Protestant view of depared loved ones..

[BamaRider]

I tend to avoid the Catholic/Protestants threads, because many on here are better equipped to enter that arena.

Do the mainline Prostestant Churches (Baptist, Methodist, Presby.) view praying to the Saints and the Holy Mother as useless? If so, I still hear many of them say, “I sometimes go to the cemetery to spend time with my mother.” Why? She can’t hear ya according to your beliefs. Maybe she does, but only hears those who are kin to her?

I’m NOT saying they are wrong to “talk” to their deceased loved ones, but just trying to follow their logic. They lament Catholics for asking the prayers of the Blessed Mother, the Holy Saints, “why do y’all pray to a bunch of dead guys?” But will turn right around and say they spend time with deceased loved ones in thought, which if you get technical, is prayer. They can hear your thoughts about last years fishing trip, but asking them to pray for me is not right?

Praying for, and sharing prayers with our deceased loved ones, is unique to the Catholic Faith, and helps identify us, but unkowningly shared by many. I live in the heart of the bible belt. Most rural churches have a cemetery out back.

A few years ago, I attended my converted wife’s family reunion. They are rural southerners, and staunchly Protestant, the event was held at a small rural Baptist Church, where generations of her family lay buried. It is called “Decorations Day.” A day set aside for placing flowers, and cleaning up the cemetery in general.

While gathered around the graves of my wife’s grandparents, aunts, and uncles, I said, “y’all know, honoring the dead is a Catholic teaching. We pray for our dead everyday, and ask those who have gone on before us to bless, pray, and keep us in their thoughts. If you believe your dead are in no position to help you, and can’t hear you, what is the point of this? Why come here?” To which none could respond.

My Godmother (aunt) was the most Holy person I ever knew. She was at my Baptism, 1st Communion, Confimation, Wedding. I spoke at her Funeral Mass. I asked for her prayers when she on this earth with, and ain’t nothing changed in the 10 years since she died. How great it is for us Catholics to have that.

It is a common thing in Alabama to see someone strolling the cemetery of a Protestant Church, and you are going to have a hard time convincing me *none *of them are talking to their deceased loved ones?

There have been times I wanted to leave my path, pull my motorcycle over, walk to them, and fully explain the power of the gesture.

 

[vocatio]

Very good post. When I was on the other side, this life of course, we thought that was it. I’ve been to a few of those cleanup parties. It was a way to fellowship while still honoring those that passed, especilly if they were your parents. I think it’s psychologically played out to remind us that someday we too will be judged eternally. However, it only came to my understanding as an older person that my baptist family beleived once saved always saved. The faith I belonged to prior to coming back home to Catholicm taught that that was it. I’d love to share a long painful story, but it’d be far too much for a post. It involves how to honor my living mother while hurting me, writing out of a will, brother’s suicide, her death and how I dealt with it. In a nutshel, I had no options and my wife didn’t have the conscience to understand that we are to honor our mother and father. Her faith taught that if you choose evil, that it. You cut em off. My MOM! But she’s my mom. I have to honor her, even if she causes me pain. The military chaplain used her funeral as a come to Jesus meeting by describing the bleak life she lived. It was embarrassing, but true.

She and my brothers adopted father [caught that?] kept telling me to not believe everything I read in that bible. She didn’t go to church but hated the thought of me looking into the priesthood before I finally met my wife. She told me I did a good job, but later treated us both like trash, and threw us out one night, unknowingly pregnant at the time. She propped up a Will on the table clearly citing me and older brother out of their will right after telling us of her terminal illness. I forgive her, but it was crewl. it was her way of having the last jab even after death.

Older brother commited suicide a year and a half later. He left a very bleak sounding note, but then deleted it from his computer. My brother and I recovered it with a technique I learned. So now both are dead. Nothing but an empty space in my heart. I’m not allowed to cry over them, because they chose hell. 3 years later, my brothers stepfather dies, 8 months later my dad dies, they’re burning in hell with my grandparents now if you go by what I’m being told. I’m struggling with the hole thing. 2004 my FIL, a good man and Christian, dies. He must be in heaven because he was an elder in our church. I nearly have a break down. Much of my family is gone and the only one in heaven, most likely, is my father-in-law. That’s when I through out that only that group was saved. It seemed wrong. blah blah blah…The day I realized the church was truly apostolic changed my heart from dark black to bright red. The thrill of the posibility of all of them being in heaven, especially my Catholic family, just brought so much warmth to my heart. I pray everyday as often as I think of them. I’m just sad that my grandmother and dad didn’t get a change to see me come home while they were here. I would apologize for being an idiot.

 

[Publisher]

I pray for those who have been Called back to the Presence…and at times I ask them to pray for me…to me they are part of that “great cloud of witnesses” to cheer us on and keep our names before the Lord.

Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican aren’t the only traditions who accept the “communion of saints”…we are all alive in Christ…while it is not necessarily a stressed “doctine” among Friends, when we enter into the “Living Silence” we do so knowing that we are together “This Side” with those “Other Side” in the Presence.

We have been taught to boldly approach the Throne of Grace…we are taught to go before God in confidence that we have His ear…He knows our needs and thoughts before we even ask, we are an “Indwelt” people, so the idea of going through someone else is foreign to us…we appreciate their prayers…and sometimes we may call on a loved one to “listen to us” as they listened to us when they were on “This Side”…they are someone we are familiar with and sometimes we long for their arms around us or just to sit quietly with us…but we realize they are now “in the Presence” and we are sharing in that same Presence lifting our hearts in praise, intercession and simply “being still” and “knowing.”

IMO, those of us in other faith traditions do not deny the “communion of saints”…it is something we don’t necessarily find a need to express with the same importance as those who’s faith traditions stress it through the Creed…we have access to God…to the Light Within…and this Light Within is what joins us with those who have gone on before.

Just my perspective…while we may not use the words many Catholcs use or Orthodox use…the concepts aren’t foreign to us…some of the “outward forms” you use may be…but the concepts of our “connectedness” are not foreign…at least to me.