Question about Saints...Need help for report!

[clarinetist09]

Hey! As a member of a catholic youth group and about to be a convert from Baptist to Catholic, I was presented a question I had to complete in a report. Here it is:

      Why do Catholic's pray to "Saints"? Arn't all saved christains called saints... how can you call anyone a saint? Don't God alone have that call? Jesus id the ONLY mediator between us & God. We don't have contact with any dead humans or do we even need such a thing? Explain yourself.

I am confused and never have been asked that question. As a baptist we NEVER used the word saint, only Apostle. Help?

 

[IGoALot]

If you look at the church as a family, then the saints (those who hae gone beofre us) are parts of our extended family. All you are doing is asking the saints who are in heaven to pray and join their voices with ours for whatever we are praying for. I have been in non-Catholic churches where people pray for others of the congregation. Adn there is nothing wrong with that. Same thing.

 

[Galilea]

We pray that the saints intercede for us before God. Here on earth there are many humans that live rightious or saintly lives and when we are in need, we usually go to them to ask for prayer. for example our pastors, priests, senior members of the church, parents, grandparents, etc. Like it says in the bible…“If one of you is sick go and call the seniors of the church, so they can go and pray for him and in the name of the Lord with oil. And when they pray with faith, the sick will heal, and the Lord will lift him” Santiago 5:14-15 (my bible is in spanish )
So you see, these are humans praying for humans in the name of the Lord and they can be healed. So when we die, only the body- the material dies, but the soul moves on into eternity and depending on the spiritual wellness of that soul, is where it will end up…purgatory, heaven or the other place . As catholics we believe that if a human can pray for another human in the name of the Lord and that person can heal or get better, then people that have lived very good lives and are now living in heaven next to the Lord, can continue to pray-intercede for us before the Lord, now that through their merits they live “right under His Loving Gaze”.
It will do you good to read the lives of some saints like Saint Clare friend of Saint Francis of asissi, Therese the little Flower or Saint Rita of Cascia.

 

[Nino]

howdy doody…Saints to we in the true church is like the rest of the population…lets say baseball players…saints are in our spiritual hall of fame…they have shown in glorious light and example how we average humans should behave…so we honor them and snce they made it…big time…we feel they have a right to be talked to and say…why not…they were like us only better…sure…others who sadly lack our faith have in their wallets pics of hollyweird stars or whatever…its those whatevers that will git cha every time…also GOD is a strange and rather scary figure…after all He is the grand daddy of us all and thus rather awesome…so a saint kinda bridges the gap so to speak…if you cant follow this then so be it…notice the great latino players in sports make the sign of the cross at certain occasions…they are Catholics…sorry dont want to offend on this bizarre site…but they are and thus thank God or whatever saint they can relate to…oops,there I go ,making sense again…if you wish to worship the media,or the phony right wing newscasters or establishment clones…(same club) go ahead…but those of us who worship ,not the all powerful state.viz: the corporate military industrial complex…have mercy on us…amen and amen…notice poor ole Pat Robertson ,was ordered to endorse a sleazy former mayor,now Pats program is on the shelf.,thats what happens when you make compacts with satan…ya never know when you are ordered to do bizarre things…amen and amen…all the best…N

 

[grandfather]

Hey! As a member of a catholic youth group and about to be a convert from Baptist to Catholic, I was presented a question I had to complete in a report. Here it is:

      Why do Catholic's pray to "Saints"? Arn't all saved christains called saints... how can you call anyone a saint? Don't God alone have that call? Jesus id the ONLY mediator between us & God. We don't have contact with any dead humans or do we even need such a thing? Explain yourself.

I am confused and never have been asked that question. As a baptist we NEVER used the word saint, only Apostle. Help?

There are many saints in heaven who are not canonized as saints by the Church. When a saint is canonized by the Church it is a statement by the Church that we know for certain that this person’s soul is with God in heaven. The love that we have for one another does not stop when we die. If your mother, friend, sister or child dies you do not stop loving the person and the person does not stop loving you. The bond of love exists beyond death. Love must be expressed. We share a cimmunion with those we love. In any communion something is exchanged. If that person is with God in heaven how does that person’s love for you get expressed? The person prays to God for you. The saints intercede for us in heaven, because they love us.

In Revelations we are presented with a vision of twenty four elders who offer incense before the throne of God. The scripture says that this incense is the prayers of the saints. These people must be mediators if they are between God and us, carrying our prayers to His throne. Then how is Jesus our only mediator if scritpure says these elders offer the prayers of others to God? He is God-man.

If you pray for a person here on earth while you are on earth you intercede before God for that person. This is thew communion of saints. When you die this holy activity will not stop, because we are in a communion of saints.

There is only one Church. There are not two. That means the Church in heaven and the Church on earth are one. You are one with the saints in heaven and the holy souls in purgatory.

What the word saint means is holy. So when we say Saint Joseph we are saying Holy Joseph. The title is an acknowledgment that the person has lived a life of heroic virtue here on earth and we know they are in heaven.

