Who better to get the job done that Our Mother Mary. Why wouldn't Jesus listen to his mother, when she never said no to God, during her life. She reigns over everybody, and God gave her that privilege. St. Padra Pio had a vision of St. Peter and Jesus walking in the Kingdom, while they were walking they saw a man sitting by the wall.( like a vagrant) Jesus said to Peter,"did you let him in here." "No," said Peter," you must have." And Jesus said,"No I didn't let him in." Then he thought about it for a second and said,"Oh it was my mother." As for the Saints each one of them have a special place in the heart of Jesus and he also listens to them.
Because ALL religions are full of POOP..
Get a clue & stop pretending your imaginary friends are true.
This website has a few files and a video that is a little over an hour long. The video is made by Christians, but Catholic opinions are also counterpointed. The video should answer all of your questions. The Catholic point of view is given in the video, so you can weigh what is said. Of course, it's more sided toward Christianity instead of Catholicism. The video is broken into segments, so add the site to your favorites folder and watch at your pleasure.
http://www.eternal-productions.org/catho...
direct video page link:
http://www.eternal-productions.org/messa...
Catholics pray to God, Jesus, Mary and saints. It is part of the pantheon. Like egyptians have a myriad of gods & goddesses as do most other faiths and cultures. Being wiccan I invoke different goddesses for different purposes. I usually explain this to people like this: Imagine a diamond. Christians believe there is only the one male god, thats how they perceive the diamond. But I see the same diamond and study every facet (as different gods & goddesses) inorder to get closer to the whole. The Cult of the Saints@Everything2.com::
In closing, one may ask why saints are needed at all in the Christian faith. Can one not pray directly to God? Does one really need an intercessor?
http://everything2.com/e2node/The%20Cult%20of%20the%20SaintsHOME |
because they are confused, Mary never created the world, or healed anybody, i dont understand it at all.
Across religions, people seem to psychologiclaly need intercessors- whether an evangalist pastor, or saints.
This concept is way far back- think of Greek myth. They needed people like Hercules, half-god, half-man, to walk across the two worlds.
It's part of man's inner feeling of not being good enough, of needing some symapthetic creature to breach the two worlds and communicate.
That's not all... Religions from Aboriginal to Roman Catholic use priests, oracles, healers, and so forth... specially "trained" humans who can mediate for them.
I guess you could say it stems from the human feeling of of insecurity, and the lack of confidence, thinking God could never listen... and the needs of other humans to build up power for themself.
In the Americas it's especially so, because the Mayans worshiped a female god.
In order for the Spaniards to control them, they took away their language and cut out the tongue of an adult teaching the Mayan hieroglyphs to their children or even whipped or killed them.
Patron Saints - The History of Patron Saints - How Patron Saints ::
Seeking the intercession of a patron saint does not mean that one cannot approach God directly in prayer; rather, it's like asking a friend to pray for you
http://catholicism.about.com/od/thesaints/p/Patron_Saints.htmHOME |
For comfort, during their forced transition to the Catholic religion, they transposed the woman figure to the Virgin Mary.
As far as praying to the Virgin Mary in Europe or the Eastern religions, this was to recognize her as mother of god not equal to god.
It's the same as praying to the saints. It's in recognition of their saintly deeds that deemed them holy by the church, but not equal to god.
You will learn that the church controlled the state and whatever laws needed to be altered or modified, had to be discussed by the religious leaders at the time.
They decided who would be the saints, they discussed how Mary should be presented, what Jesus should be manifested as and appear to the public as...
Yes, people created the dude with the beard and the sandals in modern times, because the earlier version was a strapping young boy with no facial hair until the Visigoth time, because a beard and a mustache was a symbol for power.
So, whatever you believe now, would not be recognized by the Catholic church 400 years ago or more. Nor a faint recognition of how the Roman's saw Mary nor Jesus during the emperor Constantine's reign.
History can be quite fascinating and your belief is just one manifestation of thousands of gods and beliefs. I'm sure Deuteronomy will be completely taken out of the bible in a couple hundred years time and people's beliefs in the future will be unrecognizable to us.
No, religion and beliefs constantly evolve and change to fit ones orthodoxy. It happens when one civilization falls, one conquers another or simply because one has to change it for the sake of progress. Otherwise, the earth would still be flat and the sun would still revolve around us, wouldn't it?
It's OK to pray to saints?
First of all it is disingenuous to state that the practice of praying for each other has no biblical foundation, we are instructed in Scripture to have a prayer life for others as it is part of Godâ ™s commandment to love one another.
(2Co 5:8 DRB) But we are confident and have a good will to be absent rather from the body and to be present with the Lord.
The Catholic Church does not teach that it is absolutely necessary for one to ask for the intercession of saints for salvation. The Church does teach that prayer to God is necessary for salvation for all believers. For a Catholic it would be wrong to ignore the liturgical worship offered to God at feast days for the saints and the prayers asking for their intercession.
The Communion of Saints is a dogma of the ancient Church and is recorded in the apostles Creed. It simply states that the faithful because of their relationship with Christ are alive even after the death of their flesh and worship with us. To us the Church is made up of the Church militant who represents all those believers living out their hope in the flesh.
(Phi 2:12 DRB) Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but much more now in my absence) with fear and trembling work out your salvation.
(Phi 2:13 DRB) For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will.
It consists of the Church Suffering who are those who are temporarily in need of further purgation from sin so that they may enjoy the presence of God.
(2Ma 12:46 DRB) It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.
Lastly, the Communion of the Saints consists of those who have won the race:
(Phi 3:14 DRB) I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus.
Their immortal souls are in heaven in Godâ ™s presence:
(Rev 5:8 DRB) And when he had opened the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
The universal stream connecting all of Godâ ™s creation is His love, which we take on in our baptism into our journey towards sanctification. This is not an emotional but a desire placed in us by the Spirit of God that endures as a desire for those other than ourselves and this love extends even to our enemies. This is truly a love that comes only from God and is a foreign concept and nonsense to those who have not received Godâ ™s salvific grace. This desire within our souls does not end with the death of our flesh but continues into eternity where the saints through their intercession in prayer encourage us in our race and assist us to endure unto our union with God.
I think that some people of faith, who do not understand the Communion of Saints, somehow believe that asking saints to pray for us is detracting from our love or our trust in God. In truth it is impossible, if we truly love as God commands and has given us the grace to understand, not to pray to those whom we love and in turn we expect them to return that same love to us by praying for us and presenting our prayers to God.
In Christ
Fr. Joseph
They don't. This is a common misconception of many Protestants. Catholics do pray directly to and also confess to God. Sometimes (but not all the time) a Catholic will pray for Mary to pray for them. Not all Catholics do this though. It is also another misconception that Catholics revere the saints as if they were gods, the saints are merely people who have done good things and the church is recognising them for those efforts. The other misconception- that Catholics aren't Christians. Despite what the fundies will tell you, Catholics ARE Christians.
Catholics do pray to God directly, but they also sometimes ask for intercession of saints and Mary to pray for them! Just like if you asked a Friend brother mother etc to pray for you the only difference is the Saints and Mary or with God in heaven!
Because Jesus is very busy.
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