Question about saints

[CarrierOfChrist]

I have a protestant friend who says the following: “My understanding of a saint is they are people that make up the body of Christ. Repeatedly in scripture that is how the term is used. (Ro 8:27, Eph 1:15, 1:18, 6:18 just a few) So in that sense, you and I are saints.”

This person says I’m already a “saint.”

What can I tell this person from the Catholic perspective about the saints?

 

[JerryZ]

I have a protestant friend who says the following: “My understanding of a saint is they are people that make up the body of Christ. Repeatedly in scripture that is how the term is used. (Ro 8:27, Eph 1:15, 1:18, 6:18 just a few) So in that sense, you and I are saints.”

This person says I’m already a “saint.”

What can I tell this person from the Catholic perspective about the saints?

Well he is quite correct in that the members of the “Body of Christ His Church” are called saints in many portions of the Bible.
For example in the Letter to the Romans of Paul.

While in the book of Revelations 5:8 where we see “twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints” these are a representation of “The Saints” of the Catholic Church. They are the saints that the Church has declared Saints throughout the ages. Note any difference?

 

[Actaeon]

I have a protestant friend who says the following: “My understanding of a saint is they are people that make up the body of Christ. Repeatedly in scripture that is how the term is used. (Ro 8:27, Eph 1:15, 1:18, 6:18 just a few) So in that sense, you and I are saints.”

This person says I’m already a “saint.”

What can I tell this person from the Catholic perspective about the saints?

Sure, the church teaches and has always taught that we are all saints (lower case S), as we are all called to be models of Christ on earth. But we also teach that there are Saints in heaven (upper case S)… a fact confirmed by the book of Revelation.

 

[louisak]

There are two important aspects to Catholic belief/practice regarding the saints.

1. They are role models for us to follow, this is why we have hagiography (lives of the saints) to read, study and try to imitate. Even a Protestant can appreciate this, I would think.
2. We ask for their intercession. Now this is where Protestants have trouble. I doubt that you could find any arguments to win over your friend on this one; but, there is a place in the New Testament (sorry I don’t know the chapter/verse) which says “The prayer of a righteous man is of much avail” or in some translations “is very powerful”. This is the essential reason we ask the saints to pray for us. Try to help your friend to understand that we don’t worship the saints, we don’t offer sacrifices to them; they are our brothers and sisters in Christ, but we ask for their prayers. Even Protestants will go to people whom they regard as good Christians and ask for their prayers, they don’t ask lukewarm or half-hearted people to pray for them. So even they, I think, would have to acknowledge the principle underlying our practice.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

As others have said, it’s just two slightly different but related uses of the same word. The canonized Saints are those saints that the Church has determined have persevered until the end and made it to heaven.

 

[Bookcat]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

823 “The Church . . . is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as ‘alone holy,’ loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God.” The Church, then, is "the holy People of God,"and her members are called “saints.”

scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm

 

[Bookcat]

Pope Benedict XVI:

“In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul addresses “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor 1: 2). Indeed, Christians are already saints because Baptism unites them to Jesus and to his Paschal Mystery, but at the same time they must* become* so by conforming themselves every more closely to him”

“Sometimes, people think that holiness is a privileged condition reserved for the few elect. Actually, becoming holy is every Christian’s task, indeed, we could say, every person’s! The Apostle writes that God has always blessed us and has chosen us in Christ “that we should be holy and blameless before him… in love” (Eph 1: 3-5). … The “Way” is Christ, the Son, the Holy One of God: “no one comes to the Father but by me [Jesus]” (cf. Jn 14: 6).”

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20071101_all-saints_en.html

 

[CarrierOfChrist]

Well he is quite correct in that the members of the “Body of Christ His Church” are called saints in many portions of the Bible.
For example in the Letter to the Romans of Paul.

While in the book of Revelations 5:8 where we see “twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints” these are a representation of “The Saints” of the Catholic Church. They are the saints that the Church has declared Saints throughout the ages. Note any difference?

How do I explain Rev 5:8 to a Protestant?

 

[Mystophilus]

I have a protestant friend who says the following: “My understanding of a saint is they are people that make up the body of Christ. Repeatedly in scripture that is how the term is used. (Ro 8:27, Eph 1:15, 1:18, 6:18 just a few) So in that sense, you and I are saints.”

This person says I’m already a “saint.”

What can I tell this person from the Catholic perspective about the saints?

You might be a saint; she might be a saint: I lack the data necessary to be completely positive. I can only be sure of myself, and can thus tell you that I certainly am not a saint.

The Church’s canonization process is a means of being able to say, “We are certain about this one, having carefully studied how s/he lived.”

 

[Mintaka]

Actually, “the prayers of saints” in Rev. 5:8 is dealing with the saints in Heaven, in Purgatory, and on Earth. The members of Christ’s Church pray, and their prayers are presented by the elders/presbyters/priests in Heaven.

Revelation is very much about the unity of the Church here and in Heaven.

(Now, the martyrs under the altar who are praying and complaining to God are fairly obviously all saints already in Heaven, because it’s kinda hard to be a martyr without dying first.)

 

[JerryZ]

Actually, “the prayers of saints” in Rev. 5:8 is dealing with the saints in Heaven, in Purgatory, and on Earth. The members of Christ’s Church pray, and their prayers are presented by the elders/presbyters/priests in Heaven.

Revelation is very much about the unity of the Church here and in Heaven.

(Now, the martyrs under the altar who are praying and complaining to God are fairly obviously all saints already in Heaven, because it’s kinda hard to be a martyr without dying first.)

Was just pointing out the difference we Catholics make on that word. All the members of the Church are saints being perfected and hoping to become Saints.
So saints here on earth Saints those in Heaven.