Personal relationship with Jesus Christ

[PBPGNFWMY]

Why pray to the saints in heaven when we can pray directly to Jesus Christ? Short answer: “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16) and there are no men more righteous than the saints in heaven.

Longer answer: We pray to the saints in heaven because their personal relationship with Jesus Christ is more perfect than ours and, consequently, their prayers to Jesus on our behalf are more efficacious than our own prayers directly to Jesus.

Suggested reading: James 5:14-18.

I read this, it says nothing of saints in heaven.

Suggested reading: Acts 9:13,32, 26:10 Romans 16:2, Eph 4:12, 5:3, Phil 4:21
Conclusion: Christians with a pulse are saints (it’s just what the Bible says…no offense).

I realize that the above descriptions are gross simplifications. But the fact remains, humans impose our own expectations and norms upon a “personal relationship” with Jesus. I believe–and I say this with fear and trembling–that many “personal relationships with Jesus” are human-driven rather than Christ-driven.

And your “gross simplifications” are only your theory. I have never found this to be true. Generally, when people have been deprived of love from their families it is through and to Jesus they can finally open up emotionally. In my case, I had had a very strained relationship with my father so it is so wonderful to be able to show my heavenly father the love that I was made to give to a father. I have seen men that are emotionally distant come alive emotionally when worshiping God and women that have had nothing but heartache from the men in their lives love Jesus with all their heart. To say they are human-driven is just not true–of real believers. That’s not to say there are many Protestants out there going through the motions…but no more than many Catholics.

I would ask Paul why he sometimes didn’t “go straight to the source” as you put it.

The HUGE difference here is that he is asking other ALIVE people to pray for him…I am not saying we shouldn’t pray for one another…never have…not the issue. I’m talking about praying TO saints which I established is actually the case in my previous post (it must have been established because no one refuted it and instead Protestantism in general was attacked–a defense strategy that takes attention off of the real issue–no offense–it’s simply fact).

When I read comments like this, I sometimes wonder why protestants even bother to go to church. One does not need other people to have directe access to God. If that’s all that’s needed–Jesus and me–why bother with church, congregation, pastor, all of that communal and community stuff? Why pray for each other, or ask others to pray for you?

The Bible commands that we go to church. This link says it more simply than I could:
gotquestions.org/church-attendance.html

I strongly disagree with the concept of a “personal relationship” with Christ. Clearly Scripture is at odds with the notion of Christ having a personal relationship with each member of the multitudes he preached to. For example, He only explained his parables to a select few and the Last Supper was not a Las Vegas-style buffet meant to feed a crowd. Tradition speaks of the Church’s relationship with Christ. Clearly the nature of our relationship to Christ is meant to be corporate, not personal.

As I have been accused of many times, “you don’t know what the RCC actually teaches”…

 

[Cat]

So here’s my question:

If Catholics are to have a personal relationship with Christ and this is achieved through prayer, why do we need Mary and the saints to intercede?

It sounds to me like you don’t want discussion or explanation, just an answer to your question.

So here’s the answer to your question: we don’t need Mary and the saints to intercede.

 

[Teflon93]

It sounds to me like you don’t want discussion or explanation, just an answer to your question.

So here’s the answer to your question: we don’t need Mary and the saints to intercede.

A corrollary might be, “If you have a personal relationship with Christ, why do you talk with anybody else (your spouse, your friends, etc)?”

It is at heart a rather silly question.

Protestants believe in an afterlife, and believe that those rewarded with heaven will live with God there. What is so hard to get about actually trying to communicate with those who have gone before us?

I visited my father’s grave and introduced him to my wife, who he had not met before passing away. Do Protestants do nothing like this? My Protestant family did.

Having a relationship with Christ does not mean one somehow is barred from communicating with those beloved of Christ.

It is the same deal with Protestants who heap scorn on Mary and Marian devotion. They cannot seem to understand that Christians ought to love whom and what Christ loved. They do so for love of Martin Luther and John Calvin and Zwingli, themselves long dead.

