Is there any benefit of praying to saints?

  • Thread starter Thread starter VeritasSeeker
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
V

VeritasSeeker

Guest
Hey, The Catholic Church teaches that you dont have to pray to the saints but whats the benefit of praying(asking them to intercede) to saints instead of praying directly to God? Some use the analogy that its just like asking your friends to pray for you. I mean couldn’t you just say something like “All the saints in heaven, please pray for me.”
  • Thanks in advance
 
Personally I don’t see the point. When I ask someone to pray for me it’s just like you said, “Hey, can you pray for me?”. I don’t use elaborate novenas and poetic prayers and candles to request them to intercede for me.
 
St Jude helped me with something I thought was impossible to help with.
 
VeritasSeeker said:
Hey, The Catholic Church teaches that you dont have to pray to the saints but whats the benefit of praying(asking them to intercede) to saints instead of praying directly to God? Some use the analogy that its just like asking your friends to pray for you. I mean couldn’t you just say something like “All the saints in heaven, please pray for me.”
  • Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
No, it’s not exactly like asking a friend to pray for you. Saints are people who have reached a state of holiness in heaven. Their robes have been made white in the Blood of the Lamb. They have passed the tests of this life on earth. They are in heaven with Jesus, totally clean and sinless.

I couldn’t say that in my state right now I’m sinless. I’m trying very hard to become a saint. Everyone is called to become a saint. Just because I have the effects of sin on my soul, my prayers seem less beautiful to God than are prayers from those who have been made totally clean of the effects of sin in heaven.

Saints have attained what I have not. I still cause God pain through sin, since I am not perfected.

We ask saints to intercede for us, because they are closer to God, and holier than we are on earth.

Think of it in this way, it’s abstract, but it’ll do: You want to ask a king if he would grant your request for a favor. If you just ask him in person, he will listen, but how much more will he listen if his mother asks him for you, or his good friends in the royal court?
 
I don’t know yet, because I’m still rather new to all this, but I’m eager to find out. I’m currently praying 2 separate Novenas to St. Francis of Assisi, and also asking the intercession of St. Jude and our Blessed Mother (and also the intercession of my fiance, who passed away several months ago).

The matter is in regards to a friend’s pet (hence St. Francis and my animal-loving fiance), and the issue at this point looks pretty grim (hence St. Jude and Mother Mary). I do feel that their intercession has helped so far, because the owner’s appeal was filed in time and she has received a reprieve until the hearing.

Miz
 
VeritasSeeker said:
Hey, whats the benefit of praying(asking them to intercede)
Click to expand...
It’s actually more beneficial than when you ask the congregation or firends to pray for you. The Bible says the prayer of the righteous avails much and everyone in heaven is more righteous then anyone on earth. BTW, it’s not instead of praying to God, it just the same as when asking the congregation of friends to pray for you.
 
DihydrogenOxide said:
No, it’s not exactly like asking a friend to pray for
Think of it in this way, it’s abstract, but it’ll do: You want to ask a king if he would grant your request for a favor. If you just ask him in person, he will listen, but how much more will he listen if his mother asks him for you, or his good friends in the royal court?
Click to expand...
i for one totally agree with you. BUT if one were to argue: God listens to everyone, people who are influenced by their friends and family is a human trait, not a Holy one…
 
VeritasSeeker said:
Hey, The Catholic Church teaches that you dont have to pray to the saints but whats the benefit of praying(asking them to intercede) to saints instead of praying directly to God? Some use the analogy that its just like asking your friends to pray for you. I mean couldn’t you just say something like “All the saints in heaven, please pray for me.”
  • Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
just checked up on the prayer intentions which I try to to regularly, most important part of CAF to me. also some threads on people dealing with particular problems, who have asked for advice as well as prayer.
think of it this way, you can go on Prayer Intentions and make a general request for prayer from all of us, and I bet all or most of us pray regularly for all those intentions. In any case we don’t know you, you don’t know us but we know you have asked for prayer, so we pray for you.

But some of the threads ask specifically for (name removed by moderator)ut from people who have shared a similar problem–child leaving the church, death of a loved one, illness, loss of job, and so forth–we have many threads like this, and almost always those who respond promise to pray, and do so. But many share their own experiences, offer concrete help, advice or counsel. Sometimes a conversation develops and the person receives helps as well as prayer. Of course God’s response to the prayer is going to be more help than any human can give, but there is an added comfort in knowing you are talking to someone who has shared your situation.

Now think of asking a friend you know, who is part of your life, not an internet stranger, for prayer. That person will walk with you through the trouble, as well as understanding your own individual needs, and offer prayer, friendship, support, a listening ear, sound advice, and a dozen other aids for your needs. You have a relationship. That is what praying to individual saints is like.
 
Job 42:7-10
After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8 Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the LORD had told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer. 10 And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Click to expand...
 
Hey, thanks for the replies. An eccentric question yes, but can’t you just say something like “All the saints in heaven please pray for me” (sincerly)? Instead of asking one or two. I realize that this just not help to establish any relationships with the saints, but…?
  • Thanks in Advance
 
osddso said:
i for one totally agree with you. BUT if one were to argue: God listens to everyone, people who are influenced by their friends and family is a human trait, not a Holy one…
Click to expand...
Take notice to my disclaimer that I had in my post:
Think of it in this way, it’s abstract, but it’ll do
Click to expand...
I disagree with you statement. God listens most to the prayers of those whose wills are joined most completely to His.
 
