On that most exciting day when football, baseball, basketball, and hockey all collided, life was truly good. I’m talking about yesterday where the NFL Draft, postseason hockey, postseason basketball, and regular season baseball all happened to fall on the same glorious block of time between 6pm and 2am CST (thanks to the NFL moving the first round of the draft to prime time). And if only I really cared about the MLS, then it would have truly been a perfect storm, but alas professional soccer in the US is only a pale shadow of European soccer and who really care about that? Regardless, I had to literally juggle draft coverage, the Rangers game, and keeping up with the NHL and NBA postseason while still paying attention to my regular Thursday night TV selections. Not only this greatness…but the fact that the Rangers got off the schneid, brilliant! C.J. Wilson allowed just four hits over 6 2/3 scoreless frames, and the Rangers' offense, after being stymied for six innings by Clay Buchholz, broke through with three runs in the seventh to end Texas' losing streak. What the hell more could you want? A house, a dog, a career, and spending money would be nice, but enough about my problems. I was truly concerned that we would continue sliding down into the basement, but breaking out of the slump is a good thing as we head back home for a stretch. This was by far the most grueling road trip that we will have to face this season and the longest. I said we would have to come out of Boston with at least two to make up for the terrible showing in New York, but at this point, one will do. I am now looking forward to going to the game on Saturday with the free pregame concert and the Elvis Andrus bobble head. Nice.
Can’t remember when it was, that’s how bad my memory is, but I wrote recently about my love and admiration for PostSecret. Well, today I checked PostSecret and was directed to another random blog site full of useless information that somehow brightened my day (what I imagine my blog is like for ya’ll). 1000 Awesome Things (http://1000awesomethings.com/) is just a time-ticking countdown of 1000 awesome things. Launched June, 2008 and updated every weekday. And it came out as 400-page hardcover The Book of Awesome this month. Consumer angst has turned western civilization into a morass of grumpy old men moaning about shoddy battery life of iPhones or the annoying omnipresence of accident claims adverts when you just want to watch a daytime quiz show. So sometimes, it’s nice to remind yourself of life’s sweeter side and the pleasures to be had from the small things…like peeling the thin plastic film off new electronic gadgets or sneaking your own cheap snacks into the cinemas. Not as deep and insightful as the soul searching that PostSecret brings, but perhaps a good way to go nonetheless. In fact Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret is quoted on the site as saying, “1000 Awesome Things is the #1 awesome website.” An endorsement like that is hard to ignore, and so are the topics of the 1000 awesome things.
Given the hectic nature of our lives, it’s easy to overlook the little things that make it all worthwhile. Thank goodness we’ve got this site to remind us of life’s small pleasures. I came upon today’s #521, but I’ve already identified a few favorites including that pile of assorted beers left in your fridge after a party, locking people out of the car and pretending to drive away, and finding money you didn’t even know you lost. Sleeping in your own bed after a long trip, being able to carry all the groceries from the car in one swoop, that miracle of science when the amount of toilet paper left on the toll is the exact amount you need…these are just some of the quietly awesome things in life. From the surprising (Thinking it’s Thursday when it’s really Friday) to the simply satisfying (Letting go of the gas pump at just the right moment), the pain-relieving (Getting the eyelash out of your eye) to small victories (Getting the armrest at the movies), the site features new awesomeness every day. It reminds you that not everything is ridiculous and hard to deal with. Sometimes it’s just awesome. That’s when you smile to yourself and think, “Hell yeah, I can get through this.”
Today’s (#521) was…Calling a mulligan on the day. So, I’m going to do that and head back to bed.
Mulligan!
AWESOME.
And I just found you can sign up to have them just come to your email inbox. So easy.
