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estesbob
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Only works if you bury him upside down…
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Nominefili
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I do not claim to be an expert on Catholicism. I only mean that I had enough time in the Roman church to see things that really, really bothered me. Is it your position that there is no Roman Catholic church with saints’ relics in the basement, and that no Catholic prays to statues of Mary? If that is the case, perhaps what I’ve observed has been misunderstood. If so, I apologize.Oh I get it-we adore statues we just dont know it. And you who supposedly spent 6 months in RCIA know better than us who belong to the Church. Makes perfect sense to me!
However, I was genuinely interested in addressing the topic, but of course for every one of us heretics there’s about 15 Catholics to ridicule us and jump down our throats for making objective observations and asking sincere questions.
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regression
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Actually, if I remember correctly, altars are supposed to contain a saints relic…
As far as praying to statues, this says it better than I can:
catholic.com/library/Do_Catholics_Worship_Statues.asp
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estesbob
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If a catholic prays to a statue of Mary they are doing so in direct violation of the teachings of the church. The only person we pray to is God and we do so in the name of Jesus.
There is a relic of a Saint in every altar of a Catholic Church and it has nothing to do with idolotry. it goes back to our earliest days when the Mass was celebrated in the catacombs often on the tombs of saints(usually Martrys). The relic in the altar is purely symbolic-to remind us of our roots.
I didnt mean to ridicule you but it is kind of hard to give a rationale response to posts claiming catholics think Crackers are god and that we worship statues. i am sincerely sorry that you had such lousy instructors in your RCIA class.
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RickHolland
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You missed the entire point, but not surprising.
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Nominefili
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Thank you for clearing that up for me. As someone who grew up Lutheran, I was drawn to the Roman Church because of the tradition and I really liked the nearby congregation; their youth program and the priest there was excellent. But after doing RCIA for a few months, there were just too many things that bothered me and I couldn’t reconcile, so I came home to the LCMS.
I’m a Confessional Lutheran, so I can appreciate being told I worship crackers. Outside of Rome and the East, any sort of Real Presence doctrine is extremely rare and largely misunderstood.
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RickHolland
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You are joking, right? You don’t pray to saints or to Mary? We all know this is not true; ashamed of something?
Show us from the catechism, where a relic in an altar is not only purely symbolic, but also used to remind you of your “roots”? Are so so ashamed you are making stuff up as you go? Next you will convince us that prayer is not a form of worship.
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regression
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twopekinguys
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No, they weren’t kidding. We don’t pray to Saints, including Mary.
We are asking them to pray for us just like you would ask your neighbor to pray for you.
You’re not praying to them are you?
There are a multitude of threads here at CAF about Mary, and statues, please refer to those.
Not everything is in the Catechism, There are a multitude of other documents the church uses, in addition to sacred tradition.
Here is an answer for you about relics in the altar.
"In the early church in Rome, during the persecution of Christians, they would meet in the catacombs. These catacombs became the tombs of the martyrs and therefore Mass would be celebrated on their tombs. Through this celebration it led to a veneration (a reverence - not a worship) of the saints as a reminder that God worked through them and their deaths.
Thus, the practice of keeping a reminder of the saint was begun in keeping a relic of them.
This is a good reminder to u’s that when we celebrate Mass, we celebrate with all the saints and angels in heaven."
marysaggies.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-do-we-have-relics-in-altars.html
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estesbob
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Rick i simply am not going to get involved with a discussion with someone who refers to the Eucarist as a cracker and tells me what it is I “beleive”.
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Roman_Catholic_1
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I hope one of two things 1) either you can support your claim with evidence that the Church condones the adoration of anything other than God or 2) bearing false witness is not a big deal in your faith. Which is it?
God bless you
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RickHolland
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Yes and on more than one occassion, but it is based on a false premise; therefore the entire thing is worthless before God.
God Said To Make Them
People who oppose religious statuary forget about the many passages where the Lord commands the making of statues. For example: “And you shall make two cherubim of gold *; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be” (Ex. 25:18–20).
David gave Solomon the plan “for the altar of incense made of refined gold, and its weight; also his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made clear by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all, all the work to be done according to the plan” (1 Chr. 28:18–19). David’s plan for the temple, which the biblical author tells us was “by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all,” included statues of angels.
Similarly Ezekiel 41:17–18 describes graven (carved) images in the idealized temple he was shown in a vision, for he writes, “On the walls round about in the inner room and [on] the nave were carved likenesses of cherubim.”