 

[Nino]

Hello,Have you ever sang that song…'when the saints come marching in"? Many of us have some baseball cards from our childhood…even some hall of famers…the best of the best so to speak! Well in the RCC we have wonderful role models.who have proven themselves to be just that after years of deep; investigation…we call them 'saints" members of our spiritual hall of fame…so to speak!!! Since life goes on after earthly death we feel why not try and reach these special persons for help and guidance.I have a relic from Saint Maria Goretti…she is such a role model for purity,how needed she is today and I pray to her for protection for my grandchildren growing up into a secular humanistic world…one that teaches,its ok to do it,try not to get caught but if you do so what etc etc…by having ‘saints’ the church has given us a holy link,a golden cord…connecting us to the other side…we are not alone on this tiny blue marble…join us…

 

[AmyS]

I would much rather my daughter be interested in, and research the life of a Saint then the life of some of the movie stars out there. Many of the Saints are people I admire.

 

[Nickkname]

Hey! As a member of a catholic youth group and about to be a convert from Baptist to Catholic, I was presented a question I had to complete in a report. Here it is:

      Why do Catholic's pray to "Saints"? Arn't all saved christains called saints... how can you call anyone a saint? Don't God alone have that call? Jesus id the ONLY mediator between us & God. We don't have contact with any dead humans or do we even need such a thing? Explain yourself.

I am confused and never have been asked that question. As a baptist we NEVER used the word saint, only Apostle. Help?

First off, a lot of people use “saint” in the un-biblical way. A saint is anyone who is a member of the Church, be they on earth, in purgatory, or in heaven. We are called to holiness - hence, we are all called “saints”.

On earth, when someone asks us to pray for them, we pray for them. In heaven, it’s the same thing. Just because our journey has come to an end in heaven, it dosen’t mean we turn our backs on those who ask us to pray for them - rather, we pray for them all the more.

God is not a saint, and yes, it is true, only he can say who is a saint (in the sense of canonization). The Church can’t canonize just anyone - God will show the Church that a person is worthy of canonization by working miracles through their intercession.

True, Jesus is the only Mediator, for he alone is the Savior. No other name in heaven, on earth, or under the earth is Salvation. But this dosen’t mean we can’t share in Jesus’ meditation. Indeed, do we not pray to God for others? Or are we all fools?

Contact with the dead is not the same as asking saints to pray for us. The saints are not dead. They are very much alive - living in Christ. God is not the God of the dead but the God of the living. And, the saints are not spirits of hell but citizens of heaven.

 

[AliciaCL]

Another point about praying to the saints to intercede for us, particularly St. Mary: This is just my own thought. Sometimes, we think we know what we need or want and we may ask God for that. However, the Saints I would assume have a clearer understanding of what is truly needed and should be granted–because they were human. Therefore, praying to them for intercession is a kind of check on ourselves, a check on the faultiness of our humaness. We obviously sometimes desperately want X or believe that X will be the thing that is most helpful to us. We might be wrong. It may be years – or never — that we come to understand what we had truly needed. If we only pray for ourselves, we may sometimes completely pray for the wrong thing — not what we really need. Saints who are patrons of particular things, vocations, etc. supposedly have a better human understanding of us, and therefore, as heavingly souls, can ask in a better way than we could ask for ourselves. From a human point of view, we also might find them easier to explain our human-type problem or desire to than directly to God, such as approaching God through Mary on a motherly or womanly issue.

 

[Spirithound]

A saint is anyone who is a member of the Church, be they on earth, in purgatory, or in heaven.

On earth, when someone asks us to pray for them, we pray for them. In heaven, it’s the same thing. Just because our journey has come to an end in heaven, it dosen’t mean we turn our backs on those who ask us to pray for them - rather, we pray for them all the more.QUOTE]

Right on!

 

[jmcrae]

Hey! As a member of a catholic youth group and about to be a convert from Baptist to Catholic, I was presented a question I had to complete in a report. Here it is:

      Why do Catholic's pray to "Saints"?

“Pray to” is not the same thing as “worship,” of course. To pray to someone is simply to communicate with them in Heaven.

Arn’t all saved christains called saints…

Sure, but nobody “gets saved” until they actually get to Heaven. Until then, we’re on the journey towards salvation, but nobody on earth can say, “I’ve arrived in Heaven,” yet.

how can you call anyone a saint? Don’t God alone have that call? Jesus id the ONLY mediator between us & God.

A Mediator is one who dies for your sins. The Saints don’t do that, of course - they are prayer intercessors; not mediators.

We don’t have contact with any dead humans or do we even need such a thing? Explain yourself.

Jesus teaches us that God is the God of the living, not of the dead. Those who live with God are even more alive than you and me right now. This means that they can help us - they aren’t bound and gagged up there in Heaven; they can do whatever they want to do, including pray for us and help us.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

A Mediator is one who dies for your sins. The Saints don’t do that, of course - they are prayer intercessors; not mediators.

