The limits of the Saints

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VociMike said:
Can you possibly find in in yourself to avoid mocking Catholic teaching when you post here?
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That is not mocking Catholic teaching.

Catholic apologists insists that praying to the saints is no different than asking another Christian on earth to pray for you.

True or not true?

My Christian friends always ask me if I have any prayer requests for them and I ask others in the Body if they have any prayer requests for me. The term “prayer requests” is not a mocking term.

If this whole concept is alien to you personally, please don’t blame and lash out at me.

My points remain.

…
 
jemfinch said:
If we can trust that our Christian friends on earth, despite their sinfulness and despite their concupiscence, can be trusted to pray for us
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Of course.

That is why if those dead in Christ are indeed praying for us, then they will pray for us no less or no more whether we ask them to or not.

Like you said, they do not have our shortcomings.

I find it hard to believe that Christian in Heaven would not pray for us simply because we did not specifically ask them.
 
Atemi said:
***All believers are saints, BTW.***Yep, we are all saints. But those in Heaven are Saints, glorified. While here on earth they are yet sinners, potentially so, as they have not run the race to the finish and won the victor’s crown of gold.

BTW, Atemi joined 17 March and has already clocked up 257 posts. Seems he has nothing better to do than hang out here and post. Give him the benefit of the doubt, he’s like a kid who just discovered there is no Santa but does not really want to believe it.

Stay around long enough Atemi, and God’s gonna get you. Then we will welcome you back home!
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Atemi said:
Are you saying that all saints go to Heaven?

All believers are saints, BTW.
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Again with the Catholic baiting – and off-topic reponses.

Sigh…

Not all believers are saints, from the perspective of the Catholic church – which, by the way, is the perspective about which the OP was asking.

When anyone – whether or not they’re on a Catholic discussion forum – asks about “praying to the saints”, it’s assumed they’re talking about the Catholic practice of praying to the Saints – i.e., those who have been canonized as such. To deliberately steer the discussion of an honest question about Catholic doctrine and practice into a debate about the validity of said doctrine and practice is to hijack the thread.

Peace,
Dante
 
Eileen_T said:
Yep, we are all saints. But those in Heaven are Saints, glorified.
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The Holy Spirit in His Word only spoke of saints…period.

He never identified a special class of saints that should be capitalized.

BTW, I thought that the believer is not glorified until they are resurrected? If the dead in Christ are raised, then we would be too.
BTW, Atemi joined 17 March and has already clocked up 257 posts. Seems he has nothing better to do than hang out here and post. Give him the benefit of the doubt, he’s like a kid who just discovered there is no Santa but does not really want to believe it.
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***Why take a special opportunity for a lack of charity? ***

You post here too. Are we to assume you have nothing better to do as well?
Stay around long enough Atemi, and God’s gonna get you. Then we will welcome you back home!
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God’s already got me and I am already home in Him.

Thanks anyway.
 
Atemi said:
The Holy Spirit in His Word only spoke of saints…period.

He never identified a special class of saints that should be capitalized.
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We are Catholic and not Sola Scriptura. We do not define everything by Bible alone.
 
Atemi said:
***Why take a special opportunity for a lack of charity? ***
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That was charitable. LOL, if not I would have queried if you were a troll:p
You post here too. Are we to assume you have nothing better to do as well?
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Yeah, but I am a Catholic. I don’t hang out on non-Catholic Forums. I come here to hand out with my fellow Catholics and those who are searching for the Truth.
 
DanteAlighieri said:
Again with the Catholic baiting – and off-topic reponses.
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This thread is about the saints.
Sigh…
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Not all believers are saints, from the perspective of the Catholic church – which, by the way, is the perspective about which the OP was asking.
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Another Catholic poster said that we (believers) are all saints.

So if believers here on earth are not saints, that means they are out of the communion of saints?
When anyone – whether or not they’re on a Catholic discussion forum – asks about “praying to the saints”, it’s assumed they’re talking about the Catholic practice of praying to the Saints – i.e., those who have been canonized as such. To deliberately steer the discussion of an honest question about Catholic doctrine and practice into a debate about the validity of said doctrine and practice is to hijack the thread.
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I was not addressing the OP in the post you are responding to. I was posting in response to another poster.

Maybe your thread is set on linear mode…
 
Eileen_T said:
That was charitable. LOL, if not I would have queried if you were a troll:p
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Ahh. Special Christian charity for me…
Yeah, but I am a Catholic. I don’t hang out on non-Catholic Forums. I come here to hand out with my fellow Catholics and those who are searching for the Truth.
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Do you suppose those Catholics that do hang out on non-Catholic forums should be treated like you treat non-Catholics here?

I am sure if non-Catholics were not welcome here, CAF would put a clear sign at the entrance.
 
