I’ve been asked about why we pray to Saints and i always say well we dont pray to them we ask them to pray for us just as we ask fellow people to pray for us. But ive heard an argument saying well how will they hear you ? they accuse Catholics of treating them like God with his power to hear prayers. I always though think about Chapter 8 in Revalation where it says the Angels brings the Prayers of the Saints to God and i look at it that the Holy Spirit takes our Prayers to the Saints and its through Him that they hear us. But as i heard the term “Share in the Divinity of Christ” i was thinking well maybe Saints once in Heaven slowly come to “Share in the Divinity of Christ” even to the point of being able to hear Prayers or maybe even Protect us as ive read in some Prayers (but always of coarse through God who gives them these gifts) Would the idea of Saints sharing in the Divinity of Christ to this extent be againist Church Teaching? And is the term or idea “Share in the Divinity of Christ” in the Bible or in any writings of the Early Church Fathers?
Thanks
God Bless
Your theory sounds quite reasonable to me, though I don’t have the theological training to pass much of a judgment. I think of the Offertory of the Mass, which says “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity,” and also 2 Peter 1:4: “Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.” It may well be that this participation in the divine nature of Christ (as a gift freely given by God, of course) brings with it the ability you speak of.
I did, though, want to make the point that we
do, in fact, pray to the saints. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. In modern times, mostly influenced by Protestant theology, we have developed a notion of “prayer” as being a form of divine worship which could only be directed acceptably toward God. In reality, the word “pray” is a synonym for “ask, beg, entreat.” We still see it used this way in English in phrases like “pray tell” (which means, “* ask [you] to tell [me]”), and in legal expressions like “prayer for relief” or “prayer for damages,” which are requests directed to the court. In older usage, Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you”; and Leonato: “I pray thee, cease thy counsel, which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve.” So we do make prayer to the saints, not as an act of worship, but as an act of entreaty. We entreat them, in turn, to “pray for us” – i.e., to request, on our behalf, something from God.*
