Is there any benefit of praying to saints?

[FCEGM]

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

Well, just as we may have special friends we may call upon for prayer, so, too, in the entirety of the Communion of the Saints. When we become familiar with the story of one or more whose life speaks to us and who helps us raise our heart and mind to God in considering their personal stories, then we feel “at home” in their company and so call upon them in times of need and sometimes we can recognize their assitance in our lives. Also, we know that certain saints in their lives aided, intervened, prayed for, certain specific needs, e.g., cancer, employment, healing of relationships, etc., etc., and so they are given to us a companions in the way when these needs arise in our lives. All are our brothers and sisters in Christ, but, some we know better than others.

 

[FCEGM]

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?

Of course Mary and all the Saints - known and unknown - are praying for us. But we, who have not yet entered the Beatific Vision, are encouraged to have specific advertance to Mary and the Saints because they are not anonymous unknown quantities (though most Saints are unknown to us), but are individuals whose influence in our lives is made available by the grace of God.

Asking the intercession of the Saints is realistic humility. God hears everyone’s prayers; He does not thereby grant all that He hears - just as a human father hears all the child pleas of his offspring, but does not always grant them. God grants the prayers of the Just, since they are in a position to be heard and accommodated, their will already being in sync with His. The faithful on earth are quite aware that they are not as pure as the Saints in Heaven. Good Christians are not in a state of sin, but they realistically know they are far from being perfectly in sync with God’s will, but those in heaven are.

And we are humans; which means that we are all in this boat together and not isolated individuals. It is therefore according to our nature created by God to do things together for a common purpose. It is our love for one another that impels us to pray for one another and to want others to pray for us. The Saints are our brothers and sisters who are in God’s Presence; but some people don’t like this interdependence.

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.

It is cultic in nature, but not in the way you are thinking of the term, i.e., perjoratively:

“In recent years. . .societal speech has, regrettably, co-opted the innocuous term ‘cult’ and used it to describe any numbers of aberrant or bizarre organizations that impose inhumane restructions on their members. This usage, not to mention the underlying practices is alien to sound Catholic though,” OSV’s Catholic Encyclopedia, Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Ph.D.

“Cult” is used in the language of the Church to refer to devotion or honor given to a person or persons. It’s even used when speaking of the cult of the veneration of the Eucharist. “The authentic cult of the saints consists not so much in the multiplying of external acts, but rather in the intensity of our active love,” Vatican II: Constitution on the Church

Why else are there more Italian saints than any other country? “Pull”

That has nothing to do with “cult” as you use it, but the popularity within Italy for the known Saints of its history; obviously, having many Italian popes, didn’t hurt, but we saw the truly catholic approach of Pope John Paul II in beatifying and canonizing many outside of Italy.

 

[Monte1945]

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

                                            JMJ

Yes, one can ask all the Angels and Saints to pray for you at the one time…
It is totally up to you as to how you might like to do this… This is one of the
most deepest blessings and help one can have through the Catholic church.

There are so many depths of any and all forms of Sacraments and aids for
not only the Religious but the lay Catholic person as well…

And let me add how nice it is to read the sentiment behind your question.

Calling on the Saints is part of what we call the “communion of Saints”.
and if I might extend my answer for you… In the book of Revelation we
have two places (Rev 5 and Rev 8) which show us that the past members
of the Christian faith are now at the alter of God taking our prayers to
the Lamb of God. And we feel that shows us that our prayers can be
said to certain past Christians or to all of them at once…
(actually in our Masses we all ask all of them to hear our prayers said one there)

Throughout the history of the church… Many of these past Christians who allowed
the Love of God to come through their lives in a very special way… are listed in books
and we can go read about them, and from our studies of them we have found that
during each of their lives each of them seemed to have a very effective prayer for certain problems of the people… and if we have a certain problem we can go look in our books of the saints and find them by name… lets say you are having trouble with a real serious almost impossible cancer healing… one can call on St. Jude as he is the patron saint for impossible causes… as he was very good at that kind of prayer when he was living and prayed for the people during his life time…

When I was a Monk… and lived in one of the largest monasteries here in the States
we were given note books and we were to write down our spiritual thoughts and what we prayed for. It is quite common that the people outside of the Monasteries consider
Monks men of rightous prayers and many many people come and they hand the gate keeper monk slips of paper with prayer requests on them. As a Monk we were given certain of these slips and asked to note them down in our note books and to pray for these people for their prayer requests… and later if there was a good result from that prayer and the people would contact the Monastery and tell them about it. We would be told and we would mark down that result along side of the place we noted the prayer request when it came… At the same time the Abbot would have it noted down in
another book… and if the people would call back the monastery or let them know whether there was a result from that prayer request the abbot would know.
With this system, the Abbot could keep track of how effect our prayer results were.

This system had been in operation for over 1200 years when I was under it… and I think
this is how the church finds out which Saints from the Monasteries are effective in their prayers and for what kind of prayers…

For you interest you might be interested in looking up Fr. Solantis Casey a friar
who was in three or four monasteries in Michigan from about 1885 to the late 1950’s.
which wasn’t that long ago… for he had such a powerful prayer… his prayers were answered more than any other monk known during the last two hundred years.

I think you might find him worth learning of…

if you have difficulty with asking someone to pray for you… Please do a bible search
and study of Moses… there are so many places where he was able to change God’s mind of punishing the people when they strayed from God… Moses was able to pray in their place and actually talk God out of his punishment for them… and of course there is Lot and how he was able to deal with God to not destroy the cities if he could find just one person who would repent…