AWESOME.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Just more reasons why Texas is great
Argh! I am so frustrated with my Texas Rangers that I can hardly stand it. Seriously, how many leads do you have to blow before you realize you need to start working on your defense? I can’t get too upset since it is so early in the season, but really…these are the basics. I will reserve the bulk of my angry Rangers rant for later in the season when the defense gets better and our offense starts falling off (it is inevitable, because we can’t have all parts of our game working properly). But there is something going right in Texas pretty much all the time…being great. Yes, the former independent nation now great state of Texas has been superior in many ways over the years. From our simply better than everyone else’s micro-brewed beers to our extremely more attractive than everyone else’s women, we are the last bastion of the American dream. Here we are, seemingly skirting the economic downturn while the rest of the country wallows in their own stupidity (and the result of it). Now now…I am not saying we are smarter or better than the rest of the country. I am just saying that we’re smarter and better than every other state.
Once a separate nation, Texas has recently been behaving more like an independent economic republic than a regular state. While it hasn't been immune to the problems plaguing the nation, the Texas housing market, employment rate, and overall economic growth are relatively strong. This can be attributed to our excellent geology and stunning geography. But Texan prosperity also reflects the conscious efforts of a once-parochial place to embrace globalization. If you took a business class in the last twenty years then you have heard this buzz word of economic growth. Globalization describes a process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a globe-spanning network of communication and trade. And if you paid any attention in those business classes you know that countries that have embraced globalization have grown by leaps and bounds compared to countries with relatively closed economic/social policies. This is true of Texas and is indicated by several measures of economic stress. The state unemployment rate is 8.2 percent…high, but still one many states would envy (California's is 12.5 percent; Michigan's is 14.1 percent). It entered recession later than the rest of the country (Texas was adding jobs through August 2008) and started slowly adding jobs again last fall, thanks mostly to its great position in the largely recession-proof energy industry.
Are there any distressed homeowners in my readership? By far the housing slump and mortgage crisis hit many Americans pretty hard. My theory about all that is…if you couldn’t afford it, then why the hell did you buy it. Take a second to think about this. Did you read your mortgage agreement? Did you seriously think that magically, all of the sudden; you could afford a home when you hadn’t been able to up until that point? Come on, quit begging the government to bail you out and think for a minute who really put you in the place that you’re in. Then, wish and hope and pray that you had only lived in Texas when this all happened. The Texas housing market has fared better than many. The mortgage delinquency rate (the portion of borrowers three months behind on payments) is 5.78 percent, compared with 8.78 nationwide, according to First American CoreLogic. That's partly because relaxed zoning codes and abundant land kept both price appreciation and speculation down. "House prices didn't experience a bubble in the same way as the rest of the nation," said Anil Kumar, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (who I met while pursuing my Economics degree at SMU). But it's also because of two attributes not commonly associated with the Longhorn State: financial restraint and comparatively strong regulation. Unlike many of its neighbors, Texas has state laws that prohibited consumers from using home-equity lines of credit to increase borrowing to more than 80 percent of the value of their homes. The upshot: Dallas housing prices have fallen only 7 percent from their 2007 peak, according to the Case-Shiller index.
As it has for decades, energy is driving Texas' economy. But it's not because the state's wells are gushing crude. Though it doesn’t seem right that the state that gained its fame through a television show about a modern oil dynasty (Dallas), Texas is leading the way in alternative energy sources. Sure, we’re still pumping the black gold out of the fields of West Texas. In November 2009, Texas wells produced 1.08 million barrels per day, about half as much as they did in the late 1980s. In recent years, natural gas has been undergoing a renaissance. That renaissance happened right in my backyard…or I guess you would say it’s my neighbor’s backyard. The Barnett Shale is a geological formation underlies the city of Fort Worth and underlies 5,000 square miles and at least 17 counties. Some experts have suggested the Barnett Shale may have the largest producible reserves of any onshore natural gas field in the United States. The state's production rose about 35 percent between 2004 and 2008, partly due to this find and the resulting wells that sprang up from it. While traveling out to the ballpark last year to see the Rangers play you could make out the crowns of the wells behind sound-dampening walls along the highway. And Texas has received a big boost from a different, renewable source of energy: wind.
