Why pray to anyone but Jesus?

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I was just remembering something my grandmother told me (believe she was born at the turn of the century). She told me to pray the “beads” (rosary). Then, recently, I was looking up the rosary on the EWTN website.

It talked about the origin of the word “bead”.

…" in English it has been called “Our Lady’s Psalter” or “the beads.” This last derives from an Old English word for **prayers **(bede) and to **request **(biddan or bid)."

ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/rosary/

Again, we see nothing wrong with honoring and praying to saints, asking them for their intercession. I consider it an act of humility to acknowledge our sinfulness, need for intercessory prayer.

To me, this attitude that we must always “go it alone” seems a bit unnecessary. We have plenty around willing to help, but I hope we wouldn’t let pridefulness keep us from ever asking.

I may be a lowly sinner, unworthy to have God listen to me due to my lack of merit, but if I were able to have the Blessed Virgin ask God, that would be a whole different matter.

We can pray directly to God, but it’s recommended we not try to be an island, to acknowledge our sinfulness. The more people praying for us, in heaven and earth, the better.
 
Jon_S said:
I don’t believe you are stating Catholic teaching correctly.

Any grace given us comes from God and if we ask a Saint for prayer, they pray for God with us and any answer is from God not the Saint.

Ie: I pray to St Jude when searching for a job. I get a job. Thanks be to God for helping me get a job and thanks to St Jude for praying for me.
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His second paragraph appears to me to say the same thing as your second paragraph. Could you quote a difference?

His third and fourth paragraphs seem to me to say the same thing as the Catechism paragraph 2683. That paragraph quotes the same passage he quoted to prove what appears to me to be the same thing he used it for: that we should pray to the saints because God has put them in charge of certain things. Read it here: CCC 2683 – The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom, especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were “put in charge of many things.” Their intercession is their most exalted service to God’s plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.
 
JM3 said:
KJV

Ephesians 6:18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
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That doesn’t have anything to do with an apostle praying to a dead person in heaven.
 
dmar198 said:
His second paragraph appears to me to say the same thing as your second paragraph. Could you quote a difference?

His third and fourth paragraphs seem to me to say the same thing as the Catechism paragraph 2683. That paragraph quotes the same passage he quoted to prove what appears to me to be the same thing he used it for: that we should pray to the saints because God has put them in charge of certain things. Read it here: CCC 2683 – The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom, especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were “put in charge of many things.” Their intercession is their most exalted service to God’s plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.
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I may have misread him, but I thought he was saying the Saints directly give us graces which is incorrect.
 
Razanir said:
I will cede that it never explicitly says that the prayers are for us. But it is directly stated in the Bible that the saints are praying to God about something.

As a side note, how do we know God is a Trinity? The Bible never actually says the Holy Spirit is a third Person of God. All the times the Holy Spirit is ever mentioned, you could just as easily replace it with a non-Trinitarian spirit of God affecting the world. Similarly, we can’t say the apostles didn’t pray to the saints, just because it’s never mentioned in the Bible. I remind you how John the Evangelist closed his Gospel:

“But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25, RSV-CE, emphasis mine)

Nowhere does the Bible claim to be an exhaustive description of Jesus’ life and life in the early Church.
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There aren’t any scriptures that easily and plainly say that the dead people in heaven are praying for us. I didn’t call them saints, because as a protestant I consider saint to also mean Christians who are alive now.

I meant I do call them saints and I also call them dead people, because their bodies are dead in a grave somewhere.
 
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Matthew 22:32.
 
Jon_S said:
People in heaven are not dead
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As a protestant saints also mean Christians who are on earth now.

People die all the time. Their body dies but their spirit does not, so their body is dead.
 
In Luke 16:19-31, the rich man who is hell asks Abraham to intervene, to send someone to warn his brothers about the dangers of hell.

Abraham declines to intervene, but this doesn’t mean he couldn’t have.
 
Just a reminder in this repeated question of those who don’t like or understand our intercessory prayers, Catholics primarily pray to Jesus. Sometimes we spend so much time defending our praying that we neglect to remind the questioner that we do indeed pray to Jesus throughout our Mass, services, and prayers.

Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen
 
tacdon said:
There aren’t any scriptures that easily and plainly say that the dead people in heaven are praying for us. I didn’t call them saints, because as a protestant I consider saint to also mean Christians who are alive now.
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This is not exactly what you are asking for but it’s similar. Paul prayed and encouraged others to pray for his dead friend Onesimus in 2 Timothy

16 May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17 On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. 18 May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.

Also Revelation5:8 and 8:3 clearly show the saints praying for the church

Jewish tradition of which Christianity comes prays to those in heaven.

All Christians did it until the 1700’s

Hebrews 12 also makes it clear

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:1, 22-24 NASB)

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses…the Saints.

We come to “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” … The saints.

So it seems the burden of proof is on you to say why your 300 year old novelty is true.
 
Auntie_A said:
Just a reminder in this repeated question of those who don’t like or understand our intercessory prayers, Catholics primarily pray to Jesus. Sometimes we spend so much time defending our praying that we neglect to remind the questioner that we do indeed pray to Jesus throughout our Mass, services, and prayers.

Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen
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👍
 
JM3 said:
KJV

Ephesians 6:18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
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The saints it is speaking of were alive at that time.
 
tacdon said:
Their spirit is dead but their earthly body is still in the grave.
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Their bodies may be in the grave, some of them (with a few exceptions like the Blessed Virgin Mary, Enoch, and Elijah who have their bodies with them, as well).

Regardless, they are as alive as you and me, probably more so, and more than in a position to intervene on our behalf. In fact, we believe them to be in a better position to intervene, because if they had any sin, it was burned off in purgatory. Nothing sinful can enter heaven. Whereas, we are generally in a state of varying degrees of sinfulness.

Again, we believe it good to ask for prayers from people in heaven and earth. However, if one had to pick, it’d be preferable to ask prayers from those who are already in heaven. They are in a perfect position to help. Many probably would if asked.
 
po18guy said:
My question is: Where does the bible say that it has everything relating to faith in it? It doesn’t. You and I know that it is sufficient, but Jesus came that we might have life in abundance - not just in sufficiency (John 10:10).

But, Paul (or his follower) wrote about the “great cloud of witnesses.” (Hebrews 12:1) What does that mean to you? To Whom do they witness? And, about whom?

Please remember that the 1.5 billion Catholics and Orthodox consider that many of your beliefs are quite new to Christianity and appeared nowhere on earth before popping up in Europe in the 16th century.

Just saying.
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If the bible doesn’t contain everything that is needed then who is to say the book of Mormon or the Koran isn’t just another revelation.
 
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