Question regarding prayers to Mary and saints

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It is not either… or… it is both… and… It pleases the Lord to grant gifts to us on earth through the intercession of saints who are in heaven and who are keen on helping us. We do not question God’s ways, but gladly accept all the help we can get.
 
Theo2 said:
The Question was, why don’t we pray to Jesus? In my view that is always better.
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It’s not an “either-or”.

First of all, a Catholic who prays to Mary or a saint normally also prays to Jesus. The prayer to the saint is like putting ketchup on your Jesus prayer hamburger. It is not like eating ketchup instead of the hamburger.

Second, praying to a saint IS praying to Jesus, as all prayers end up with Him. The saint doesnt keep the prayers away from Jesus.

Third, there is not one form of prayer that is “better” than others except for Holy Mass, which often includes some prayers to the saints as well as prayers to God throughout.

Fourth, if you don’t want to pray to a saint, it’s optional, but don’t disrespect or spread misinformation about those Catholics who do.
 
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I don’t pray to Mary or the other Saints… instead I ask them to pray to God for me.

I pray directly to God
 
Tis_Bearself said:
You do know that when we say we “pray to saints” we mean that we “ask them to pray to God for us”. There isn’t a difference.
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I find the language confusing and think that many people do. In today’s language, pray to ask to pray for tend to be interpreted differently… so I make the distinction to allow for better clarity.

The Mass clearly says ‘ask Xx to pray for us’ … that’s a good enough example for me
 
yes of course they are human.

no one has Gods power, only God.
 
Right, but when a person goes online and finds “Novena to Saint Jude” it’s clearly “to” him, even though the language of the prayer is saying “Holy St. Jude, intercede for me and pray to Jesus for me” etc.

The Catholic Church is full of teachings that are a little complicated - this is just another one
 
simpleguy01 said:
Hi,
Posting a question, and wanted to know more on what the catholics believe.

Question:
Is Mary and the saints humans or not?
  • it seems based on my observation, and reading in this forum they are treated more than humans or has powers beyond what mere humans/dead humans can do. They can seem to hear millions/billions of prayer at a time.
Do they have the power of omnipresence(as God does)? If they are humans, at most they can only hear one prayer at a time. Not to be disrespectful, but to me its like praying to them are like a lottery? So how do you think are these prayers heard?
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To me, very special about Mary, she gave birth to Jesus without an earthly father, but her prayer greatly failed to prevent Jesus from being crucified. So what makes you think of praying to her can help you?
 
She prayed, as she always prays, for God’s will. Jesus chose to obey God, and it was God’s will that His Only Son redeem us by being crucified.
The greatest good is God’s will. Mary always prays for the greatest good as her will is completely given in love to her son.
 
FreeMe said:
To me, very special about Mary, she gave birth to Jesus without an earthly father, but her prayer greatly failed to prevent Jesus from being crucified. So what makes you think of praying to her can help you?
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This is just bizarre.
First, where do you get the information that Mary prayed to God to keep Jesus from being crucified? Mary was always perfectly in agreement with God’s will. It was God’s will that Jesus suffer and die for humanity. Mary knew this and would not have prayed against it. I have never heard any teaching that Mary prayed against it.

Second, we ask Mary to pray with us to Jesus and there actually is in the gospel at the Wedding at Cana an instance where Mary asks her son Jesus to help someone and he does so. Obviously she can also ask on our behalf. But if something is not God’s will, then we will not get it and Mary would probably be aware of that and perhaps not even pray for our request - instead she might pray that we receive something better or receive the grace to understand and accept God’s will.

Third, I love Mary and I know that she helps me just by being with me. She doesn’t need to “get” me things from God in order to help (except for channeling special graces to me so I can be closer to God). If you don’t love Mary yourself and just see her as a vending machine for getting stuff, you couldn’t possibly begin to understand.
 
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simpleguy01 said:
Do they have the power of omnipresence(as God does)? If they are humans, at most they can only hear one prayer at a time.
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There is a simple solution to the problem you pose, namely, angels. Each Christian has at least one guardian angel assigned to him. (Matthew 18:10) When a Christian prays to a saint in heaven, his guardian angel records the prayer, zips up to heaven and presents it to the saint. If multiple Christians pray to the same saint at the same time, their guardian angels record all the prayers, zip up to heaven, line up before the saint and present the prayers to the saint in an orderly manner, one at a time.