**Cheribum are always pictured where God dwells, why? They are protectors of His holiness and are the highest in rank among angelic beings. Gabriel and Michael are the most familiar, but Satan is the most prevalent. Did God ever command the Hebrews to worship, by bowing down or praying to the cherubim? No Did men fall down before angels in the Bible and then were told not to by the angelic being? yes Did God tell us to pray to saints? No Is praying in the spiritual realm a for m of worship? yes Does God say to worship and serve Him alone? Yes Do people that pray to saints or stautes or images et al violating this command? yes
What about the serpent on the pole that God commanded Moses to raise before the children of Israel. Did He command them to bow down to it? No Did He say to worship or pray to it? No Did He tell them to “look” at it? Yes Why; Obedience and testing of that obedience? Why? Look at the story and the context and see what brought the people to this point. Look for the salvation message of faith and look at the symbolism of the Savior and then decide if this is similar of different to what you have been taught and make your choice.***
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Janet1983
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I really don’t get it… Why do we have to establish the facts over and over again?
I mean in other threads there was no doubt about that and the discussion was just about whether or not praying to her was the right thing to do…
So now we go back and deny that and until we have established that, we are so far off-topic that we can accuse non-catholics of changing the topic?
CCC #2675:
Apart from that there are countless webpages talking about this (I filtered out the non-Catholic sources for your convenience):
Why pray to Mary?
Why do Catholics Pray to Mary?
Why Catholics Pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary
Why Catholics Pray To Mary
Here is a list of prayers… looking at the right column there are quite a few prayers to her…
Children learn to pray - The Hail Mary (“We pray to Mary because she is so close to God, and because she is so close to her Son, Jesus Christ”)
Catholic Prayers - Some Popular Catholic Prayers and Prayers to Mary
Why do Catholics pray to Mary?
How do I Pray to “Mary Who Unties Knots”? (As a non-native speaker this sounded kind of weird to me.)
They all have nice explanations trying to justify prayer to Mary… (as I said, I filtered out the non-Catholic pages.)
If you tell me you don’t pray to her… OK, but at least some Catholics do pray to Mary…
There is even a full thread dedicated to this topic here on CAF:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=344370
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Nominefili
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Estesbob has already explained to me that I misunderstood what I saw, and I apologized for jumping to conclusions. Now you have to jump on to say ridiculous things like “bearing false witness is not a big deal in your faith.” Do you really have no idea what a confessional Lutheran is? Do you really think we’re all antinomian Marcionites skipping the Old Testament? And of course you use the phrase “your faith,” of course to assert that we crazy heretics are not part of the Church catholic. I joined this forum to try and learn, but you people would rather insult than inform. Give me a break.
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regression
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I don’t think we are going to come to an agreement on this, but we do not worship anyone or anything but God. In my 32 years as a Catholic, I have never been told to worship anyone or anything except God.
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twopekinguys
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But what you are missing here is that we are praying through her. Asking for her intercession. Just like a non Catholic would ask a friend to pray for them.
Do you remember as a kid asking your mother to ask your dad for something? I sure do.
Dad would rarely if ever say no to mom.
We are not praying to her in hopes that she will answer our prayers. We know only God can do that.
One part that you didn’t bold was centering it on the person of Christ
Maybe all of those sites aren’t clear for you that we don’t pray to Mary in the sense that she can answer prayers. She can only take our prayers to the throne.
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RickHolland
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How are you trying to convince, man or God? Are you ashamed of your religion to say I pray to saints and to Mary and I don’t care what anyone thinks about it? Are you not telling the truth or just to embarrased. Here is one example of hundreds.
A Mother’s Prayer to the Guardian Angels of her Children
I humbly salute you, O you faithful,
heavenly Friends of my children!
I give you heartfelt thanks
for all the love and goodness you show them.
At some future day I shall,
with thanks more worthy than I can now give,
repay your care for them,
and before the whole heavenly court
acknowledge their indebtedness to your guidance and
protection.
Continue to watch over them.
Provide for all their needs of body and soul.
Pray, likewise, for me,
for my husband,
and my whole family,
that we may all one day rejoice in your blessed company.
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Nominefili
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That is the way that I’ve seen it explained many times. However, when you ask your friends and family or church to pray for you, you are asking people who are alive. I think that’s really where the disagreement is centered: whether or not one can communicate to the dead.
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regression
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But we aren’t communicating with the dead. We are asking souls who are alive in Christ to pray for us. There is much talked of that in Revelations.
Sorry to keep linking to this site for explanations, but these are much better explanations than I could write:
catholic.com/library/Intercession_of_the_Saints.asp
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RickHolland
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You are ashamed? That’s okay and you missed the point, the God and cracker in the entire context was the way the unbelieving world will view the actions of Catholics and that is it.
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