How do I pray to a saint?

[onegirlinchrist]

Hi All,

I’m new to Catholicism…RCIA couldn’t start soon enough!

I’d really like to pray to some saints. Do I simply say, “Dear St. ?, please pray for me for such-and-such reason. Thank you, Amen.”

Would that work?

Along those lines, how do Catholics typically (in private prayer), close a prayer to God? Must you say “in the name of Jesus Christ,” (as I was raised doing in a different denomination) or can you simply finish on an Amen?

Thank you!

 

[AndyP2010]

A single Amen should do. Most Catholics usually invoke the Trinity by making the sign of the cross both before and after prayer. Oh and yes it would be St name of saint pray for us.

 

[Eduardo06sp]

You can pray anyway you want.
Personally, I like sticking to scripted prayers to saints. But making up your own prayers does not make them any less successful.

If you’re interested, just google a saint’s name along with “prayer” or “novena”. I found that novenas (nine days straight) are the most common saint prayers.

You can also invoke a saint by saying, “St. *, pray for us”. I like doing that when praying for someone.

 

[ClearWater]

Hi All,

I’m new to Catholicism…RCIA couldn’t start soon enough!

I’d really like to pray to some saints. Do I simply say, “Dear St. ?, please pray for me for such-and-such reason. Thank you, Amen.”

Would that work?

Along those lines, how do Catholics typically (in private prayer), close a prayer to God? Must you say “in the name of Jesus Christ,” (as I was raised doing in a different denomination) or can you simply finish on an Amen?

Thank you!

Yeah, that would work.

There are different ways. We believe the saints died, but we believe they live. So the same way you can ask me to pray for you or I can ask you to pray for me, you or I can ask a saint. Well, it’s easier for a saint, because he/she is already in heaven and isn’t restricted by all the things we are.

A lot of times, our prayers will vary depending on who we are praying to for intercession. To give you an idea, here’s one example of a prayer to St. Michael.

ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/michael.htm

Do you see what I mean?

You can do a search on the saint, and there are usually already some standard prayers to help you get started. You can also invent you’re own, whichever you prefer.

Good luck!

 

[MarianCatholic]

I would say: Just talk to them really.
They are Our relatives (so to say) in Christ and should be treated and approached in such matter as well.
Im impressed With Your attitude towards praying to the Saints as you havent even begun RCIA yet
it makes me so happy to hear about Your passion for the Catholic faith.

I have to admit that I myself havent gotten used to pray to Saints yet.
I have prayed to them in the past (mostly St Joseph and Mary Magdalene), but it didnt feel Natural for me to do so.
Hopefully I`ll get used to it at some point or another as they play a (name removed by moderator)ortant role in many catholics lifes.

Do you pray to Mama Mary?
I think she is the best Place to start if you dont already pray to her a lot that is
And She answers, trust me

The Holy Rosary are a tremendous gift given by Our heaventhly mother.
it is the most powerfull prayer in the entire chruch except from mass.

As for closing Your prayer.
I usually just say Amen or though him Christ Our Lord.
Its really up to yourself

When it comes to prayers to Mama Mary I usually Close my prayers With a few Words of veneration, such as "you dearest Queen who allways walk With me and guide me on Your Sons Our Lords paths, in you I trust my faithful, loving and tender Mama Mary. Please hear and answer my prayer oh sweetest Mom. Amen.

Create Your own prayers, they are the most genuine and heartfelt prayers anyway
As for praying to the Saints it may be smart in the beginning to mention Jesus often during Your prayers to avoid worshiping the Saint Your praying to (trust me it may happen be axcident). It worked well for me at least (but as I said I dont pray alot to the Saints anyway). As a former Lutheran I struggled a lot With it in the beginning.

I hope you found something helpful somewhere along all my rant.

May God be With you on Your Journey of faith.
RCIA is so challenging and exciting, look forward to it

Yours in Jesus and Mary

• MarianCatholic

 

[Glacies]

In addition to answers already given you might want to look here for examples.