An angel acting as a prayer messenger can be found in the book of Tobit (12:15). Also see Revelation 8:3. Jacob had a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder from earth to heaven. (Genesis 28:12)
 
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simpleguy01 said:
Is Mary and the saints humans or not?
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Realize that everyone is called to be a saint, and God gives us the means to be transformed into one via the sacraments if the Church. Yes, obviously Mary and all the saints were human; St. Peter, St. Paul, all the people we call saints are humans who are sanctified by God’s grace.
 
As ‘Tis Bearself noted, it’s not typically a matter of praying to saints instead of God, any more than you would ask your fellow believers on earth to pray for you but not actually pray to God yourself.

We simply recognize a wider circle of “fellow believers” that includes those who have completed the race and are now in God’s presence. The Confiteor, one of the few prayers of the Mass that directly invokes saintly intercession, concludes “And I ask blessed Mary, ever-virgin; all the angels and saints; and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.” Likewise, the Hail Mary, surely the most famous and popular Marian prayer, after quoting the Bible repeatedly, actually asks only that she “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Those are good examples of how prayer “to” Mary or the Saints works. It’s not asking them to do something for you apart from God, but to join their prayers to yours as you petition God.

As for hearing a vast number of prayers, remember that those in Heaven are united to God in ways we cannot even imagine, and may indeed have abilities no earthly human possesses. If God wills that the saints hear our prayers, they can — and obviously the most ancient Christian churches have trusted that He does for most of Christian history.
 
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regarding the revelation 5:8 verse, the term saint was taken out of context.
As per the bibles context of saint, it refers to " as any believer who is in Christ and in whom Christ dwells"


There are lots of example on this in the bible. some of them are found in :
Romans 1:7
to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:2
To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

as the verse is a revelation to john, its representing what is to come


and that the prayers mentioned are prayers of all believers in all time.

Do let me know what you think. And if you find i got my sources wrong, I would like to know as well.
 
thank you John for your reply:
if the Bishop and Priest relay those info to you, then may i respectfully ask, what is their source? How come they can make those claims? What divine revelation has revealed that what they said is the truth?
I ask this in accordance to this verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21
20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.

as you’ve mentioned
“The mark of a Catholic is following faithfully his superiors in the teachings delivered to him”
my opinion: granting if what they are saying is true, and how do you know its true? for me, if its revealed by a divine revelation (bible), then its true

as said in the bible we are tasked
2 Timothy 2:15
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Knowing and verifying the truth can be done by reading and knowing the source of truth, the bible.
that is why to protect against wrong information we ourselves should know the truth.
as mentioned in 2 John

and in John 8:32
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free
 
Wesrock said:
I like to think of the saints as older brothers and sisters. They’ve grown up, they’ve made the right choices, they’re now close friends of God and God has cleansed them of all sin. And they’re still part of the Church, which means worshipping God and praying for others in the Church who need it.
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thank you for answering my questions point by point…greatly appreciate that.
from your answers, what i can see is that, please dont get mad at me, its all speculations that they can hear our prayers and pray for us to God. I could not find verses in the bible that early christians ask dead saints for prayers. I can only find verses that we can boldly go to God and tell him our prayers directly.

Please dont get me wrong. I dont find anything wrong by speculating. I speculate a lot myself 😄 . But what i do find wrong is to treat speculations as truth, therefore acting on it as if it was reality. What if its not? then we are back to 50/50 chance of prayers getting to God if we ask dead saints to pray for us? Knowing God, that He does not leave things to chance, i dont think He wants us to leave our prayers to chance as well (i think this is the reason why he gave clear instructions on how to pray Matthew 6:9-13). or do you think its also a speculation? what do you think?
 
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Saint Thomas Aquinas and others interpreted the throne of grace to be Mary so that kind of backfires.
 
I always wanted to sing it in the original language, but I can’t find it anywhere.
 
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