It is an odd thing indeed.

 

[Cat]

Teflon 93, I was raised evangelical Protestant and just converted to Catholicism a few years ago.

Most evangelical Protestants do NOT have anything to do with those that they consider “dead.” They might visit graves and lay a wreath.

But they don’t “talk” to their loved ones who have passed on. If they do, they consider it a “psychological crutch” that will pass as they grieve. They don’t really believe they are talking to their loved one. Sometimes they ask Jesus to please tell their loved one that they miss him/her. But they wouldn’t tell their loved one this.

Evangelical Protestants consider it a sin to try to communicate in any way with those who have passed on.

Of course there are exceptions. But most evangelical Protestants will not try to communicate with the dead, except in the throes of grief.

 

[Teflon93]

Teflon 93, I was raised evangelical Protestant and just converted to Catholicism a few years ago.

Most evangelical Protestants do NOT have anything to do with those that they consider “dead.” They might visit graves and lay a wreath.

But they don’t “talk” to their loved ones who have passed on. If they do, they consider it a “psychological crutch” that will pass as they grieve. They don’t really believe they are talking to their loved one. Sometimes they ask Jesus to please tell their loved one that they miss him/her. But they wouldn’t tell their loved one this.

Evangelical Protestants consider it a sin to try to communicate in any way with those who have passed on.

Of course there are exceptions. But most evangelical Protestants will not try to communicate with the dead, except in the throes of grief.

Really? My wife was a devout Pentecostal for years and talked to her grandmother after she passed.

 

[rtconstant]

PBPGNFWMY you seem confused. You are dying. Those in Heaven have life eternal. So if I had to pick between the prayers of you a sinful, dying and weak person (not a dig as all of thoese things apply to me as well) and one who is now without sin, eternal and in full communion with God. Guess who I’d pick? Only earthly things can die my friend.

 

[rwoehmke]

Lots of interesting back and forths on this, but it all leaves me with one question. If a personal relationship with Christ is the end all and be all, why do protestants and other non-catholics bother to belong to a Faith Community? Seems like that mere action gives the lie to having a personal relationship only with Christ. In short when they say this they are “pulling your leg” and don’t know what they are talking about.

 

[DB_AND_ALI]

It is both. Most practising Catholics say private prayers as well as attending public worship.
A few of us are called to be hermits and spend our lives in solitude, but only a very few. For them the “personal relationship with Jesus” is all-important. But for most of us, our faith is expressed largely in our social lives. The Protestants are not entirely wrong, but they’ve got the balance wrong, or rather the rhetoric of the “personal relationship with Jesus” does not match the realaity of quite tightly controlled collective gatherings.

Thanks for this comment…it made me think that perhaps this is why my good protestant friends don’t seem to have a problem moving from one church to another…it’s more about ’ the personal relationship ’ with them than about ’ the power of a community church ’ joined in prayer Sunday after Sunday [and everyday !!!].

 

[Schabel]

I certainly agree that we Catholics need a personal relationship with Jesus, but let me expound on what others have said here by paraphrasing something I heard Dr. Hahn discuss a couple of years ago.

We do need a “personal relationship” with Jesus, but we need far more than that. I have a “personal relationship” with my doctor, with my barber, with my auto mechanic. That’s all well and good, but we need (and were COMMANDED to) go beyond that - we need to have a covenental relationship with Christ.

That is precisely what the sacraments, most especially the Eucharist, provide for us.

 

[Schabel]

I read this, it says nothing of saints in heaven.

Nope, but it doesn’t exclude saints in heaven either, does it?

Suggested reading: Acts 9:13,32, 26:10 Romans 16:2, Eph 4:12, 5:3, Phil 4:21
Conclusion: Christians with a pulse are saints (it’s just what the Bible says…no offense).

No offense, but you’re reading something into the text that isn’t there, based upon your own tradition.

Where does it say that Christians without a pulse are NOT Saints?

