All-Saints

Part 5, Theology: Saints and prayer

In no particular order, I’m going to talk about various theological issues that might come up between a person who is Protestant and someone who is Catholic. I want to be clear that this is not the main reason that I joined the CCC. I care about theology, but it has become clear to me over the years that practice trumps theology. There will not be a multiple choice test to make sure you believed the right things when you get to heaven. It’s not about what you believe, it’s about WHAT YOU DO that proves what you believe! With that said, here we go…wheeeeee!

I mentioned in an earlier blog my conversations with the Catholic community when my brother was first speaking with them. One of the questions I had was about saints. It fell into two categories:

  1. Doesn’t the Bible say we are all saints? I asked this question of one priest and his response was, “Yes, but don’t you think there are people who walk the path of faith better than others? If that’s true, shouldn’t we hold them up as examples of faithful living?”

When put that way, I would have to say yes…to both questions. And be honest…don’t Protestants have saints as well? I mean, they don’t call them saints, but don’t Protestants have people who they point to as examples of faithfulness? The answer is yes! Billy Graham, DL Moody, Jim Elliott, C.S. Lewis, everyone in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs…I could go on and on. Just because the Catholics use a word that Protestants don’t use to describe those people doesn’t make them any more or less valid.

  1. Why would we pray “to” saints when we should be praying “to” God? This one is more complicated. First, the phrase “praying to a saint” is actually just an older English use of the word “to.” A more modern way to say that would be “asking a saint to pray for us.” That may not help you, but it helped me a lot. Catholic doctrine teaches that saints do not answer prayer directly, but pray with and for us to the Father. More on that in a second.

“But aren’t there people who actually pray TO saints?” Yes, but this is some paganism that has crept into some people’s practice of Christianity and is condemned by the church. That doesn’t mean it all stops, any more than the pagan practices that have crept into a lot of Southern Baptist churches that the SBC would condemn.

So let’s break down the “asking saints to pray” idea. I’m going to do this by asking you, dear reader, to consider some questions:

  1. Are the souls of departed believers currently in heaven? There are Christians who believe that our souls remain with our bodies until the general resurrection, but most Christians would answer yes to this.
  2. Are those departed believers aware of what’s happening here? Hebrews 12:1 speaks of the “great cloud of witnesses” observing our race of faith. The image is that they are in the stands watching us as we run. There is no reason to believe that they don’t, and lots of evidence to say they do.
  3. Would you ask living people to pray for you (family, friends, Facebook, etc)? If your answer is yes, then why wouldn’t you ask someone in heaven to pray for you? They are more alive than we are! They are not distracted by the cares of this world. James 5:16 speaks of the prayers of a righteous person being more effective than regular prayers. They are more righteous than we are because they no longer sin!
  4. Is there evidence they pray for us? Yes! Revelation 24:8 speaks of the angels and the 24 elders bringing our prayers to the Father! It’s a part of what we get to do in heaven!

“BUT,” you may respond, “the Bible doesn’t tell us to do that.” You would be correct. The Bible doesn’t tell us to ask saints to pray for us. It doesn’t tell us not to either. There’s a lot that we do in church that the Bible doesn’t specifically tell us to do.

The Bible doesn’t tell us to separate families in worship by taking the children elsewhere. But many churches do.

The Bible doesn’t tell us to vote. But many Christians do.

The Bible doesn’t tell us to spend a significant portion of giving in the church on the building and staff. But most churches do.

The Bible doesn’t tell us to register with the Federal government. But most churches do.

I could go on and on. There’s a lot that Protestant churches do that has nothing with anything that is specifically commanded in the Bible. In the case of asking saints to pray, it just fits what the Bible DOES say.

In addition, there is a tradition of doing this that goes back to the earliest days of the church. If we accept the concept of the Trinity from the early church, then why would we not accept this widely accepted practice? The truth is that the subjects of the church councils were things that divided the church and needed a resolution to bring unity. Asking saints to pray was never addressed because by the time the councils came to pass, it was standard practice.

I am by no means an expert on this, but this is my understanding as I have made this transition. Please ask you questions in the comment section and I will address them as much as I can.