer. Therefore people in heaven will feel pain and distress on behalf of people on Earth, and will care about what is going on down there. And if they have that much intimacy of experience with what is happening on Earth, why wouldn’t they at least pray?

The idea of some kind of disconnecting barrier between heaven and Earth made no sense to me. I didn’t go so far as to pray to saints, of course, but I did believe that they were praying for us.

Prayer is really just communication. When I’m praying to God, I’m just talking with him. When people in the scripture encountered angels and talked with them, that was also a form of prayer. No different from what I always did talking with God, anyway. I appealed for angelic protection, so in that sense I was already praying to angels, or at least for the protection of angels. Prayer to saints is no more peculiar than that. Like angels, they are also disembodied spirits serving God.

The main issue for some Protestants with this, I guess, is that the protocanonical scriptures don’t talk about praying to saints very explicitly. Except when Jesus talked with Moses and Elijah. There are other passages that imply it too, like Revelation 20, which says that during the millennium, the souls of the saints would receive life and would reign over the Earth with great authority. And Daniel 7 talks about saints in spirit form wielding authority on Earth in the time of Christ’s kingdom.

So there are proto-canonical scriptures that imply communion with saints after death. The deuterocanonicals are much clearer. But talking with angels is very present in both, and it’s really no different from prayer. You listen to an angel, you learn, and the angel protects you and intervenes in matters on the behalf of the saints. And you talk to your angel, which no one says there’s anything wrong in doing. You might ask the angel for their aid, which is also fine.

We need to know that prayer is just communication. It isn’t always worship, though one can worship while one prays. Many Protestants think that prayer automatically involves worship, but it doesn’t, any more than talking with an angel means you’re worshiping him.
 
LilyM said:
Well, I occasionally inadvertently fall into the trap common to many of us, of overgeneralising and associating prayer only with intercession. As I indicated in a previous post, of course prayer is much more than intercession, and I didn’t mean to give the impression that I was only thinking of intercession.

Moving on to St Paul, what we need to understand is that he didn’t merely suggest or say it was a nice idea to pray for, to and with others, any more than Christ Himself merely suggested or said it was a nice idea that we pray in the first place. Both of these are given more or less in the form of orders or commands, things that are essential for anyone who would follow their teaching. And praying to and with others, for whatever reason, is essential to the unity of Christ’s body. Christ wants us to be close with our fellow Christians with the closeness that He and the father share, which is difficult without shared prayer!

More importantly, if you want to be a true follower of Christ, as St Paul was, and follow their example, why would you quibble about whether such things were out-and-out commands or not? Wouldn’t you want to do them anyway?
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The OP’s concern, expressed in the opening post, was praying THROUGH the saints and Mary (intercessory prayer).

Some have turned that concern into rejecting the Communion of Saints and ignoring Jesus’ and the Churches commands to us.

I don’t get it – if a person does not want to go through the saints (Mary included) they don’t have to - and they can do so without rejecting anything the Church teaches or requires.
 
LilyM said:
No, and Christ doesn’t either, nonetheless we are given by Him a model of prayer that is about praise and thanksgiving as well as petition. It is good for us to be thankful and grateful for the good things God gives - to us and to others - regardless of whether it’s strictly necessary.

.
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Jesus taught us all that about praying TO the Father - which is not what the OP expressed an issue with.
 
Peter_Da_Rock said:
I like to use the logic approach. Follow this line of thought:
  1. Is God’s word eternal (perhaps requiring explanation that if God’s word is truely perfect, then it is perfect for all time and… by extension… applicable at all times)?
    They again should answer yes.
  2. Is God’s word universal (explaining, if God’s word is perfect and true, it should be applicable throughout the universe and in all places, including heaven and hell)?
  3. If 1 and 2 are true, Then can we safely say that God’s word is good and holy and to be followed by ALL christians alive or dead (obviously we’re not allowed to stop following the will of God just because we’re dead and in heaven, right?)?
  4. Does God tell His followers to pray for each other fervantly and without ceasing?
  5. If 3 and 4 are true, then we KNOW the saints MUST be praying for us in heaven, as they are commanded to do so and, since 1 and 2 are true, then we know that that command extends both universally and eternally.
  6. Is it also acceptable for us to ask Christians around us to pray for our needs and wants?
  7. When we die, if we go to heaven are we still alive in Christ?
If 5, 6, and 7 are true, then by extension we arrive at one conclusion. 7 shows that saints are living participants in the Christians faith. 6 shows that it is acceptable to ask living participants who are following God’s command to pray for one another for specific prayers, and 5 proves that the saints fit perfectly into that category.

Thus by logical exegisis as well as scriptural one either affirms that the saints do pray for us in heaven, or that God’s word is not universally or eternally applicable (thereby one states that there is a flaw to God’s word, and therefore God’s word isn’t perfect). The ONLY logical conclusion is the catholic truth.

When I was Protestant, I had massive problems with the view many Protestants have that when we die, we’ll just go to heaven and live in bliss, in a new world, no longer heeding what goes on at Earth at all. I knew that for myself, simply as a matter of conscience, I’d have to be interacting with people on Earth or at least praying for them. I couldn’t just enjoy paradise while my fellow believers suffer.

