If demons cannot read our thoughts, how do Angels and Saints hear our silent prayers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter GodHeals
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
G

GodHeals

Guest
Hi,

If demons cannot read our thoughts, how do Angels and Saints hear our silent prayers? Is it due to us being filled with the same Holy Spirit, which transmits the prayers?

Also, Angels and Saints do not themselves answer prayers from heaven, but through their intercessory prayers, and ours, God answers our prayers, correct? So is it wrong to say thank the Angels and Saints for answering our prayers and is it better we say thank you for praying for us? I suppose the same can be said to our brothers and sisters on earth who pray for us, thank you for praying for us, not answering the prayer for us.

Thank you for helping me think through these things!
God Bless You!!!
Brian
 
This is an interesting question, particularly concerning the fallen angels. I have to take off for a couple of hours, but here is an analysis from Aquinas concerning the intellect of angels and demons that may answer the question:

I answer that, The knowledge of truth is twofold: one which comes of nature, and one which comes of grace. The knowledge which comes of grace is likewise twofold: the first is purely speculative, as when Divine secrets are imparted to an individual; the other is effective, and produces love for God; which knowledge properly belongs to the gift of wisdom.

Of these three kinds of knowledge the first was neither taken away nor lessened in the demons. For it follows from the very nature of the angel, who, according to his nature, is an intellect or mind: since on account of the simplicity of his substance, nothing can be withdrawn from his nature, so as to punish him by subtracting from his natural powers, as a man is punished by being deprived of a hand or a foot or of something else. Therefore Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that the natural gifts remain entire in them. Consequently their natural knowledge was not diminished. The second kind of knowledge, however, which comes of grace, and consists in speculation, has not been utterly taken away from them, but lessened; because, of these Divine secrets only so much is revealed to them as is necessary; and that is done either by means of the angels, or “through some temporal workings of Divine power,” as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei ix, 21); but not in the same degree as to the holy angels, to whom many more things are revealed, and more fully, in the Word Himself. But of the third knowledge, as likewise of charity, they are utterly deprived. newadvent.org/summa/1064.htm#article1
 
GodHeals said:
Hi,

If demons cannot read our thoughts, how do Angels and Saints hear our silent prayers? Is it due to us being filled with the same Holy Spirit, which transmits the prayers?
Click to expand...
Reckon so.
Also, Angels and Saints do not themselves answer prayers from heaven, but through their intercessory prayers, and ours, God answers our prayers, correct?
Click to expand...
Reckon so here too. It is Our Lady who dispenses the graces as Mary is the closest to Jesus so it kind of goes that way up the ladder - from saints to Our Lady to God.
So is it wrong to say thank the Angels and Saints for answering our prayers and is it better we say thank you for praying for us?
Click to expand...
I don’t think it is wrong to say thank you ever but thanking them for intercession is the norm. If you just say “thank you” to them I think they pass on that “thanks”! There other threads already though to do with praying to Our Lady.
I suppose the same can be said to our brothers and sisters on earth who pray for us, thank you for praying for us, not answering the prayer for us.
Click to expand...
👍

God bless.

🙂
 
I am not so sure that demons can’t read our thoughts. I think they are attracted by evil intentions. If you invoke an evil power, how else do you do this but through thought? At least thought on some level.

On the other hand, I think the Holy Spirit is closer to us than our own thoughts. Even before we think a thought, God has heard us, and knows the intentions of our own hearts probably better than we know it ourselves.

Who knows though!
 
GodHeals said:
Hi,

If demons cannot read our thoughts, how do Angels and Saints hear our silent prayers? Is it due to us being filled with the same Holy Spirit, which transmits the prayers?

Also, Angels and Saints do not themselves answer prayers from heaven, but through their intercessory prayers, and ours, God answers our prayers, correct? So is it wrong to say thank the Angels and Saints for answering our prayers and is it better we say thank you for praying for us? I suppose the same can be said to our brothers and sisters on earth who pray for us, thank you for praying for us, not answering the prayer for us.

Thank you for helping me think through these things!
God Bless You!!!
Brian
Click to expand...
If demons could read our thoughts wouldn’t that imply that demons were the equals of angels and saints? I don’t think they are equal, I think that angels and saints have the advantage, and reading our thoughts is one of the ways they have the advantage.

On another note, I think Satan has observed us for so long that he probably doesn’t need to read our thoughts to guess what we are thinking, so that advantage may not be as great as we would otherwise think.