Wind power in Texas consists of many wind farms with a total installed nameplate capacity of 9,410 MW from over 40 different projects. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 3,670 MW. Several forces are working to the advantage of wind power in Texas: the wind resource in many areas of the state is very large, large projects are relatively easy to site and the market price for electricity is relatively high because it is set by natural gas prices. In this area, Texas' size and history of independence has enabled it to jump-start a new industry. The state has its own electricity grid, which is not connected to neighboring states. That has allowed it to move swiftly and decisively in deregulating power markets, building new transmission lines, and pursuing alternative sources. "We can build transmission lines without federal jurisdiction and without consulting other states," said Paul Sadler, executive director of the Austin-based Wind Coalition. Ramping up wind power nationally would require connecting energy fields—the windswept, sparsely populated plains—to population centers on the coasts and in the Midwest. Texas' grid already connects the plains of West Texas with consumers in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Texas recently surpassed 10,000 megawatts of capacity, the most by far of any state and enough to power 3 million homes, Sadler says. Wind energy is also powering employment—creating more than 10,000 jobs so far. And it and has attracted foreign companies, including Danish turbine maker Vestas, Spanish renewable-energy giant Iberdrola, and Shell.
Texas today is more suburban engineer than urban cowboy, more Michael Dell than J.R. Ewing. Austin, home to the University of Texas, the state government, and Dell Computer, has a 7 percent unemployment rate. Yes, ExxonMobil is based in Irving. But the state's energy complex is increasingly focused more on services and technology than on intuition and wildcatting. And it is selling those services into the global oil patch. Russian, Persian Gulf, and African oil developers now come to Houston for equipment, engineering, and software. Ever since the discovery of oil at Spindletop, energy has been a dominant force politically and economically within the state. According to the Energy Information Administration, Texans consume the most energy in the nation per capita and as a whole. Unlike the rest of the nation, most of Texas is on its own alternating current power grid, the Texas Interconnection. Despite the California electricity crisis, Texas still has a deregulated electric service. Along with rich petroleum and natural gas reserves the Energy Information Administration states that the Texas' large agriculture and forestry industries could give Texas an enormous amount biomass for use in biofuels. The state also has the highest solar power potential for development in the nation. The oilman and the alternative fuel hippie can sit down for a frank discussion about the future of energy in Houston while the rest of the United States squabbles over heating oil.
While its political leaders may occasionally flirt with secession, Texas thrives on connection. It surpassed California several years ago as the nation's largest exporting state. Manufactured goods like electronics, chemicals, and machinery account for a bigger chunk of Texas' exports than petroleum does. In the first two months of 2010, exports of stuff made in Texas rose 24.3 percent, to $29 billion, from 2009. That's about 10 percent of the nation's total exports. There are more than 700,000 Texan jobs geared to manufacturing goods for export, according to Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. "A lot of it is capital goods that the Asian, Latin American, and African [countries] are using to build their economies." As of 2008, Texas had a gross state product (GSP) of $1.224 trillion, the second highest in the U.S. Its GSP is comparable to the GDP of India or Canada which are ranked 12th and 11th worldwide. Texas's economy is the third largest in the world of country subdivisions. Texas's large population, abundance of natural resources, and diverse population and geography have led to a large and diverse economy. According to the Tax Foundation, Texans' state and local tax burdens rank among the lowest in the nation, 7th lowest nationally; state and local taxes cost $3,580 per capita, or 8.7% of resident incomes. Texas is one of six states that lack a state income tax. Texas has the most farms and the highest acreage in the United States. Texas leads the nation livestock production. Cattle is the state's most valuable agricultural product, and the state leads nationally in production of sheep and goat products. Texas leads the nation in production of cotton. The state grows significant amounts of cereal crops and produce. Texas has a large commercial fishing industry. With large universities systems coupled with initiatives like the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, a wide array of different high tech industries have developed in Texas. The Austin area is nicknamed the "Silicon Hills" and the north Dallas area the "Silicon Prairie".