In fact, Jesus addresses this issue in all three synoptic gospels. For instance, in Mark’s Gospel, He says:

Mr 12:26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?
27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."

The HUGE difference here is that he is asking other ALIVE people to pray for him…I am not saying we shouldn’t pray for one another…never have…not the issue. I’m talking about praying TO saints which I established is actually the case in my previous post (it must have been established because no one refuted it and instead Protestantism in general was attacked–a defense strategy that takes attention off of the real issue–no offense–it’s simply fact).

OK, so you’re changing your argument from your original premise.

 

[scriabin]

“I pray thee, keep thy counsel good knight…”
“I pray thee, my liege, send horses and armor.”

These freely quoted Shakespeare lines demonstrate that when someone uses “prayer” it doesn’t exclusively mean “talk to God.”

Look it up in a dictionary and you’ll see that it also means “petition and supplication, especially to one of higher status.”

This is how Catholics use the term “I pray to the saints in heaven.”

And, yes, they are dead to the world, but I guess the HUGE difference is that we pray (ask, petition) to people ALIVE IN CHRIST for their intercession.

2 Thess 2:15-- “Stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.”

We Christians have always believed in the intercession of the Saints because this was handed down by the apostles. Check out the Early Church Fathers for their witness.

 

[Teflon93]

Nope, but it doesn’t exclude saints in heaven either, does it?

No offense, but you’re reading something into the text that isn’t there, based upon your own tradition.

Where does it say that Christians without a pulse are NOT Saints?

In fact, Jesus addresses this issue in all three synoptic gospels. For instance, in Mark’s Gospel, He says:

Mr 12:26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?
27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."

OK, so you’re changing your argument from your original premise.

Didn’t Moses and Elijah appear to Christ as well? If so, where did they come from? Why did he speak to them?

 

[Todd_Easton]

I read this, it says nothing of saints in heaven.

James 5 speaks of the efficacy of the prayers of righteous men, which surely includes the saints in heaven, “the spirits of just [righteous] men made perfect.” (Hebrews 12:23).

See 2 Maccabees 15:11-14 for a description of two deceased saints praying for the living.

 

[GandalfTheWhite]

If Catholics are to have a personal relationship with Christ and this is achieved through prayer, why do we need Mary and the saints to intercede?

I sometimes ask my dad to talk to my mom about some issues conrning myself (and vice verse). I have a good personal relationship with her but that doesn’t mean that I can’t use the benefit of my other good friends when trying to get something.

 

[Philthy]

The Bible commands that we go to church.

Commands? I’m callin you out on this one. :yup: Go to your link below and pull out the verse that “commands” us to go to “church”. It will be a very, very weak attempt I assure you.
Sorry, but Scripture alone will not get you to Church on Sunday.
PBP...:

This link says it more simply than I could:
gotquestions.org/church-attendance.html

This appears to me to be a dodge. How hard is it to explain where the bible says we are commanded, or even instructed to go to “chruch”. The link says very little - it is less than half a page - and what it does say is not supported by the verses it provides. It is fluff, not substance - honest.

Lastly, a personal relationship with Jesus is, well, a personal thing. It is not something to impose a definition on or an expectation into. The nature of the relationship between any two people is always different. Some relationships stress the emotions, some stress the time spent together, some stress the accomplishments together.
It is not clearly expressed in Scripture. Different people will look at different verses as an expression of the essence of a “personal relationship”. For example, some will look to “Come to me all you who are burdened” and see their relationship as one of comfort from a cruel world; some will see “come to me all who hunger/thirst” and see a relief from earthly poverty while others will see it as a spiritual release; some will look to “whoever has my commands and observes them is the one who loves me” and see the obedience of faith as the predominant element of their “personal relationship” with Jesus. It is all of these things, to varying degrees, for each of us. It is also a call to be part of a large family - the family of those who do the will of the Father. Some of that family is with us during our earthly struggles and some of them have passed to eternity - but they are all still part of the family of God. Asking any of them to pray for us is not unreasonable. When you consider that they can spend eternity doing so while we are encumbered with mundane things like eating, working and sleeping it makes more sense. It is not a necessity, but then again, you go to church and you cant demonstrate that it is necessary either.