If one human being could read thoughts and the other couldn’t, for us that would seem like a huge discrepancy. But it might not amount to much where angels are concerned.

Most of what seems like a huge advantage to us in reading thoughts is probably just because we are both relatively young and inexperienced.

Satan (and his demons) are ancient and hugely experienced. Their guesses as to what is going on within us are likely to be hugely better than ours are. He (they) might even know us better than we know ourselves most of the time. I think we probably still spring the occasional surprise on them though. They aren’t all knowing, although if you could talk to Satan without dying of fear he might seem like he is all knowing to you.
 
Angels are created beings. Since they instruct us not to kneel before them but only to God or Jesus, then wouldn’t the only ones who hears prayers be the Holy Trinity? The Lord hears everything.
 
petersomething said:
I am not so sure that demons can’t read our thoughts. I think they are attracted by evil intentions. If you invoke an evil power, how else do you do this but through thought? At least thought on some level.

On the other hand, I think the Holy Spirit is closer to us than our own thoughts. Even before we think a thought, God has heard us, and knows the intentions of our own hearts probably better than we know it ourselves.

Who knows though!
Click to expand...
I don’t think angels or demons can read our thoughts. Only God can. Demons have very good powers of observation. They watch a man look longingly at a girl, or an un-attended pocketbook and then go to work in tempting him to take the object of that desire. The Guardian Angel also observes the conflict and tries to persuade the man to do the right thing.
Satan didn’t read Jesus’ thoughts in the desert …he just observed His fasting & knew that Jesus would be hungry and vulnerable to the temptation of turning stones into bread.
 
I once read of an exorcist who confirmed that demons can indeed read our thoughts. The priest said that during the exorcism, he prayed silently in French, and the possessed victim at once whipped her head around and looked at the priest and said, “It’s no use praying in French. I know that language, too!”

Secondly, without going into personal detail, I have experienced the fact that the wicked ones can understand your thoughts. I am totally convinced of this and have no reason to doubt it. I think people who insist that the devil doesn’t know our thoughts are just speculating and have grossly underestimated our Adversary. Of course, Our Lord is far stronger, and the devils can only do what He allows.

As for praying to saints, I would always give thanks to both the saint and to God for hearing my prayer, no matter what the outcome.
 
Demons cannot read our thoughts. Only God and Jesus for that matter is capable to actually read our thoughts. However what demons can do is read our expressions and our emotions and feelings which basically is pretty close to reading our thoughts. Same goes for angels and saints they can read our emotions, feelings and expressions. Saints are capable to read our emotions and feelings during silent prayers and can read perfectly our expressions and because of this they do know what we are saying in our prayers.
 
Is there anything authoritative (Scripture or Church Fathers) supporting the premise that demons cannot read the human mind?

ICXC NIKA
 
I would second the wish to see some authoritative standing from the Church and I cannot recall if I’ve seen anything from the Catechism quoted on this before or not though I do recall the subject in passing. As for myself, personal inclination leans towards no one but the Holy Trinity being capable of reading human thoughts except if we were to give others, such as Our Lady, angels and saints explicit permission to do so. I think that is an advantage those would have that Satan and demons would not. I’ve been thinking of that situation with the exorcism which I have heard before and perhaps a couple other exorcist examples of the same thing too and one thing I lean towards on that is the demon being of angelic stock as it were was able to “hear” something sacred which was directed towards them and most likely, the language that it was “spoken” in. I am probably talking through my hat on these subjects and speculating wildly, but it is a nice mental exercise!
 
It is most certainly a demon preying on your sister’s grief. If she is a Protestant, just tell her to command the demon to leave in the Name of Jesus.
 
tdgesq said:
This is an interesting question, particularly concerning the fallen angels. I have to take off for a couple of hours, but here is an analysis from Aquinas concerning the intellect of angels and demons that may answer the question:

I answer that, The knowledge of truth is twofold: one which comes of nature, and one which comes of grace. The knowledge which comes of grace is likewise twofold: the first is purely speculative, as when Divine secrets are imparted to an individual; the other is effective, and produces love for God; which knowledge properly belongs to the gift of wisdom.