Thanks to that embrace of globalization, the Texas turnaround may help lead the nation in its economic turnaround. Texans have always had the ability to think big. Now that their state has become a player in the global economy, we can expect a new kind of swagger.
Once a separate nation, Texas has recently been behaving more like an independent economic republic than a regular state. While it hasn't been immune to the problems plaguing the nation, the Texas housing market, employment rate, and overall economic growth are relatively strong. This can be attributed to our excellent geology and stunning geography. But Texan prosperity also reflects the conscious efforts of a once-parochial place to embrace globalization. If you took a business class in the last twenty years then you have heard this buzz word of economic growth. Globalization describes a process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a globe-spanning network of communication and trade. And if you paid any attention in those business classes you know that countries that have embraced globalization have grown by leaps and bounds compared to countries with relatively closed economic/social policies. This is true of Texas and is indicated by several measures of economic stress. The state unemployment rate is 8.2 percent…high, but still one many states would envy (California's is 12.5 percent; Michigan's is 14.1 percent). It entered recession later than the rest of the country (Texas was adding jobs through August 2008) and started slowly adding jobs again last fall, thanks mostly to its great position in the largely recession-proof energy industry.
Are there any distressed homeowners in my readership? By far the housing slump and mortgage crisis hit many Americans pretty hard. My theory about all that is…if you couldn’t afford it, then why the hell did you buy it. Take a second to think about this. Did you read your mortgage agreement? Did you seriously think that magically, all of the sudden; you could afford a home when you hadn’t been able to up until that point? Come on, quit begging the government to bail you out and think for a minute who really put you in the place that you’re in. Then, wish and hope and pray that you had only lived in Texas when this all happened. The Texas housing market has fared better than many. The mortgage delinquency rate (the portion of borrowers three months behind on payments) is 5.78 percent, compared with 8.78 nationwide, according to First American CoreLogic. That's partly because relaxed zoning codes and abundant land kept both price appreciation and speculation down. "House prices didn't experience a bubble in the same way as the rest of the nation," said Anil Kumar, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (who I met while pursuing my Economics degree at SMU). But it's also because of two attributes not commonly associated with the Longhorn State: financial restraint and comparatively strong regulation. Unlike many of its neighbors, Texas has state laws that prohibited consumers from using home-equity lines of credit to increase borrowing to more than 80 percent of the value of their homes. The upshot: Dallas housing prices have fallen only 7 percent from their 2007 peak, according to the Case-Shiller index.
As it has for decades, energy is driving Texas' economy. But it's not because the state's wells are gushing crude. Though it doesn’t seem right that the state that gained its fame through a television show about a modern oil dynasty (Dallas), Texas is leading the way in alternative energy sources. Sure, we’re still pumping the black gold out of the fields of West Texas. In November 2009, Texas wells produced 1.08 million barrels per day, about half as much as they did in the late 1980s. In recent years, natural gas has been undergoing a renaissance. That renaissance happened right in my backyard…or I guess you would say it’s my neighbor’s backyard. The Barnett Shale is a geological formation underlies the city of Fort Worth and underlies 5,000 square miles and at least 17 counties. Some experts have suggested the Barnett Shale may have the largest producible reserves of any onshore natural gas field in the United States. The state's production rose about 35 percent between 2004 and 2008, partly due to this find and the resulting wells that sprang up from it. While traveling out to the ballpark last year to see the Rangers play you could make out the crowns of the wells behind sound-dampening walls along the highway. And Texas has received a big boost from a different, renewable source of energy: wind.