 

[trickster]

Just curious. Have you thought about WHY, you want to pray to a saint? Does it make one feel more Catholic?

Saints are simply people who the Church is sure are in heaven. It’s not just about praying or talking to them as one poster said, it is about taking a look at their life. How did they live in relation to their geographical place, historical time and circumstances of their day.

I guess praying to saints is comfortable for a lot of people…but I prefer to pray to Our Lord and Our Lady. I do have informal discussions with saints if I am reading about their book and would ask them what they were thinking when i read about something I found weird…or I’d talk to them about how neat something they did was and …well … ask them for their take on a situation I am dealing with…like they are relatives now and they have the ability to converse in a manner way beyond their physical limitations during life.

Hope that helps…

Trickster

bruce

 

[onegirlinchrist]

You can pray anyway you want.
Personally, I like sticking to scripted prayers to saints. But making up your own prayers does not make them any less successful.

If you’re interested, just google a saint’s name along with “prayer” or “novena”. I found that novenas (nine days straight) are the most common saint prayers.

You can also invoke a saint by saying, “St. *, pray for us”. I like doing that when praying for someone.

Ah, I’ve heard the term novena, but didn’t know what it meant. Thanks! I guess the idea is that persistence pays off?

You know, coming from a Mormon and then Protestant background, I’m not really used to scripted prayers. But being around Catholic liturgy has helped me to appreciate “scripted” prayer, not as a limiting thing, but as a way to spiritually “groom” myself. Good liturgy can help you pray in a more elevated way. It occurred to me that Jesus himself gave us a “script” (The Lord’s Prayer). Looking back on my life, I haven’t always prayed well, or for the right things. A script might have helped!

Earlier today, I went ahead and prayed to some saints just using my words. I was wondering if it would be prudent or right to petition them again, or if I should just pray once. The institution of the novena implies that repeated petitions are encouraged. The Parable of the Persistent Widow comes to mind. As long as you acknowledge God should rightly have His way, I guess it never hurts to keep asking!

 

[onegirlinchrist]

A single Amen should do. Most Catholics usually invoke the Trinity by making the sign of the cross both before and after prayer. Oh and yes it would be St name of saint pray for us.

Thanks! A little Catholic 101 for me is in order, I still need to learn how to properly cross myself. Not that it’s hard, I just forget which direction comes first. Will google.

 

[onegirlinchrist]

Yeah, that would work.

There are different ways. We believe the saints died, but we believe they live. So the same way you can ask me to pray for you or I can ask you to pray for me, you or I can ask a saint. Well, it’s easier for a saint, because he/she is already in heaven and isn’t restricted by all the things we are.

A lot of times, our prayers will vary depending on who we are praying to for intercession. To give you an idea, here’s one example of a prayer to St. Michael.

ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/michael.htm

Do you see what I mean?

You can do a search on the saint, and there are usually already some standard prayers to help you get started. You can also invent you’re own, whichever you prefer.

Good luck!

That was a rather stunning prayer to St. Michael. Is there any reason why a Catholic would choose one approach (standard verses original prayer) over another? Is it purely a matter of what one is comfortable with?

 

[onegirlinchrist]

I would say: Just talk to them really.
They are Our relatives (so to say) in Christ and should be treated and approached in such matter as well.
Im impressed With Your attitude towards praying to the Saints as you havent even begun RCIA yet
it makes me so happy to hear about Your passion for the Catholic faith.

I have to admit that I myself havent gotten used to pray to Saints yet.
I have prayed to them in the past (mostly St Joseph and Mary Magdalene), but it didnt feel Natural for me to do so.
Hopefully I`ll get used to it at some point or another as they play a (name removed by moderator)ortant role in many catholics lifes.

Do you pray to Mama Mary?
I think she is the best Place to start if you dont already pray to her a lot that is
And She answers, trust me

The Holy Rosary are a tremendous gift given by Our heaventhly mother.
it is the most powerfull prayer in the entire chruch except from mass.

