Bringing back old traditions

When I was blogging full time all those years ago I had a regular weekly entry I called the “Catholic Answer Series”. It started from being questioned time and time again about what we do as Catholics. Well, I enjoyed doing that because it pushed me to look for the answers to those questions myself and to broaden my understanding. I’ve never been outside myself when it came to things concerning Catholicism, but researching and answering everyone’s Catholic questions made me more resolute in my knowledge. So, without so many more words, I have decided to bring this back without so much formality. Every Monday, well maybe not every Monday, I’ll be trying to address specific actions, traditions, and rituals that are a part of the Catholic faith. Today we’ll be looking into the topic of the Saints.

Praying to the Saints

One of the main practices which are often greatly misunderstood is the custom of praying to the saints and angels for intercession. We believe that the angels and saints in Heaven not only pray with us, but also for us. The saints in Heaven have the ability to offer up to God the prayers of the faithful on earth. People who have a problem with Catholics giving honor to and praying for intercession from the angels and saints usually mention one passage to support their position: 1 Timothy 2:5 in which Jesus is mentioned as the only Mediator between man and God. This verse is very true, Jesus is the sole Mediator, but this does not mean that we are restricted from asking our fellow Christians to pray both for us and with us. This would include our fellow Christians in heaven and in Purgatory, who are all a part of the body of Christ: the Church. Let us think about it this way: If your mother was very ill, would you come to me and ask me to join you in prayer for her? If you would come to me, a mere person, a sinning human being, and ask me to intercede in prayer for your intention, why not ask of a saint in heaven who is already purified and perfected and sees the face of God? Our brothers and sisters in Heaven have already been sanctified, so why not ask for them to pray for our specific intentions?

I have heard this argument too many times, too. The "I don't pray to dead people" argument, as I like to refer to it. The Church doesn't think heaven is a "dead" place. Catholics believe people in heaven are alive. The Church thinks heaven is a lively place with lots of singing and stuff. Requests for intercession of saints are as old as Christianity itself. It is not a construct of the middle ages. My parents recently visited the Catacombs, just outside of Rome. The told me all about it. It was an amazing experience. They felt a strong connection with the early Christians who left a written record on the walls of the Catacombs as a testimony of their beliefs. Mom took a picture of a wall of hundreds of inscriptions asking the martyred Peter and Paul to pray for them. My father told me that he was much moved. The Catholic teaching is that there is a communion of saints who are praying for us and we can join them in prayer the same way as we would join in prayer with our friends at a prayer meeting. Scripture says we were "all baptized into one body" (1 Corinthians 12:13). Christians are one body which is not divided by death or anything else (Rom 8:38-39). Christians in heaven are still members of that body of Christ.

The Church believes in giving honor to the communion of saints, in heaven. One way, aside from directly praying to them is by wearing medals with their images and displaying statues and pictures of them in our homes. Again, we do these things as visual reminders of these wonderful saints who are just waiting for us to call upon them and their powerful intercession. Any types of pictures or images of the saints, angels, Blessed Mother or Christ serve as ways to bring our hearts, minds and thoughts to God and godly things. There are so many distractions in our world today; we all need something visual during the course of our day to bring us back to God now and again. That is the purpose of having images and statues of the angels and saints. There are people who may use the argument that having such images constitutes 'worshipping false idols,' but once again, this is a great misunderstanding. We do not worship the actual stone from which the statue is made from, not the actual paper and frame from which a picture is made. Just as most of us have pictures of family members and loved ones around our homes, we have them as visual reminders of those we love. We do not actually worship the picture itself, but love and honor the friend or relative which the picture represents.

The Bible directs us to invoke those in heaven and ask them to pray with us. Thus in Psalms 103, we pray, "Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!" (Ps. 103:20-21). Not only do those in heaven pray with us, they also pray for us. And those in heaven who offer to God our prayers aren't just angels, but humans as well. The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.

Aren't All Christians Saints

When Catholics say the word “saint”, they are usually talking about a specific kind of saint, a canonized saint. Catholics should probably be more explicit so as not to cause confusion. The Church recognizes some Christians (saints) that have endured, entered Heaven and won the crown, and have proved to be serious prayer warriors for us on earth. The Church must be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the saint is in heaven. This is why they go through so much scrutiny over each and every saint. When they canonize someone they are really saying: "Hey, this person had a very cool relationship to the Lord while on earth and now they are in heaven and are really praying hard for us." I think anyone could look at people who have been canonized by the Catholic Church and say, "yeah, that person is in heaven." I encourage everyone, Catholic or not, to pick up a book about the lives of the saints or look up a saint that you know of and read about them. You will find that the saints were people who did all they could to live their lives as Jesus did. Take up the challenge and let me know what you think.

Let's try the university analogy for the saints. Try to compare this saint thing to a university. Saints are sort of like graduates. I recently graduated from the Southern Methodist University (well, not recently). Now that I've graduated, I am an Alumnus. That means I'm still active with the university but in a different capacity. I am there to support the university now. I could sit on councils and contribute in many ways. There is an obligation to help in some way. I'm not a director. I don't make decisions. I'm not the Dean. I'm just a graduate - an Alumnus. Now think about Christians in heaven as alumni to the Church. They pray for it. They help out. They help where they can. They don't make decisions for God. They are not the "Dean" of heaven. They are just servants who've successfully graduated this school of life. They successfully abandoned themselves to Jesus and helped many others do that too. And now they can help us graduate through their prayer and their example.

Isn't Jesus Powerful Enough to give us Salvation without Saints

I have heard this offered as an argument before when talking to a non-Catholic friend about the saints. If there was ever a more insulting thing to say to a Christian, than I don't know what it is. Questioning my belief in the power of Jesus is like questioning my belief in the power of God…that is ridiculous. How can someone think that the Catholic Church is saying that Jesus needs saints to do His work for Him? They actually accuse us of saying that Jesus is inadequate to do the job Himself. I believe, as every Christian should/does, that God is complete. It is not out of Jesus' incompleteness that he has called angels and saints to join him in ministry. It is not because he is not strong enough and needs help. He could easily snap his fingers and the entire population of the world would suddenly see God and know He exists. He does not need Mary, angels, or saints. Nor does he need you or me. It is not out of his incompleteness that he has invited Mary, the angels, the saints and you and me to join in his ministry. It is out of his overabundance of graces and love. Catholics think it is because of his generosity, his desire to share his graces, his overflowing goodness, and his great love for us that he asks people to help him. He is overflowing with graces that he shares with his angels and all his children. If he loves you and me so much as to invite us to join in his ministry, I don't think it is hard to imagine that he would invite his disciples who are in heaven to join in his ministry. I think the fact that all Christians agree that angels are helping us shows that we understand that Jesus invites helpers in heaven to join Him; Catholics believe those helpers include faithful Christians who are in heaven.

Christ is the Center

The Catholic Church is clear about the centrality of Jesus. There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray "in the name" of Jesus... to invoke him (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2665-2666). The Saints are simply "alumni" who are there to help Jesus in the same way the angels help. Pope John Paul II wrote in his Message to World Youth Day 2000 the following: "The Cross, which seems to rise up from the earth, in actual fact reaches down from heaven, enfolding the universe in a divine embrace. The Cross reveals itself to be the center, meaning and goal of all history and every human life."