Where do you get this idea? A Redeemer is one who dies for our sins; a mediator is one who acts as a go-between. Certainly, the saints (including Mary) are not able to procure grace for us of their own accord like Christ can, but they certainly act as mediators of a sort by interceding for us.

After all, Mary is known (not canonically, though) as the “Mediatrix of all Graces” by virtue of her status as Christ’s mother. Her act of accepting God’s will and bearing His Son – not to mention her constant intercession on our behalf – exemplifies mediation in this sense.

Peace,
Dante

 

[jmcrae]

Where do you get this idea? A Redeemer is one who dies for our sins; a mediator is one who acts as a go-between. Certainly, the saints (including Mary) are not able to procure grace for us of their own accord like Christ can, but they certainly act as mediators of a sort by interceding for us.

After all, Mary is known (not canonically, though) as the “Mediatrix of all Graces” by virtue of her status as Christ’s mother. Her act of accepting God’s will and bearing His Son – not to mention her constant intercession on our behalf – exemplifies mediation in this sense.

Peace,
Dante

When the Scriptures tell us that Jesus alone is our Mediator, it is referring to His role of dying on the Cross for our sins; it does not mean that nobody except Jesus is permitted to pray for us to God.

 

[Linda_Marie]

Catholic Answers has a number of articles on this. Go to the top of the page and click on Library. Type saints into the search box. A number of articles will be referenced. This is one of them.
The Supernatural Kinship of Catholics
By Rev. Paul van Kuykendall Thomson

<…>
Any list of those whom the Church has been able to recognize and honor as saints, such as that given in the prayer from the Mass which I have quoted, suggests something of the immense variety of the souls who comprise the Church triumphant in heaven. Even in that small group mentioned in the prayer one encounters personalities as diverse as those of the innocent maiden Agatha (martyred in 251) and Ignatius of Antioch, that distinguished bishop (martyred in Rome about 107) in whose writings the whole system of Catholic doctrine stands in clear outline. In his account of his vision of heaven, the beloved St. John powerfully suggested this very richness and diversity: “I saw a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and in the sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands” (Rev. 7:9). In the Church triumphant the indomitable St. Leo, who faced the barbarians before Rome, is with St. Marie Bernadette Soubirous, the simple peasant child to whom Our Lady appeared at Lourdes in the nineteenth century. The glory of the Beatific Vision falls upon St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, upon St. Dominic and St. Ignatius Loyola, upon St. Mary Magdalen and St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. In the white company of heaven the illustrious and the obscure, the powerful and the weak, the simple and the most learned, are among the glorified. Those whose names have been included in the liturgy of the Church on earth share with those whose names are written only in heaven. These are the saints. These are the heroes of Catholicism. These are the living proof of what the loving grace of God can do for men and women.
<…>

I also suggest reading the Catechism on the Communion of Saints.

IN BRIEF

960 The Church is a “communion of saints”: this expression refers first to the “holy things” (sancta), above all the Eucharist, by which “the unity of believers, who form one body in Christ, is both represented and brought about” (LG 3).

961 The term “communion of saints” refers also to the communion of “holy persons” (sancti) in Christ who “died for all,” so that what each one does or suffers in and for Christ bears fruit for all.

962 “We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion, the merciful love of God and his saints is always [attentive] to our prayers” (Paul VI, CPG § 30).

Hope this helps.

 

[stbruno]

How many times do we ask family members,friends, classmates to pray with us for something…like the healing of a family member or for success in some venture etc??? Well, when we ask the saints to pray for us, they are as much our prayer partners as the living people around us, except they already have the advantage of being in heaven.
Since we believe in the communion of saints, we believe as Catholics that if we ask for their intercession in our prayers, that God will listen to them as well as us when we ask for some help.

Count us lucky! We do not worship saints, we only worship the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

[Stratiotes]

You are correct that there are saints on earth and in heaven both. The difference is that we would acknowledge the authority of the church and the church will give a special title to some as “saints.” There is “saint” in the sense that means all those who are God’s. Then there is “Saint” in the sense of a title that the church bestows on those it (the church) has determined are in heaven now. Since we cannot know every person’s heart, we do not typically say with the same confidence that an average person is in heaven. But there are some who, by their exemplary lives, and by miracles associated with them, the Church has been given ample evidence from God to declare definitively that they are in heaven. We may be confident that people we knew well and admired are in heaven but the criteria for the title of Saint is very stringent and determined by the Church and not by individuals. And, yes, there are some who are “saints” in that they live holy lives here or in heaven right now and go unnoticed - its just that some God has made to be noticed and declared by the Church.

One major difference between Baptist and Catholic you will find is the authority of the Church. The Church is not a weak structure that makes suggestions - it is a visible and active representative of Christ on earth and can make declarations of fact - it has the authority to bind and loose. This is where the authority to bestow titles of recognition comes from. We recognize those whom God has already recognized.