 

[Schabel]

IThe Bible commands that we go to church. This link says it more simply than I could:
gotquestions.org/church-attendance.html.

One thing caught my eye as I was reading this linked page:

When a person trusts Jesus Christ for salvation, he or she is made a member of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).

It’s interesting how this author, whom you obviously endorse, doesn’t understand what Paul is saying here.

It isn’t JUST trusting in Jesus that makes us members of Christ’s body. In fact, just a few paragraphs above, Paul tells us WHY we’re members of Christ’s body:

1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

If Catholics are to have a personal relationship with Christ and this is achieved through prayer, why do we need Mary and the saints to intercede?

Think of it as a dinner party.

 

[nilofc]

When I read comments like this, I sometimes wonder why protestants even bother to go to church. One does not need other people to have directe access to God. If that’s all that’s needed–Jesus and me–why bother with church, congregation, pastor, all of that communal and community stuff? Why pray for each other, or ask others to pray for you?

If you believe that it’s OK to have a church family, then consider that Catholics just have a very large extended family.

I wonder how they marry? Do they just hold hands and look up in the sky and say “God marry us!” and boom… they’re married. Direct access to God right?

They always say, Jesus is the only mediator to God but I think they missed that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but also God the Son.

As the scriptures said “The fervent prayers of a rightheous person is very powerful” They are missing this very important insight in not seeking for the assistance of the saints.

 

[JimG]

Teflon 93, I was raised evangelical Protestant and just converted to Catholicism a few years ago.

Most evangelical Protestants do NOT have anything to do with those that they consider “dead.” They might visit graves and lay a wreath. . . . .

. . . Sometimes they ask Jesus to please tell their loved one that they miss him/her. But they wouldn’t tell their loved one this.

I once knew a devout protestant lady–not sure of what denomination–who used to visit her husband’s grave and literally talk to him for long periods of time.

I never inquired if there was a particular theology behind this.

The thing I find somewhat odd is that most evangelicals believe that one can have an assurance of salvation. Presumably, if their deceased friends and relatives were ‘saved,’ they must be in heaven. So why the reluctance to speak to someone who is in heaven?

Catholics believe that a declaration of sainthood is infallible, and as such is evidence that the particular saint is in heaven. So we speak to them with some assurance of being heard.

(Now, if someone claims to be carrying on a two-way conversation, that would be considered a private revelation at best or self-delusion at worst.)

 

[DB_AND_ALI]

I once knew a devout protestant lady–not sure of what denomination–who used to visit her husband’s grave and literally talk to him for long periods of time.

I never inquired if there was a particular theology behind this.

The thing I find somewhat odd is that most evangelicals believe that one can have an assurance of salvation. Presumably, if their deceased friends and relatives were ‘saved,’ they must be in heaven. So why the reluctance to speak to someone who is in heaven?

Catholics believe that a declaration of sainthood is infallible, and as such is evidence that the particular saint is in heaven. So we speak to them with some assurance of being heard.

(Now, if someone claims to be carrying on a two-way conversation, that would be considered a private revelation at best or self-delusion at worst.)

I have problem with the entire process the church has regarding sainthood…what would happen for example if the church decided that Mother Teresa is not a saint and makes a declaration stating this as fact. Would i , as a catholic , have to believe this is as an absolute truth ? My gran was a very humble and devout Catholic…do i need the churches permission to believe that she is in heaven. Also why the necessity of ’ proving ’ miracles through a person before sainthood is granted ? I personally see this as a lack of faith when we look for signs of a miracle. To my mind miracles are happening around me everyday…like when a baby is born or a person with cancer is prayed for , and is suddenly healed.
Or have i missed the boat here…please do not shoot me down with your responses ; the church must be able to stand up to scrutiny and challenges from it’s members !