The Epistles say that when one member of the body suffers, all of the body suffers, and therefore when one member of the Body of Christ suffers, all suffer. Therefore people in heaven will feel pain and distress on behalf of people on Earth, and will care about what is going on down there. And if they have that much intimacy of experience with what is happening on Earth, why wouldn’t they at least pray?

The idea of some kind of disconnecting barrier between heaven and Earth made no sense to me. I didn’t go so far as to pray to saints, of course, but I did believe that they were praying for us.

Prayer is really just communication. When I’m praying to God, I’m just talking with him. When people in the scripture encountered angels and talked with them, that was also a form of prayer. No different from what I always did talking with God, anyway. I appealed for angelic protection, so in that sense I was already praying to angels, or at least for the protection of angels. Prayer to saints is no more peculiar than that. Like angels, they are also disembodied spirits serving God.

The main issue for some Protestants with this, I guess, is that the protocanonical scriptures don’t talk about praying to saints very explicitly. Except when Jesus talked with Moses and Elijah. There are other passages that imply it too, like Revelation 20, which says that during the millennium, the souls of the saints would receive life and would reign over the Earth with great authority. And Daniel 7 talks about saints in spirit form wielding authority on Earth in the time of Christ’s kingdom.

So there are proto-canonical scriptures that imply communion with saints after death. The deuterocanonicals are much clearer. But talking with angels is very present in both, and it’s really no different from prayer. You listen to an angel, you learn, and the angel protects you and intervenes in matters on the behalf of the saints. And you talk to your angel, which no one says there’s anything wrong in doing. You might ask the angel for their aid, which is also fine.

We need to know that prayer is just communication. It isn’t always worship, though one can worship while one prays. Many Protestants think that prayer automatically involves worship, but it doesn’t, any more than talking with an angel means you’re worshiping him.
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This seems like major overkill given how simple the OPs opening post is.
 
iaskquestions said:
I am a Catholic. But in my childhood I was bombarded with Protestant beliefs and ideologies.

I’m still a Catholic though. But, to this day I find it difficult or sometimes even silly to pray through Mary or the saints.

I pray to Jesus and the Father. And I’m heard. So why should I pray through Mary or the saints? How can I be sure that St.“so and so” is hearing me? And what’s the advantage of doing that when I know Christ hears me and so does the Father? Or is it that they cannot always hear me?

When did this practice of praying through Mary and the saints begin?
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**It has been my personal experience that some saints ‘reveal’ their desire to intercede for us. Sometimes, we don’t know who the saint is but he or she slowly reveals who they may be to the prayer. Sometimes, people just have a natural affinity or attraction to a particular saint, and things just happen.

It is not necessary to pray through Mary and the saints, although the Church highly recommends the practice. It is comforting to know that there is a Church Triumphant who prays for us eternally.

The practice of intercession of the saints immediatley began with the advent of the Church. Go to the catacombs below Rome and you can see writings where early Christians asked for prayers from those who have passed on.**
 
Without Mary there would be no Jesus. Ask yourself, do you only accept your Father and not your Mother, because your Father did not give birth to you, your Mother did. So do we then dispense with her after we have had our uses from her? no we do not. We pray to Mary because of our love of God, she stands for the very being of Jesus Christ.
We pray to her as she is Patron of much, we pray to Saints because they are Patrons of much. Mary and the Saints ate Patrons of all different causes and they all are representatives of God. The same as a Priest is a representative for God and will relay messages and explainations to the masses on behalf of God. Messengers is a key word here because Mary, Saints, Priests, we all are messengers. We honour the Saints because they died in whatever way be it persecution or old age, they died while working for God, making it a better place for the future generations, spreading the word of God into future generations.
We honour Mary, God said Honour they Father and thy Mother. God is our eternal Father Mary is our eternal Mother.
 
Peter_Da_Rock said:
Beliefs must stand to at least some modicum of reason. Now, i’m going to walk through this and place hypothetical extensions in parenthesis:

1) God’s word is either universally true for all times and places or it is not (if, however, it is not universally true, then God is not perfect in all areas and all times and therefore is not worth worshiping… ergo, God’s word MUST be universally true in all times and places)

2) God commands that we pray for one another (this means that, per point 1, in all places and times, all the living must pray for others)

3) there is life after death or there is not (either we believe God’s word that those who die in the grace of God have eternal life or we doubt the word of God. If we doubt the word of God, then what point is there in worship? ergo, there IS life after death)

4) Heaven is a place and a “time,” though that time is different in nature from ours in a sense that we cannot know… such as it may be an eternal present. (If this is the case, then by extension from point 1 God’s command to the living applies in heaven as well).

