Whats the beef between RCC and Baptist anyway?

Though this sounds all good, none of it is scriptural. I agree that we should be humble when praying, but not to Mary, to Jesus.

 

"pray" means to ask! You are trying to make a distinction that does not exist in the dictionary:

1. To utter or say a prayer or prayers to; address by prayer.
2. To ask (someone) imploringly; beseech. Now often used elliptically for I pray you to introduce a request or entreaty: Pray be careful.
3. To make a devout or earnest request for: I pray your permission to speak.
4. To move or bring by prayer or entreaty.

In fact, if you look up "pray" in a concordance, you'll see the first prayer in the Bible is when Abraham "prays" to his sister (Gen 12:13)

 

Brian,

You bring up good points. Points that I think require a thoughtful and as you've noted a logical response, I hope this will help.


First let's recap your concerns, if I may:

What you are obviously referencing is the Rosary. The error you've made is you've not properly identified what Catholics are actually doing in reciting the main prayer of the rosary or what is commonly called the Hail Mary (so called after the opening words)Nor do you identify what the rosary actually is. I'll try to give some insight here.

Your implied premise evidenced in the quote above ("Hail Carson, the Lord is with you, please help me in my need) actually combines two separate expressions into one stand alone address and from that conclude that Mary is the object of the prayer.

Let me see if I can clarify what Catholics actually are doing when we pray the Rosary:

The first part of the prayer or address if you will is actually (and very important and pertinent to our discussion)a repeating of the Angel Gabriel's Biblical salutation to Mary; that is "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus".

By your statement you seem to suggest because the prayer starts with a salutation that Mary then is the object of the prayer. By "object" of the prayer, I can only guess that you mean that only she is to receive or contemplate our needs and then by obvious implication only she is to answer our needs.

That no more makes logical sense than your saying: "Hey Bob, pray for me and my needs" is making Bob the "object" of your request. Whereas you know Bob could only pray or multiply your requests to God.

In the case of the Catholic's repeating the words of the Angel Gabriel it isn't just a greeting but an aknowledgement (and a biblically referenced one at that) of the special singular grace of God in Mary's life.

And while the salutation is a special honoring of Mary (remember "all generations shall call me blessed") That is still not the request part of the prayer. The address or prayer is two parts consisting of

1.) A rememberance of the singular grace of God to Mary evidenced in the Biblical salutation of the Angel Gabriel. (Something God would highly approve of as it is honoring what God ordained as proper in His plan of Salvation)
and,
2.) A request for prayer from Mary (something we do while aknowledging Mary's special role )

It is now in this second part of the "Hail Mary" that it becomes a request made from us to a most righteous saint (a term I will further expound upon) to pray for our needs to God Himself.

It is then obvious Who the object is, as Mary could only "pray" to God, just as Bob could only pray to God (yet in what Catholics believe as being a more efficacious manner, again something I will expound upon).
These words of the second part are specifically, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen"

Hopefully you will not see a problem with repeating the words of the Angel Gabriel coupled with a prayer request.
I personally, view the recitation of the Angel Gabriels' words as the Biblical reference to the ultimate promises made through "the fruit of" Mary's womb (which is obviously a reference to Jesus). And the second part (the request for prayer) as a personal confirmation or "amen" of the biblical claims expressed and implied in the salutation, as well as the obvious request for prayer.

To continue with your second point, you wrote:

Here is where I think it important to bring up what the Rosary actually is.
By your implication you seem to believe that the Rosary is exclusively a request for prayers. When actually it is a meditation combined with prayer. The meditation is on the Life of Christ and many of the Gospel relayed biblical events concerning Jesus and His mother, as well as certain realities the Church has confirmed through its' Divine guidance. Each of these events have many deeper spiritual insights and benefits when contemplated and meditated upon.

Your problem with the repetition of prayers should not come from the need of prayer as it is God... : [the following is paraphrased from the following website please visit for the complete presentation,: http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/marymary.asp
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...who has set up prayer as the vehicle to do His bidding, and He will not change it. In James 4:2 it says, "You do not have because you do not ask God." In James 1:5-7 he says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God,...and it will be given to him. But when he asks he must believe and not doubt...That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord.
In 1 Timothy 2:1-4, St. Paul says, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone -- for kings and all those in authority...This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Here, St. Paul says that we must make prayers and intercessions to God for everyone. Why? Because God wants all men to be saved; and prayer is the means through which God will grant them salvation. We can conclude that if we don't pray for them, it will affect whether or not God saves them. Do you see how important intercessory prayer is?