Wind power in Texas consists of many wind farms with a total installed nameplate capacity of 9,410 MW from over 40 different projects. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 3,670 MW. Several forces are working to the advantage of wind power in Texas: the wind resource in many areas of the state is very large, large projects are relatively easy to site and the market price for electricity is relatively high because it is set by natural gas prices. In this area, Texas' size and history of independence has enabled it to jump-start a new industry. The state has its own electricity grid, which is not connected to neighboring states. That has allowed it to move swiftly and decisively in deregulating power markets, building new transmission lines, and pursuing alternative sources. "We can build transmission lines without federal jurisdiction and without consulting other states," said Paul Sadler, executive director of the Austin-based Wind Coalition. Ramping up wind power nationally would require connecting energy fields—the windswept, sparsely populated plains—to population centers on the coasts and in the Midwest. Texas' grid already connects the plains of West Texas with consumers in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Texas recently surpassed 10,000 megawatts of capacity, the most by far of any state and enough to power 3 million homes, Sadler says. Wind energy is also powering employment—creating more than 10,000 jobs so far. And it and has attracted foreign companies, including Danish turbine maker Vestas, Spanish renewable-energy giant Iberdrola, and Shell.
Texas today is more suburban engineer than urban cowboy, more Michael Dell than J.R. Ewing. Austin, home to the University of Texas, the state government, and Dell Computer, has a 7 percent unemployment rate. Yes, ExxonMobil is based in Irving. But the state's energy complex is increasingly focused more on services and technology than on intuition and wildcatting. And it is selling those services into the global oil patch. Russian, Persian Gulf, and African oil developers now come to Houston for equipment, engineering, and software. Ever since the discovery of oil at Spindletop, energy has been a dominant force politically and economically within the state. According to the Energy Information Administration, Texans consume the most energy in the nation per capita and as a whole. Unlike the rest of the nation, most of Texas is on its own alternating current power grid, the Texas Interconnection. Despite the California electricity crisis, Texas still has a deregulated electric service. Along with rich petroleum and natural gas reserves the Energy Information Administration states that the Texas' large agriculture and forestry industries could give Texas an enormous amount biomass for use in biofuels. The state also has the highest solar power potential for development in the nation. The oilman and the alternative fuel hippie can sit down for a frank discussion about the future of energy in Houston while the rest of the United States squabbles over heating oil.
While its political leaders may occasionally flirt with secession, Texas thrives on connection. It surpassed California several years ago as the nation's largest exporting state. Manufactured goods like electronics, chemicals, and machinery account for a bigger chunk of Texas' exports than petroleum does. In the first two months of 2010, exports of stuff made in Texas rose 24.3 percent, to $29 billion, from 2009. That's about 10 percent of the nation's total exports. There are more than 700,000 Texan jobs geared to manufacturing goods for export, according to Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. "A lot of it is capital goods that the Asian, Latin American, and African [countries] are using to build their economies." As of 2008, Texas had a gross state product (GSP) of $1.224 trillion, the second highest in the U.S. Its GSP is comparable to the GDP of India or Canada which are ranked 12th and 11th worldwide. Texas's economy is the third largest in the world of country subdivisions. Texas's large population, abundance of natural resources, and diverse population and geography have led to a large and diverse economy. According to the Tax Foundation, Texans' state and local tax burdens rank among the lowest in the nation, 7th lowest nationally; state and local taxes cost $3,580 per capita, or 8.7% of resident incomes. Texas is one of six states that lack a state income tax. Texas has the most farms and the highest acreage in the United States. Texas leads the nation livestock production. Cattle is the state's most valuable agricultural product, and the state leads nationally in production of sheep and goat products. Texas leads the nation in production of cotton. The state grows significant amounts of cereal crops and produce. Texas has a large commercial fishing industry. With large universities systems coupled with initiatives like the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, a wide array of different high tech industries have developed in Texas. The Austin area is nicknamed the "Silicon Hills" and the north Dallas area the "Silicon Prairie".
Thanks to that embrace of globalization, the Texas turnaround may help lead the nation in its economic turnaround. Texans have always had the ability to think big. Now that their state has become a player in the global economy, we can expect a new kind of swagger.
Monday, April 19, 2010
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."
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."
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