Conclusion: Heaven is a place in time where the LIVING saints who have been judged worth by the Grace of God reside. Because they are ALIVE in heaven where the UNIVERSAL command of God to pray for others without ceasing is in effect there is absolutely NO reason whatsoever to believe that they cannot or would not pray for us. Now that we have logically proven that the saints in heaven MUST be praying for us (else violating the command of God) then throw it back on your protestant friend to prove, at least scripturally, that they aren’t.
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plain and simple jesus wants us to trust him, weve gotta be on a need to know basis, otherwise wed all be gods, and if u think that then create your own universe, and your creatures can believe what u want them to believe, we dobviously dont know everything jesus said and did, and mary for one would know alot better, also his deciples, and jesus annointed st peter to carry on his church, u either trust him or u dont. catholic doctrine is good enough for me.
 
LilyM said:
I can’t believe you still imagine God and His teaching is confined to the written page. Give me just one chapter and verse where we are told to ignore oral teaching and tradition and only focus on the written word?
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revnash said:
Without Mary there would be no Jesus. Ask yourself, do you only accept your Father and not your Mother, because your Father did not give birth to you, your Mother did. So do we then dispense with her after we have had our uses from her? no we do not. We pray to Mary because of our love of God, she stands for the very being of Jesus Christ.
We pray to her as she is Patron of much, we pray to Saints because they are Patrons of much. Mary and the Saints ate Patrons of all different causes and they all are representatives of God. The same as a Priest is a representative for God and will relay messages and explainations to the masses on behalf of God. Messengers is a key word here because Mary, Saints, Priests, we all are messengers. We honour the Saints because they died in whatever way be it persecution or old age, they died while working for God, making it a better place for the future generations, spreading the word of God into future generations.
We honour Mary, God said Honour they Father and thy Mother. God is our eternal Father Mary is our eternal Mother.
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None of this was part of the OPs original concern for starting this thread.
 
LilyM said:
I can’t believe you still imagine God and His teaching is confined to the written page. Give me just one chapter and verse where we are told to ignore oral teaching and tradition and only focus on the written word?
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*1 Cor 4:6: Jesus said, “upon this rock I will build My church” and Paul warned: “in building the church, do not exceed scripture!”

Luke 1:1-4: Luke begins by mentioning uninspired gospels by Christians, then the oral tradition of the apostles and concludes that scripture alone will allow Theophilus to know for certain what the truth is.

Matthew 4:1-11. Three times Jesus was tempted by the Devil and each time Jesus replied exactly the same three dangerous words that defeated the Devil: “IT IS WRITTEN” Read it for yourself! If any one could have used oral tradition, it was Jesus, yet he chose the only safe and sure way to defeat Satan: Scripture. We just with that the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches held scripture alone in the same high regard!

2 Timothy 3:16-17: No matter how traditionalists twist it, it still says that scripture alone is all-sufficient to equip us for EVERY good work.

Acts 17:11-12: Even though the apostles were inspired with genuine oral revelation, they always directed people to the scriptures for the final determination of truth. Oral tradition is worthless without the witness of scripture!*
 
Why has the thread been hijacked?

Well I hope the OP got some feedback he/she can use.
 
DebChris said:
“Wherever two are more are gathered, I am there.”
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I think the question is, does it always help? Does God consider prayers quicker and more thoroughly if there are many who are praying the same prayer? Is a single child’s prayer directly to God or Jesus given less consideration because there is only one and not two or more gathered (and thus less power) than a person’s prayers that include the intercession of family, friends, Mary and the saints?
 
Morgana said:
I think the question is, does it always help? Does God consider prayers quicker and more thoroughly if there are many who are praying the same prayer? Is a single child’s prayer directly to God or Jesus given less consideration because there is only one and not two or more gathered (and thus less power) than a person’s prayers that include the intercession of family, friends, Mary and the saints?
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If it is easier and more effective for 2 people to lift something…or three…or four…why limit it?

As important to spiritual growth is…why not get all the help you can? Sure doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pray by yourself.
 
emeraldisle said:
God teaches in His written word that His children on earth are to pray to Him for each other. No where in His written word does God teach His children to ask the departed(those who are absent from the body & present with the Lord) Christians to pray for them.

Again God doesn’t teach in His written word that His children are to ask the departed Christians to pray for them.

Neither does He teach “in His written word” that our Almighty God is Triune, nor does he mention that He will Ascend into Heaven, nor doe he teach “in His written word” that the woman who carried Him for 9 months was Immaculate & sinless.

Gods teaching on how to pray is so important. All Christians must pray the way God teaches them to pray, this is so important.

God doesn’t say in His written word this is how to pray and then add a footnote stating but you are free to pray whatever way **you **want. Christians must pray the way God wants them to pray.

.
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fdmilkis said:
what does physical death have to do with Christian intercession? This world or the next world, all who profess faith in Chris belong to one body and Saints’ role is to intercede for us
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Absolutely. As Catholics, we believe in the “Communion of Saints” and that in addition to us attending Mass, all of those who have passed on before us are there as well. Tthough we can’t see them, they are there just as much as the elderly man who sat to my right and the young Mother & Dad who sat to my left, with their 3 darling children, last Sunday.

I heard once that the reason that the priest takes a few steps back at the beginning of the Roman Cannon, is that he must make room for Our Blessed Lady & the Communion of Saints…who are present with us at every celebration of the Mass. Don’t know if that’s true or just a legend, but I like it.
 
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