Of these three kinds of knowledge the first was neither taken away nor lessened in the demons. For it follows from the very nature of the angel, who, according to his nature, is an intellect or mind: since on account of the simplicity of his substance, nothing can be withdrawn from his nature, so as to punish him by subtracting from his natural powers, as a man is punished by being deprived of a hand or a foot or of something else. Therefore Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that the natural gifts remain entire in them. Consequently their natural knowledge was not diminished. The second kind of knowledge, however, which comes of grace, and consists in speculation, has not been utterly taken away from them, but lessened; because, of these Divine secrets only so much is revealed to them as is necessary; and that is done either by means of the angels, or “through some temporal workings of Divine power,” as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei ix, 21); but not in the same degree as to the holy angels, to whom many more things are revealed, and more fully, in the Word Himself. But of the third knowledge, as likewise of charity, they are utterly deprived. newadvent.org/summa/1064.htm#article1
Click to expand...
Thank you, was looking for an answer of some sort from the Summa. I just wonder though how it all works in the most simple form of language. How do you answer my questions in your own words?
 
boomerang said:
I once read of an exorcist who confirmed that demons can indeed read our thoughts. The priest said that during the exorcism, he prayed silently in French, and the possessed victim at once whipped her head around and looked at the priest and said, “It’s no use praying in French. I know that language, too!”

Secondly, without going into personal detail, I have experienced the fact that the wicked ones can understand your thoughts. I am totally convinced of this and have no reason to doubt it. I think people who insist that the devil doesn’t know our thoughts are just speculating and have grossly underestimated our Adversary. Of course, Our Lord is far stronger, and the devils can only do what He allows.

As for praying to saints, I would always give thanks to both the saint and to God for hearing my prayer, no matter what the outcome.
Click to expand...
Now that I think of it, wouldn’t demons being able to hear our thoughts presuppose demons are omniscient, which only God is understood to be? Because, why would one demon have rights to our thoughts and another demon not? That is why I thought it might be the Holy Spirit linking us all together… or now that i’ve read, some sort of grace.
 
FaustinaJulia said:
I would second the wish to see some authoritative standing from the Church and I cannot recall if I’ve seen anything from the Catechism quoted on this before or not though I do recall the subject in passing. As for myself, personal inclination leans towards no one but the Holy Trinity being capable of reading human thoughts except if we were to give others, such as Our Lady, angels and saints explicit permission to do so. I think that is an advantage those would have that Satan and demons would not. I’ve been thinking of that situation with the exorcism which I have heard before and perhaps a couple other exorcist examples of the same thing too and one thing I lean towards on that is the demon being of angelic stock as it were was able to “hear” something sacred which was directed towards them and most likely, the language that it was “spoken” in. I am probably talking through my hat on these subjects and speculating wildly, but it is a nice mental exercise!
Click to expand...
Now that I recall, I think I have heard those two points in the past…

One–if we give the evil one or his cohorts permission to read our thoughts, they may be able.

Two–if we are praying against them, they are aware of it.
 
bsy said:
Demons can’t read our thoughts BUT if **one directs his mind and will to a demon, the demon can hear him. **

Source: spiritualdirection.com/2013/08/29/can-demons-read-our-thoughts

I have heard this from another exorcist, but can’t find an online quote so I found this instead.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I guess that answers the how, we need to willfully give our thoughts over to an Angel, Demon, or Saint, in order for them to hear us.
Can Demons Read Our Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Father Fortea, can demons read our thoughts?
Click to expand...
No. Though demons can tempt us, they cannot read our thoughts. With their great intelligence, they can guess what we are Demons Read our Thoughtsthinking – but they can never be absolutely certain. As spiritual beings, they are much more intelligent than we are, and as such, they can deduce things with greater accuracy and with fewer external signs than we can. But we always have to remember that demons are outside our souls; only God can truly read the soul. This being said, if one directs his mind and will to a saint, an angel, or a demon, they can hear us. So it does not matter whether our prayer is verbal or merely mental. In certain cases of possession I have observed that the demon obeys orders that have been given mentally.
Click to expand...
Read more: spiritualdirection.com/2013/08/29/can-demons-read-our-thoughts#ixzz3ITrn9iic
Click to expand...
 
GodHeals said:
Hi,

If demons cannot read our thoughts, how do Angels and Saints hear our silent prayers? Is it due to us being filled with the same Holy Spirit, which transmits the prayers?

Also, Angels and Saints do not themselves answer prayers from heaven, but through their intercessory prayers, and ours, God answers our prayers, correct? So is it wrong to say thank the Angels and Saints for answering our prayers and is it better we say thank you for praying for us? I suppose the same can be said to our brothers and sisters on earth who pray for us, thank you for praying for us, not answering the prayer for us.

Thank you for helping me think through these things!
God Bless You!!!
Brian
Click to expand...
They see all things in God, and God grasps all, so they receive such knowledge in Him.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top