One of the side effects if you will is that it both gives credence to and makes active the belief that the Church is one. That is that all believers from the newly baptized to those who now see God in Glory are one Body of Christ. You will find among various protestant sects all sorts of teachings sbout the dead. For Catholics the only death that is important is the death of a soul, when it rejects God, and Everlasting life.

So while all the other benefits of the Intercession of the Saints are very important, seeing the Entire Body of Christ, both here on Earth, in Purgatory and in Heaven as one Body, Militant Suffering and Triumphant, and not three separate groups, it I think important for us to live in our daily walk in Faith.
 
I do not pray 24 hours a day and that is why I ask the Saints to pray for me, I need that much help and I know that they will do it. I usually do not ask people to pray for me; however, I am extremely grateful when they do so.
 
Cristiano said:
I do not pray 24 hours a day and that is why I ask the Saints to pray for me, I need that much help and I know that they will do it. I usually do not ask people to pray for me; however, I am extremely grateful when they do so.
Click to expand...
I am reminded of Charlie Brown’s - I need all the friends I can get. 😉
 
VeritasSeeker said:
Hey, The Catholic Church teaches that you dont have to pray to the saints but whats the benefit of praying(asking them to intercede) to saints instead of praying directly to God? Some use the analogy that its just like asking your friends to pray for you. I mean couldn’t you just say something like “All the saints in heaven, please pray for me.”
  • Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Our experience as Catholics in our Communion in Christ which we enjoy with our Blessed Mother and our brothers and sisters the Saints, testifies to an ever-deepening awareness and love of God through their intercession. Far from distracting us from love of the Most Holy Trinity, our unity within the Communion of Saints only fosters greater attentiveness to living faithfully in His Light. One without this understanding of the Communion of Saints will inevitably hold to a truncated version of Christianity.

And a Catholic knows (or should know) that when a particular Saint is honored during Mass it is a thanksgiving to God for the Christ-life that shined through that man or woman and is essentially a praise of God for His work in and through His creature so transformed in Christ. It is also a time for asking God that His grace and mercy which abounded in the life of the Saint be shed on us, that we may live as faithfully in Christ as our brother or sister in Heaven did.

Especially in regards to Mary, since the Church teaches that she is our Mother, then it follows that lack of advertence to her inhibits one’s spiritual growth - as Catholic Saints and theologians teach; this is not unlike one’s lack of attention to and affection for one’s earthly mother inhibits one’s psychological growth.

Further, one should be able to take the clue from the place of Mary in liturgy of the Church - she whom, needless to say, the Church has always invoked and asked for the intercession of in all the the liturgies of the ancient Church, both East and West. Here, it should be noted that being part of the Liturgy held the force of dogma for the ancient Church, especially when an element was universal in nature. There is no Liturgy of the ancient Church that does not invoke the prayers of Mary. The earliest documented example that we have for this is the so-called Sub Tuum Praesidium, dated to about 250 A.D. i.e., while the Church was still a persecuted, underground organization, which was discovered on a papyrus fragment in Egypt. It records the words of an early Christian Liturgy which invoked the protection of Mary during the imperial Roman persecutions, and it reads:

“We fly to your patronage,
O holy Mother of God,
despise not our petitions
in our necessities,
but deliver us from all dangers.
O ever glorious and blessed Virgin.”

So, prayer to Mary and asking for her intercession and protection has always been a part of the public life and practice of the Church, especially in the East; and especially among the Syrian fathers, who were Semitic Aramaic speakers, and thus the closest in culture to the original Jewish Christians.
 
VeritasSeeker said:
Hey, thanks for the replies. An eccentric question yes, but can’t you just say something like “All the saints in heaven please pray for me” (sincerly)? Instead of asking one or two. I realize that this just not help to establish any relationships with the saints, but…?
  • Thanks in Advance
Click to expand...
yes of course we can and do at several points in the liturgy such as the confetior, Eucharistic prayers etc., but you asked why there is also benefit in praying to individual saints. do we properly understand your question? are you asking, on this forum, specifically for scriptural basis for praying to the saints?
 
Thanks for all the answers, im not asking for scriptural evidence(its there) for asking the saints to intercede, and there is a benefit to praying to the saints because they are more righteous then us, are sinless, in heaven, and closer to God. And i think in liturgies All the saints are asked to intercede for us. But i have another question. What then is the benefit of asking 1 or 2 saints to intercede for us, as oppossed to just saying something like “All the saints in heaven please pray for me.” would that not be more efficacious?

-Thanks in advance
 
This sounds sacriligious, but what I don’t understand: Why aren’t the saints just praying for us, without our asking?

Why would Mary NOT pray for us unless we were praying to her for her intercession?

Yes, Pope Benedict says (In Jesus of Nazareth) that it is our right and duty to pray for our needs.

Right, I just don’t understand it completely either. It seems to be cultic in nature, more than anything else. Why else are there more Italian saints than any other country? “Pull”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top