As for closing Your prayer.
I usually just say Amen or though him Christ Our Lord.
Its really up to yourself

When it comes to prayers to Mama Mary I usually Close my prayers With a few Words of veneration, such as "you dearest Queen who allways walk With me and guide me on Your Sons Our Lords paths, in you I trust my faithful, loving and tender Mama Mary. Please hear and answer my prayer oh sweetest Mom. Amen.

Create Your own prayers, they are the most genuine and heartfelt prayers anyway
As for praying to the Saints it may be smart in the beginning to mention Jesus often during Your prayers to avoid worshiping the Saint Your praying to (trust me it may happen be axcident). It worked well for me at least (but as I said I dont pray alot to the Saints anyway). As a former Lutheran I struggled a lot With it in the beginning.

I hope you found something helpful somewhere along all my rant.

May God be With you on Your Journey of faith.
RCIA is so challenging and exciting, look forward to it

Yours in Jesus and Mary

• MarianCatholic

That was beautiful, thank you! I really appreciate your encouraging words! Good point about accidentally starting to worship the Saint. Along those lines, are we only supposed to ask Saints to pray for us? Or do we ask them to directly intervene with a situation? Do they have the power to do that, or only to pray for us?

As for it taking time to get used to praying to saints, funny you should mention that. I also didn’t want to try for awhile because it just seemed “too Catholic.” Then my family had some “downs” and I realized we needed all the prayers we could get. Further, I have faith in the authority of the Catholic Church; if they say it’s so, it’s so! So decided to give it a go today! What a nice 20 minutes…

Yes, the Virgin Mary was on my list today. Along those lines, my gateway to Catholicism was Scott Hahn (Catholic author and apologist, he’s fantastic!) He talked about praying to Mary for the first time, (like me, he converted from Protestantism), and then forgot about it, only to see his prayer answered 6 months later. I really do get the sense that Mother Mary listens and answers, based on his story, and yours. Will be most interesting to see what she can do about some of the “tough nuts to crack” on my list of…challenging people

When you say that the Rosary is “powerful,” how so? In what way is praying a rosary more effective than without? Does it have something to do with helping the worshipper meditate on/pray for the right things? I really do think I could use some help in that area. I don’t tend to “sin” in big ways, but the beatitudes, well…I could use a good dose of humility and more charitable love for others. I also don’t “worship” God enough, rather I endlessly petition him for help. Maybe a rosary would help me get my prayers back on track and relate to God in a more humble way.

Thanks!

 

[onegirlinchrist]

In addition to answers already given you might want to look here for examples.

I really enjoyed praying to the Saints today, funny how when you’re a kid it’s like, “oh, now I have to pray.” And now as an adult who so desperately wants not only help, but contact with the divine and a sense of community and just not being in this life thing alone, well…I love to pray. And when I clicked on that link, I thought, “well, there ya go!” Enough prayers to keep me on my knees for a lifetime! lol awesome.

 

[onegirlinchrist]

Just curious. Have you thought about WHY, you want to pray to a saint? Does it make one feel more Catholic?

Saints are simply people who the Church is sure are in heaven. It’s not just about praying or talking to them as one poster said, it is about taking a look at their life. How did they live in relation to their geographical place, historical time and circumstances of their day.

I guess praying to saints is comfortable for a lot of people…but I prefer to pray to Our Lord and Our Lady. I do have informal discussions with saints if I am reading about their book and would ask them what they were thinking when i read about something I found weird…or I’d talk to them about how neat something they did was and …well … ask them for their take on a situation I am dealing with…like they are relatives now and they have the ability to converse in a manner way beyond their physical limitations during life.

Hope that helps…

Trickster

bruce

That’s totally interesting. I never even thought about talking to Saints about their lives, or interacting with them outside of asking for something. That is so cool!

