Praying to the Saints

[phinsbama]

Hi. I am very new to the Catholic Faith and to this forum as well. I was wondering? Is praying to the saints for intercession biblical or handed down tradition? If it is biblical, where can I find it?

 

[pataburd]

The apologetics forum might be more suitable and fruitful for this thread. : )

 

[phinsbama]

Thanks. Posted it there as well. Like I said, kind of new to the whole forum thing.

 

[numealinesimpet]

Hi. I am very new to the Catholic Faith and to this forum as well. I was wondering? Is praying to the saints for intercession biblical or handed down tradition? If it is biblical, where can I find it?

Hello, Phinsbama. I hope you are feeling welcome here.
I am not an expert in any of this, but:
I don’t think there is an example in the New Testament of invoking the saints. But in the catacombs there is an inscription saying in (uneducated) Latin: PETRE ED PAULE PETITE PRO NOBIS - “Peter and Paul, intercede/pray for us”.
May I post the following, which I wrote for the website sites.google.com/site/catholictopics?

From the Early Church

The Catacombs

If you are in Rome, don’t miss the catacombs. The sheer size and extent is amazing. 70,000 Christians were buried there. There was a special chamber for the Popes of the 2nd-3rd centuries, which is still there.

They weren’t actually called ‘catacombs’ by the Christians themselves, but ‘The Cemeteries’. It was the Pagans who called them catacombs - ‘dark caves’.

The Christians didn’t hide in the catacombs. Everybody knew where they were. But being outside the city walls, the Authorities usually couldn’t care less. Occasionally a new Emperor would order them rounded up, and they thought martyrdom was an honour. But they prayed. One wall has scratched on it (in bad Latin!), PETRE ED PAULE PETITE PRO NOBIS - “Peter and Paul, pray for us!” I saw another wall with the word “PEACE” written in Greek - one letter spelt wrongly, and then written over, just like a modern schoolchild!

Eventually, burial in the Roman Catacombs became a status symbol, long after the Persecutions were over.

The priest would say Mass over one of the tombs, with a lamp on each side. Generally it would be the tomb of a martyr, hollowed out above in the form of an arch, to give room. The Sanctuary in Catholic churches built from 4th to mid-20th centuries is a direct copy of a room in the catacombs - the altar against the wall, six feet wide, with relics set into the ‘altar stone’ in the centre, and with a candle at each end. The words of the traditional liturgy, handed down from the Last Supper and these first gatherings in the catacombs, have been preserved to this day in the traditional Latin Mass. The actual Words of Consecration in the Roman Rite (what we normally call ‘The Old Latin Mass’) differ slightly from the words in the Gospels and St Paul. They are clearly an independent tradition, still within the living memory of the Faithful in the catacombs. It is some experience to stand there now and think on these things.

I quote this, phinsbama, to try to convey the sense of immediacy of Tradition that one gains in Rome. It’s all in the family. It’s all still there.

 

[numealinesimpet]

This is a helpful link:

traditionalcatholicism83.blogspot.com/2007/10/invocation-of-saints_31.html

Q. Have you anything else to add in favor of the Catholic doctrine and practice of the invocation of Saints?
A. Yes:

1. That it is agreeable to the Communion of Saints, which we profess in the Creed and of which the Apostles speaks (Heb. 12:12-24).

“You are come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of Angels, and to the Church of the first-born, who are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the Just, made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Testament.”

1. That it is agreeable to the doctrine and practice of the ancient fathers, Saints and Doctors of the Church; and this by the confession even of our adversaries.* “I confess,”* says Mr. Fulk in his Rejoinder to Bristow, p. 5, “that Ambrose, Augustine and Hierome held invocation of the Saints to be lawful …”

This stands upon the same foundation as all other Christian truths, viz., upon the authority of the Church of Christ, which the Scripture commands us to hear, with which both Christ and His Holy Spirit will remain forever, and against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.

S. Augustine wrote, “I would not believe the gospel itself if the Catholic Church did not vouch for it”. This statement is less rash than we might think, when we remember that we have at least the names, and in some cases long extracts, of *more than fifty *fake “Gospels”. (Not to claim that all of them were alleged complete accounts, but they were there, ready to confuse the searcher after Truth). The test of authenticity was unbroken tradition from an Apostle who had founded that particular community, or its direct “parent”.