Next is in reference to what I stated about Mary being a "righteous saint" and therefore being a more "efficacious" manner.

In James 5:16-18, Scripture tells us that God will listen to the prayers of a righteous man. He uses the example of the righteous prophet Elijah, who prayed to God that it would not rain. In answer, God withheld the rain for three-and -a-half years.

God listens to people who live righteous lives, and He is moved to answer their prayers. Proverbs 15:8 says, "The prayer of the righteous is His delight," and in 15:29, "He hears the prayer of the righteous."
The more righteously we live, the more God is pleased with us and the more He will answer our prayers. Conversely, if we sin, then God may not hear our prayers. In Isaiah 1:15, God says, "When you spread out your hands in prayer I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer prayers I will not listen." In 1 Peter 3:7, husbands are warned that if they mistreat their wives, God will not listen to their prayers.

If I know my saintly intercessors are more righteous than I by the mere fact that they have already made it to heaven, and if I know that God listens to the prayers of righteous people, then it is only logical that God will answer the prayers of my heavenly intercessors, perhaps more often than He will answer me.

Mary is one of those people who is more righteous than you or I. It is no wonder that God encourages us to seek her intercession when we desire something from Him. God is greatly affected by the prayers of holy people. The best example I can think of from Scripture is in Exodus 32:9-14. God wanted to destroy all of Israel after they worshipped the golden calf. Moses, whom God considered a righteous man, prayed that God would relent in His anger. Verse 14 records one of the most amazing responses in Scripture: "And God changed His mind and did not bring on His people the disaster He had threatened. " Later, in Exodus 33:11-19, God says that He listened to Moses' prayer because Moses was Gods friend; Moses pleased God; and God knew Moses by name. In modern terms, God answered Moses' prayer because God liked Moses very much.
Let me put it this way. The proud person claims that he doesn't need any of the intermediaries or vehicles God has established. He thinks that he is righteous enough to go directly to God without any support from others, without any sacraments, without the Church and her Communion of Saints. He thinks he is honoring God by bypassing intercessors, but in reality he is dishonoring God and puffing himself up. It's one thing to pray to God by yourself, but when you insist that you don't need intercessors to pray for you, then you don't really understand prayer at all, or what truly pleases God.

. Although God is powerful enough to do anything He desires, nevertheless, in His infinite wisdom, He has chosen to accomplish His works through select channels and intermediaries, and He will not change it. Anyone who wants to continue to have God's ear must recognize this principle.

________________________________________________
end of paraphrasing of website

Now that the need for intercessory prayer is addressed, let's reference your concern about the number of prayers.

Since we are still referring to the Rosary it is important to understand the original use of the Rosary. Another term that was used for the Rosary was Our Lady's Psalter a reference to the Psalms.

[The following is from the following website:http://net2.netacc.net/~mafg/cques33.htm
____________________________________________

As the recitation of the 150 Psalms, divided into fifties, was a favorite form of devotion for religious and learned persons, so too was it the practice to show devotion to the Blessed Virgin by the repetition of fifty, or a hundred, or a hundred and fifty salutations in her honor. In this way the practice of reciting fifty or more Ave Marias in honor of our blessed Lady became quite common. This occasioned the employment of some device in order to keep count of the prayers, and resulted in that chaplet which we now call the Rosary, a string of beads threaded with wire and divided into sections of ten, with one large bead for the Our Father between each section of ten small beads for the Hail Marys.

As repetition is apt to become a routine affair, the pious custom was introduced of associating a mystery of Our Lord's life with each decade of the Rosary, and meditating on that mystery while reciting the decade. The Rosary thus became known as Our Lady's Psalter, and was a favorite form of devotion among all classes.

In the days, before printing was invented, and when books were very few and outside the reach of the multitude, the Rosary was a particularly acceptable and helpful manner of prayer. As said before, it is an epitome of our religion, and besides helping those who are qualified mainly for vocal prayer, it also furnished those who practice mental prayer subject matter for sublimes contemplation. The Rosary is thus in a special manner the prayer of the people, both simple and learned. Those who find fault with its many repetitions fail to understand the wealth of devotion which it inspires in those who recite it properly, and the wonderful consolation and strength it gives to those who are faithful to it.

