> From: btork@wctc.net (Barb Tork) Subject: Bible Quote
>
> Could you quote me a passage from the bible that says Jesus
> wants us to pray to Mary?
Dear Barb,
Some time ago a Protestant seminarian and a Catholic gentleman sent me
messages, asking me the same question you have asked, but about praying
to all the Saints, including Mary. I'll just send you here the answers I wrote
to
them: The first answer was:
| All prayer is speech, following from faith: "I believed,
| therefore I spoke; we, too, believe and therefore speak" (2nd
| Cor. 4:13). Your question is: "Why do we pray to the saints when
| we can go directly to Jesus Christ our High Priest?" Going to
| Jesus, going to the Saints is not a matter of either/or. It is
| both/and. The saints are in Christ; Christ is in the saints. We
| speak to Him and to them in Him.
|
| People become saints when they are born again into Christ through
| baptism. "Saint" in the Greek New Testament is HAGIOS. Using
| the corresponding verb HAGIAZO, Jesus said to His Father about
| His disciples:"Father, I make myself a saint for them, that they
| may be made saints in truth" (John 17:19). So throughout the New
| Testament, the baptized, the members of the Church, are commonly
| called "the saints".
|
| In this life, the saints carry the treasure of God's grace and
| election in earthen vessels (2nd Cor 4:7). They must, although
| standing, take care lest they fall (Ist Cor 10:12). They must
| work out their salvation in fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12).
| They must persevere in welldoing (Rom 2:7, Gal 6:7-10, 2nd
| Thess,3:12-13).
|
| When this life is over, the saints hear their Savior's "Well
| done! Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you!" They are free then
| of temptation, immune from sin, secure in their salvation (Rev
| 7:17, 21:3,4). They see now what they believed on earth; they
| possess now what they hoped for. But their love remains, and it
| is perfected beyond any love they knew or did on earth.
|
| Now, Stephen, you are one of God's saints on earth, please God.
| You ended your message to me, as St. Paul began so many of his,
| with the words, "Grace and Peace." There you were praying for
| me; you were interceding for me.Because you are in Christ and a
| member of Christ through baptism--AND ONLY FOR THIS REASON--your
| intercession is welcome to the Father, acceptable to Him. I can
| and I do ask you to continue to intercede in Christ for me. Will
| you do it? I know you will, because it would be a sin against
| Christ and the Father and the Spirit of Love to refuse to pray
| for God's Grace and Peace for me and for everyone else in the
| world.
|
| When we die and go to Heaven, our prayer for the saints on earth
| grows in perfection and intensity as our closeness to God and our
| love for Him increases.
|
| The saints and angels in Heaven are aware of us (Hebrews 12:1;
| Matt. 18:10; Luke 15:7,10).
|
| The elders in Revelation (5:8) are figures of saints in heaven,
| who offer up the prayers of the saints on earth (the HAGIOI) as
| part of their own worship of the Father and His Lamb.
|
| The members of Christ are also members of one another. We need
| one another; we serve and help one another. "The eye cannot say
| to the hand, `I do not need you'" (1st Cor. 12:21). We break
| this divine Word of Scripture if we say to the members of Christ
| in Heaven, "We do not need you." We ought to say, "Pray for us."
|
| Christian prayer is speech in Christ. We speak to the Saints in
| Christ. In Christ they speak to God on our behalf. Do we also
| speak to God directly? Only in Christ, as you well know. In
| Christ you are free--you can speak to anybody you like. Who can
| forbid you? If God is with us, who can be against us? "You were
| called for freedom, brothers" (Gal. 5:13).
|
| I would not advise any Christian to abandon his Christian
| heritage of 2000 years, his union in Christ with his brothers and
| sisters in Heaven.We have the word of God that Christ breaks down
| the wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles, to make all men
| one in Himself. It is an error to suppose that He has erected
| another wall of separation between us and our fellow Christians
| in Heaven.
The second answer was:
| St. Paul says that the Church is Christ's Body. He is the Head, we
| are his members and members of one another (Eph 4:25). We need one
| another (1 Cor 12:14-26). Our physical death is only passage into
| the fullness of life; death does not separate us from the Lord (Rom.
| 8:38-39). We belong to the Lord, both in this life and in the next
| (Rom. 14:8). Since death has not separated the Saints in Heaven from
| the Lord, but brought them closer to Him, neither has death separated
| them from us, because we and they are members together of the Lord.
| We still need their prayers, and they generously give them on our
| behalf. That is why the Saints in Heaven, in the symbol of the
| Elders in Revelation 5:8, are shown offering to God the prayers of
| the Saints on earth, who are ourselves (Revelation (8:3-4). The
| worship they give to God includes the offering to him of the prayers
| of the Saints on earth, ourselves.
|
| They do God's will perfectly. God's will for them as for us is the
| exercise of a twofold love: love for God, and love for others. We are
| the "others" they must love as part of their service to God. And the
| way, the only way, they can show love for us is by praying for us.
|
| We worship God alone. We honor and venerate our Saints as our
| "successful" brothers and sisters in Christ, our fellow members of
| the Church, his Body.
|
| Scripture indeed commands us to love and rely upon our fellow members
| in the Church (1 Cor 12:14-26). The only way we can rely upon the
| Saints in Heaven is by knowing them, imitating them, and asking them
| to pray with us and for us.
|
| How much emphasis does God our Father place upon our love and union
| with the Saints, our brothers and sisters, his noblest and closest
| children? Does he love and approve of the marks of love and
| intercommunion with them that we show? Could we possibly honor them
| more than he already honors them? Do we have to ask? Not if we have
| the spirit of Christ. We are family, this Church of Christ. We do not
| snub one another. We talk, we express ourselves, we make known our
| needs and desires to the Saints as we go together as children to their
| father and ours through Jesus Christ our Brother and greatest Saint.
|
| Ann Ball has written two volumes of lives of the Saints, which I
| recommend. They are available from TAN Books, P.O. Box 424, Rockford,
| IL 61105. Vol 1 costs $18; Vol 2, $20. Postage is $3.00.
|
Sincerely in Christ,
Father Mateo
--- Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit ---
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