As to why I want to pray to saints, I recently found myself in a situation where it was like, “only the heavens could possibly do something about this.” All human solutions had been exhausted. Figured I could use all the help I could get. The more people praying for me the better, especially if they are perfected and in heaven and can pray for me in a more elevated or pure way than I could pray for myself.

I mentioned to a previous poster that I could sympathize with her being uncomfortable at first with prayer to saints (she was also a convert). While that is true, I must also admit that part of me really liked the idea from the get-go. In fact, as soon as a Catholic explained it as, “it’s just like asking someone on earth to pray for you,” I thought…of course! Prayer to saints just made sense. Especially since we believe that people who die aren’t really “dead.” Their spirits are very much alive. So naturally, why couldn’t we communicate with them?

Also, being someone who loves history and old things, the idea of communicating with a great spirit of the past is just way totally awesome to me. Also, I love thinking there are people up there looking out for me. Along those lines, the catholic idea of everyone having a guardian angel is likewise very comforting. I think my guardian angel protected me today from getting “backed into” by a van…when I was in the parking lot on my way home from morning mass, no less. I prayed to my guardian angel to thank them.

I guess it all boils down to… these days, I could use all the divine help and friendship I can possibly get. Thanks everybody! (points up)

 

[SAVINGRACE]

I have Saints prayer cards (50cents) from the local Catholic bookstore. When I first converted I would read off them. Now I know a couple by heart and sometimes just talk naturally about world/family events, the Church or what’s bothering me.

Personally for me it depends on the situation. I have 5 Saints who I pray to regularly.

I pray the Rosary and St Faustinas Divine Mercy chaplet regularly. I also chat to St JPII the Great. These 3 along with Pope Benedict were responsible for my conversion to the faith. Of that I have no doubt. I feel a real personal and close connection to them.

From time to time I will pray to St Monica to ask for a ‘conversion of heart’ for a stranger/ friend or family member as she is known as a Patron Saint of Conversion. (there are 23 Saints for Conversion) but I like her.

Then there is Saint Benedict Joseph Labre who is a Patron Saint of Homeless. I volunteer with the Rosies Van run by the Diocese for the homeless providing food, drinks, sleeping bags and social contact. I ask him to intercede for the people I meet on those nights.

Other times situations present themselves and you have to do research to find one who suits the situation, such as when I misplaced $1000 in cash, searched for hours couldn’t find it. I rang my good friend in a panic, she simply said ‘Keep calm and and ask St Anthony to find it’. So I did and guess what! I found it within 10minutes of my prayer!! In a place I thought I had already searched multiple times. I rang my friend all excited and thankful and she said ‘you have to publicly thank him now’. (Don’t know if that is the usual practice) But I did with a little Ad in the local paper with a poem dedicated to St Anthony Patron Saint of lost items.

I read St Faustinas Diary several times and have a Saints textbook that I refer to if needed.

 

[littlestsouls2]

Many saints (while they were still living) had close relationships with canonized saints (e.g. St. Gemma and St. Gabriel Possenti; St. Gertrude and St. John; St. Padre Pio and St. Francis of Assisi). From what I have read, they addressed the saints with great familiarity, and always with profound respect. I don’t recall them having concluded their address with “Amen” or anything like that, although I can’t see why that would be wrong. Personally I have never done so, but I have never thought to.

“Dear Little Therese (St. Therese), please obtain for me holy simplicity. Thank you.”

 

[trickster]

That’s totally interesting. I never even thought about talking to Saints about their lives, or interacting with them outside of asking for something. That is so cool!

As to why I want to pray to saints, I recently found myself in a situation where it was like, “only the heavens could possibly do something about this.” All human solutions had been exhausted. Figured I could use all the help I could get. The more people praying for me the better, especially if they are perfected and in heaven and can pray for me in a more elevated or pure way than I could pray for myself.