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End of website paraphrase

Additionally, I think we would generally all accept the fact that God is not confined by the restraints of time. He exists outside of time if you will. Since God exists outside of or without the confines of time whether 1 prayer is said now or 10 are said now or broken up a day apart just means that 10 prayer requests were heard. If you had asked Bob to pray for you it could be generally expected that Bob would continue to pray for you as the need continues. Just because we exist within the restraints of time doesn't mean that God heard these prayers a day apart as the restraint of time doesn't exist to God.

I hope this has helped.

God Bless

Stephen

 

NASB
13 "Please say that you are (22) my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that (23) I may live on account of you."

KJV

[12] Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.
[13] Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
[14] And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

Above is Gen. 12:13 in NASB and KJV (including 12,14 for reference)

Brian, Thanks for your post. Great name by the way. Sometimes the definition of the word, dictionary wise, and the common understanding of a word, differ. When that happens it is always best in a discussion to go with the common understanding of the word. In this case the dictionary definition of “pray” touches on both. When Abraham used what the KJV translated as pray it was meaning ask or say (as in the NASB above). That is not the common meaning that we have been discussing. The kind of “pray” we are discussing is asking in a sense but it is asking for divine intervention from the object of the prayer. We “pray” expecting the object of our prayer to answer and not for the object to pass the prayer on. Does that make sense?

Anyway, that brings us to another problem. If Jesus is God, and he is, then he is omnipotent. Logically it is obvious that Jesus would hear a prayer to Mary anyway so why would she need to bring Jesus our requests when he already knows. It is hard to imagine Mary approaching Jesus and saying that BrianT needs help with a certain problem and Jesus saying “Thanks mom I would have missed that one” That was not meant to be mean but it is interesting if you really think through it.

How about an answer to my asking someone to pray over and over question?

In Christian love,
Brian


Stephen, I wrote this off-line before I saw your post. I will fully read your long post later and get back to you. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions - Brian

 

Why go elsewhere when Jesus Himself told us to go directly to the Father with our prayers.

Is your God not sufficient to handle the prayers of all of those he created? The scriptures say that He is, and that he is waiting to hear from you.

 

You know, for those who claim that the "Bible alone" is their authority, you guys sure are weak on principles of exegesis and interpretation!!

You claim that we should be able to go directly to Jesus instead of using others to pray for us. Yet the Scriptures are FILLED with examples of one human being praying for another and God responding to those prayers in a positive way.

WHY? If, as you claim, He is God and knows all, why would He have to use an intermediary? Why couldn't the people involved go directly to God?

WFor instance, why did Abram have to pray for Pharoah that the curse of God be lifted from Pharoah? Surely God knew of Pharoah's repentant heart.

There are many other instances in Scripture which clearly show us that God's hand is moved in some special way by the intercession of others. No one can describe exactly how this works, nor the mind of God, but we can see the results.

I want my Mother praying for me and I want my brothers and sisters in the Lord, both on earth and in Heaven, also praying for me, even though God knows everything.


Why did

 

Why don't Protestants pray to the saints? That's a fair question. Catholics pray to the saints as though these glorified ones were 'bellhops.' Let's say that we say fine this is within God's pleasure, but then they take it one step further and say that after a saint like Padre Pio arrives in Heaven they elevate them to beatification and then after, I think, two confirmed miracles they elevate them to canonization or sainthood. If I have missed some detail let me know. But who knows if the miracles are for real, or just perchance the Lord might have healed two people. It's a shame how little credit the Lord God gets anymore.

This is another reason why we don't pray to saints because eventually down the line, Almighty God is stripped of His healing ministry in the lives of living human beings on this earth. Healing then has moved from God in Heaven to a mortal man or woman, who because of salvation provided by Christ alone, has made it into Heaven. This is the worst of idolatry, when humans claim that their prayers to saints delivers miracles to human beings on earth.