Atemi said:
Do you suppose those Catholics that do hang out on non-Catholic forums should be treated like you treat non-Catholics here?

I am sure if non-Catholics were not welcome here, CAF would put a clear sign at the entrance.
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Most of the non-Catholic forums ban us. I tried to register with one, and because I said my religion is Catholic, they banned me from even joining, although they did not specify in their rules that Catholics were banned.
 
Atemi said:
I am sorry, but it did not give any information about what I asked.
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Perhaps you did not read far enough down the page. This is from that site. “When did the Church start honoring saints? By the year 100 A.D., Christians were honoring other Christians who had died, and asking for their intercession. Many people think that honoring saints was something the Church set up later, but it was part of Christianity from the very beginning. As a matter of fact, this practice came from a long-standing tradition in the Jewish faith of honoring prophets and holy people with shrines. The first saints were martyrs, people who had given up their lives for the Faith in the persecution of Christians.”
 
Atemi said:
This thread is about the saints.
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No, it is a thread about the Catholic teaching about praying to the saints.
Another Catholic poster said that we (believers) are all saints.
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So if believers here on earth are not saints, that means they are out of the communion of saints?
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Clearly, that’s not true. The saints in Heaven are in full communion with Christ, and we, on earth, strive for communion with His Body through the church. Because we are not full of God’s Grace, we are prone to sin, and are therefore not in full communion with Him.
I was not addressing the OP in the post you are responding to. I was posting in response to another poster.
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Another poster who WAS responding to the OP – and you responded by baiting them with an off-topic comment that you obviously knew would draw attention to you – which seems to be your modus operandi.
Maybe your thread is set on linear mode…
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And you complain (below) about how non-Catholics are treated here? It’s not non-Catholics who receive backlash from their rude, off-topic, and condescending posts – it’s TROLLS, regardless of their religious background.

This has nothing to do with your being welcome here, as you allege below. It has nothing to do with your not being Catholic. It has EVERYTHING to do with the manner in which you speak to people, the disdain with which you dispute Catholic doctrine, and your obvious lack of interest in real, enlightening debate about things Catholic with which you disagree.

We ridicule that which we fear or do not understand, my friend. I’m through responding to your posts, no matter how inflammatory they may be, until such time that you show the good people here the courtesy of discussing topics like an adult and observing common sense guidelines about propriety.

Peace,
Dante
 
“Then we commemorate also those who have fallen asleep before us, first Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petition. Then on behalf also of the Holy Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep before us, and in a word of all who in past years have fallen asleep among us, believing that it will be a very great benefit to the souls, for whom the supplication is put up, while that holy and most awful sacrifice is set forth.” Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 23:9 (A.D. 350).

Atemi, why don’t you just start a thread that specifically debates this topic. Right now, we’re trying to bring someone home to Jesus.
 
DanteAlighieri said:
Again with the Catholic baiting – and off-topic reponses.

Sigh…

Not all believers are saints, from the perspective of the Catholic church – which, by the way, is the perspective about which the OP was asking.

When anyone – whether or not they’re on a Catholic discussion forum – asks about “praying to the saints”, it’s assumed they’re talking about the Catholic practice of praying to the Saints – i.e., those who have been canonized as such. To deliberately steer the discussion of an honest question about Catholic doctrine and practice into a debate about the validity of said doctrine and practice is to hijack the thread.

Peace,
Dante
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Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see any Catholic-baiting 🙂 - I think he’s being very respectful.​

As far as St.Paul is concerned, all Christians are saints. Maybe this needs explaining.

All Christians are saints in one sense - for all are members of the holy people of God, whom God has made His own, & set apart, & separated from the rest of mankind, for Himself. IOW, all Christians, however imperfect their discipleship may be, belong to Him, alone. St. Peter also speaks of this, in one of his letters

IOW, they are holy, are saints, in an objective sense.

The Church recognises as saints certain members of this holy people - they are saints in the sense explained, & also in their discipleship: they are saints objectively like every other Christian, & subjectively as well; that is, as persons. The two senses complement each other, like two faces of a coin; they aren’t in conflict, but in continuity.

As for how we know they are with God: when the Church canonises someone, what is being said is that the person in question is “a man approved by God” - words which in Acts refer to Jesus. His saints are like Him, so we can apply words that refer to Him, to them as well (in due proportion, of course); since they have no holiness, no graces, no anything, that is not from Him.

As for the quotation of 1 Enoch in Jude 14,15, the “saints” there = the angels; as is often the case in the OT. There is something to be said for the rendering “holy ones” in some of these passages.

Hope that helps ##
 
dbacks5439 said:
Atemi, why don’t you just start a thread that specifically debates this topic. Right now, we’re trying to bring someone home to Jesus.
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Interesting to note that I could find no threads started by Atemi.

Peace,
Dante
 
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