I mentioned to a previous poster that I could sympathize with her being uncomfortable at first with prayer to saints (she was also a convert). While that is true, I must also admit that part of me really liked the idea from the get-go. In fact, as soon as a Catholic explained it as, “it’s just like asking someone on earth to pray for you,” I thought…of course! Prayer to saints just made sense. Especially since we believe that people who die aren’t really “dead.” Their spirits are very much alive. So naturally, why couldn’t we communicate with them?

Also, being someone who loves history and old things, the idea of communicating with a great spirit of the past is just way totally awesome to me. Also, I love thinking there are people up there looking out for me. Along those lines, the catholic idea of everyone having a guardian angel is likewise very comforting. I think my guardian angel protected me today from getting “backed into” by a van…when I was in the parking lot on my way home from morning mass, no less. I prayed to my guardian angel to thank them.

I guess it all boils down to… these days, I could use all the divine help and friendship I can possibly get. Thanks everybody! (points up)

I totally agree with you. That is why the “Communion of Saints” is such a neat thing that the Church understands through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You are absolutely right in that the more people pray for us the better, on both sides of “curtain” if you will. Many people who do not fully appreciate the intent behind veneration when we - for example - kneel down in front of the Shroud…no one is saying that it is the actual body of Christ, but we bow down I guess to the possibility that at least - at least - this is a man who suffered the same fate as Our Lord did. When we bow down to a statute no one is saying that St This or That is a small “g” god, but a person whom we honor in a very limited format of a position of veneration, honour and respect to the real life experience and challenges a saint here or there who experienced his or her calling in “his or her” place, time in history and cultural realities of the day.

The Communion of Saints is a sad thing for the Protestants and others to walk away from as it is very fundamental to who we are. So, I understand what we are doing here as a Catholic… but I’m not much of a saint man myself I still focus on Our Lord totally. Even Mary takes second place to that…although she can be quite a source of comfort and motherhood for this bratty child Take care.

 

[UnumCorpus]

Hi All,

I’m new to Catholicism…RCIA couldn’t start soon enough!

I’d really like to pray to some saints. Do I simply say, “Dear St. ?, please pray for me for such-and-such reason. Thank you, Amen.”

Would that work?

Along those lines, how do Catholics typically (in private prayer), close a prayer to God? Must you say “in the name of Jesus Christ,” (as I was raised doing in a different denomination) or can you simply finish on an Amen?

Thank you!

Thank you for starting this thread! So far it has lots of good information for me too. Like you, I am not Catholic yet but I want to be.

I’ve always loved the idea of the communion of the saints. Once I even tried to pray to a saint (St Blaise) but I really messed up. I was so used to saying “Lord” in my prayers to God that I accidentally said “Lord” to St Blaise. uch: I was so embarrassed for the longest time…I’m sure God and St Blaise forgave me for that one.

So yes, it does definitely take getting used to…especially if you’re used to saying specific phrases in your prayers to God. It’s hard, especially when you’re coming from a Protestant background. So thank you to everyone for their advice. It’s helpful to a confused Protestant like myself

 

[onegirlinchrist]

I have Saints prayer cards (50cents) from the local Catholic bookstore. When I first converted I would read off them. Now I know a couple by heart and sometimes just talk naturally about world/family events, the Church or what’s bothering me.

Personally for me it depends on the situation. I have 5 Saints who I pray to regularly.

I pray the Rosary and St Faustinas Divine Mercy chaplet regularly. I also chat to St JPII the Great. These 3 along with Pope Benedict were responsible for my conversion to the faith. Of that I have no doubt. I feel a real personal and close connection to them.

From time to time I will pray to St Monica to ask for a ‘conversion of heart’ for a stranger/ friend or family member as she is known as a Patron Saint of Conversion. (there are 23 Saints for Conversion) but I like her.

Then there is Saint Benedict Joseph Labre who is a Patron Saint of Homeless. I volunteer with the Rosies Van run by the Diocese for the homeless providing food, drinks, sleeping bags and social contact. I ask him to intercede for the people I meet on those nights.