All Christians instructions left to us for healing are found in James 5:14. The sick one is to call for the elders of the church and they are to pray in the name of what person? They are to pray over the ill one anointing them with oil, only in the Name of the Lord, not to beatified saints that have been elevated by an ecclesiastical church. The prayer of faith will heal the sick one, if it is the will of the Lord. Apparently, healing and forgiveness can take place at the same time. In verse sixteen God encourages us to pray not to one another but ' . . . for one another that we might be healed. Prayer clearly is powerful because the Christian always approaches the correct person, the Person of our Lord.

Your prayers to the Father will not somehow be lost in the 'pipeline' between here and Heaven.

 

When I was a Catholic, I remember having a hard time understanding whether it was really okay to pray to someone other than God. I once asked a priest if it was okay for me to pray to my grandmother who had died several years ago. His answer was that this was permitted and did not conflict with Catholic teaching.

If you are Catholic, does this agree with what you have been taught? Can we pray to deceased friends and relatives or just to Mary and those that the church has declared to be saints?

Priscilla Ann

 

Uh... because most of them are just nice people raised to 'sainthood' by man! AND.. the Bible says there is only ONE mediator. Christ Jesus.

Good Grief!

Diane

 

You can ask anyone to pray for you. If your grandmother was a saint in heaven, then she would be able to do so, and would certainly want to. If not, then she either wouldn't be able to, or wouldn't want to. Either way, you would not be worshipping her, simply asking her to pray for you. The family bonds of the people of God are not broken at death.

 

Ray,

I can see perhaps where you might be confused about the canonization process. Here's my take for what it's worth.

You wrote:

In the grand scheme of things,the canonization process is simply a formality with the church. In that the person in question is pronounced to have lived a venerable life and by the Grace of God, enjoys the beatific vision of God in heaven. That is, it is a process whereas the church can say the saint lived a life in harmony with his Christian principals and enjoys the promises of Christ in heaven.

The church does not first presume the person in question is in heaven; then take steps to beatify and canonize after the fact. Those are steps the Church requires of itself to make in recommending the person in question as being a person who fully lived according to their Christian beliefs and justly received the gift of eternal salvation.

The process from the perspective of the church is 1.) beatification 2.) canonization
Whereas beatification basically says that the person lived a saintly life worthy of imitation (as it was in itself a life lived as an immitation of Christ).
Canonization is the statement that the person is a saint (has received his eternal salvation)

Please note it is not a pending pronouncement that puts the soul of the person in question in limbo as the church waits for miracles. As far as we know the person may have received the gift of salvation immediately upon their death. It then is strictly the Church's process to definitively make the assessment of that particular truth.

And as far as the miracles are concerned it does require two miracles as I recall. But these miracles derive only from the intercession of the person in question NOT wrought by that person. God answers the person in questions prayers and the church through the pronounced miracles confirms that the person in question indeed has God's ear (if I may)as a saint in heaven.
In short God answers the prayers of the saint and the miracles are the proof of God's willingness to answer his prayer.

God Bless

Stephen

 

For Catholics both meanings are the common understanding.

Catholics understand that they are asking the saints to pray for them, not to answer their prayers.

Then why ask anybody to pray for you? Why pray for anybody who asks you to? Why, in fact, pray at all, since Jesus knew your wants and needs from the foundation of the world.

So we can only ask a person to pray for us once in a lifetime? Once a year? Once a month? Once a day? Time, of course, has no meaning in heaven as it does on earth.

These are our perfected family members. When your little brother or sister asks for your help, do you get angry because they asked for your help yesterday? Maybe so, but only because we're not perfected. The angels and saints in heaven no longer suffer that weakness.

 

Stephen and Mike, Thanks for your answers, I will be "praying" about everything you have said.

Stephen, one thing you said jumped out at me.
"Mary is one of those people who is more righteous than you or I."

I know why you are saying this and I am getting much better at seeing things from a Catholic perspective these days. I don't know that you should make a statement like you did though. Would you have said that to Moses or Peter, probably not. The Bible is clear that "no not one is righteous" I understand that Catholic tradition teaches differently on this but it is hard to make a motal righteous when the Bible declares that NONE have been. I think you will say that she was not born without sin but was made sinless to be the vessel to bring Jesus into the world but that is not in scripture and conflicts with the verse I used because Mary was born mortal.

On rep. prayer. What you gave was interesting but was more opinion based then scripture based. Scripture warns of prayers that are rep. The real issue was the actual asking the same person over and over and over to pray for you. That aspect you both tried to address but still fell short somewhat in my humble opinion. To say there is no time in Heaven and then say that the saints or Mary listen to prayer after prayer has some problems of its own. Then there is the issue of being able to hear the pray of millions at once and at the same time beworshipping God, as we know from Rev. that we will be doing. also from the story in Luke, speaking of Laz. and the rich man there seems to be some basic earthlike communication in the afterlife. Can you hear, speak, bring prayers, sit on a throne, etc... at the same time? and not be God. The bible says we will see him as he truely is but we will not become God or have His power.

Now I am rambling, sorry about that. Hopefully more directed thoughts to come

In Christ,
Brian

 

The fact that God is always omniscient {knowing everything that is happening all the time} makes prayers to saints including Mary the mother of our Lord superfluous. There is nothing like a 'back up of prayers' unheard or unanswered by Almighty God. That's why we call Him Almighty. Sometimes we need Him in a split-second; no time for Padre Pio to transmit that message to God. We need the answer right now. The concepts of Catholics, to our human way of thinking, sounds plausible and nice, but in fact is wrapped in sentimentality, romanticism and wishful thinking. There is never any substantial thought as to what God's Word has to say. Prayers to saints came from the idle time of put to use by the papal chair.

 

The problem I see is that Protestants are seeing too big of a difference between the two connotations of "pray". Protestants focus on one connotation of "pray", from a Protestant perspective and understanding of that connotation. And then they turn around and try to slam Catholics based on that understanding. But how do you know Catholics truly "pray" in the way Protestants assume they do? What if the Protestant understanding is wrong, too extreme?

Yes, but what is necessarily wrong with that? People asked the Apostles for healing. Acts 16:9 has Paul seeing a man, in a vision, praying to Paul to come visit Macedonia. The prayer was both of a divine natures, and not passed on to God - was this man worshipping Paul? I don't think so.

Logically, it is obvious that Jesus knows our needs and wants before we even voice them, so why pray at all?

Is there something inherently wrong with this?
The goal of prayer is not to be as practical as possible.

Consider this: most songs, especially "worship choruses" are sort of like prayers and can be song to God in a prayerful state (i.e. actually meaning what you're singing, instead of just mumbling along with the rest of the congregation). Often, certian parts are repeated many times. For example, when singing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name", and if you really mean it when you sing it, you're "praying" to "crown him Lord of all" about a dozen times. Singing "O Come, All Ye Faithful", we "ask" people to "O come let us adore him" at least 18 times (if you sing all the verses).

 

The fact that God is always omniscient (including knowing everything that is GOING to happen, and knowing our wants/needs/etc before we even voice or think them) makes ALL prayers superfluous. Should we stop praying altogether?

I'm curious what you think of Acts 16:9-10, especially in the KJV since it uses the word "prayed".

 

Are you sure you want to use Acts 16:9&10 as an argument for prayer to the departed saints?

Having a vision of someone praying and actually hearing someone praying is two different things.

 

Not really, my point was that here, in scripture, is an example of someone praying to someone else, in a "divine" manner, asking for something, and that request intended for the primary hearer (i.e. and not intended to be simply passed on to God). I am not using the passage as proof that we should pray to departed saints, I was just giving an example of something other said scripture didn't mention.

Is it really different, in a practical way?

 

Considering Prayer is a conversation between two parties, or one seeking from another, I would have to say that visions are not necessarily the medium for prayer to take place. I know of none who actually pray in their sleep. Do you? I know of many who have visions in their sleep though. Our sleep time is usually the time when our mind "conjures up" the ways and means for accomplishing in end or taking a change in direction, etc.

Paul was most likely asleep in the early hours of the morning when he had his vision. The one seen "praying" was most likely asleep too since they were in the same time zone.

In all likelihood, God was telling Paul to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. Isn't that more fitting than a gentile praying specifically to Paul?

 

Hi Ray,

You wrote, "The fact that God is always omniscient {knowing everything that is happening all the time} makes prayers to saints including Mary the mother of our Lord superfluous."

And you know what? It also makes any prayer of petition that we say, even to God, superfluous, for he knows our needs before we ask for them. Thou dost protest too much, my friend.