Other times situations present themselves and you have to do research to find one who suits the situation, such as when I misplaced $1000 in cash, searched for hours couldn’t find it. I rang my good friend in a panic, she simply said ‘Keep calm and and ask St Anthony to find it’. So I did and guess what! I found it within 10minutes of my prayer!! In a place I thought I had already searched multiple times. I rang my friend all excited and thankful and she said ‘you have to publicly thank him now’. (Don’t know if that is the usual practice) But I did with a little Ad in the local paper with a poem dedicated to St Anthony Patron Saint of lost items.

I read St Faustinas Diary several times and have a Saints textbook that I refer to if needed.

That’s wonderful, I love how the Saints are a part of your daily life and spirituality. Now I feel like my communion with the divine would be needlessly restricted and just missing something, without them! It just feels so right that they are listening to our petitions and aware of us. I like the idea of a prayer card and saints textbook. What textbook do you use, would you particularly recommend it?

 

[onegirlinchrist]

Many saints (while they were still living) had close relationships with canonized saints (e.g. St. Gemma and St. Gabriel Possenti; St. Gertrude and St. John; St. Padre Pio and St. Francis of Assisi). From what I have read, they addressed the saints with great familiarity, and always with profound respect. I don’t recall them having concluded their address with “Amen” or anything like that, although I can’t see why that would be wrong. Personally I have never done so, but I have never thought to.

“Dear Little Therese (St. Therese), please obtain for me holy simplicity. Thank you.”

Ah, that is good to know (about the not having to say Amen part). As a newbie to this, I struggle a bit at changing my prayer language to them, so that I don’t speak to them as I would God the Father. A simple “Thank you” at the end could be helpful to that end. That is very interesting about the close relationships between saints (those on earth during their lifetimes, with a deceased saint). The longer I live, the more convinced I am that people need mentoring and examples. We don’t instinctively know the right thing to do, we need someone to tutor us. In spirituality, it can be no different.

 

[onegirlinchrist]

I totally agree with you. That is why the “Communion of Saints” is such a neat thing that the Church understands through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You are absolutely right in that the more people pray for us the better, on both sides of “curtain” if you will. Many people who do not fully appreciate the intent behind veneration when we - for example - kneel down in front of the Shroud…no one is saying that it is the actual body of Christ, but we bow down I guess to the possibility that at least - at least - this is a man who suffered the same fate as Our Lord did. When we bow down to a statute no one is saying that St This or That is a small “g” god, but a person whom we honor in a very limited format of a position of veneration, honour and respect to the real life experience and challenges a saint here or there who experienced his or her calling in “his or her” place, time in history and cultural realities of the day.

The Communion of Saints is a sad thing for the Protestants and others to walk away from as it is very fundamental to who we are. So, I understand what we are doing here as a Catholic… but I’m not much of a saint man myself I still focus on Our Lord totally. Even Mary takes second place to that…although she can be quite a source of comfort and motherhood for this bratty child Take care.

Thanks for that, and agreed. I’m coming to see that the Protestants are totally missing out. I mentioned this in a response to another poster…more than ever, after my experience of being torn every which way by the “Holy Spirit” within Protestantism, I see that people need guidance and authority. How useful that the Church can discern when someone is in heaven. How helpful that is to us, not only to have someone who can pray for us, but also to see how they lived their faith. Being raised Mormon, I know all about the quest for heaven and self-improvement. But Mormons don’t have Saints, and the church never spoke on whether or not anyone had achieved the “Celestial Kingdom.” It’s like there was a great silence after death; people died, you never knew what happened to any of them. And not knowing who or if anyone actually got there (aside from church prophets), the “Celestial Kingdom” became that much more remote.

I came across a book on Amazon called “Louder than Words: The Art of Living as a Catholic.” Looks great. Examines lives of saints, tries to answer the question of how we can be saints, too. Some very, very amusing things were said about St. Jerome and St. Vincent de Paul, the former being something of grouch…the latter had quite a temper. The Saints were human, isn’t that a relief to know!