The word Pray has a broad meaning, Any dictionary will show this. It can mean worship or communication to God. Or it can also mean to simply "ask another human being". The word itself comes from Prithie Or I pray thee, or I ask you.

When a Catholic prays to God he is asking God to help him and he is also worshiping God. But when a Catholic prays to Mary or the Saints, they are simply "Asking" those saints to pray for them to God. Just like you would ask your Christian friends(the body of Christ on earth) to pray for you we Catholics also ask our departed brothers(the body of Christ in heaven) to pray for us. We do this for several reasons.

1) We do not believe that Christ has two bodies(one in heaven and one on earth) we believe that there is only One body of Christ(Eph 4:4). That one body exist in both heaven and on earth.

2) We believe that God wants his Body to pray and intercede for eachother(1 Tim 2:1)

3) We believe that the prayers of the righteous man avails much(James 5:16)
and who is more righteous than those in heaven?

4) We believe that those in heaven hear our prayers to them and offer them up like incense before Gods heavenly Throne(Rev 5:8) on our behalf.

We also see this understanding as a apostolic tradition that was taught and practiced in the early Christian communities and liturgies of the Christian Church.

Gods Bless you all in Jesus through Mary,
Athanasius

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Roma locuta est causa finita est

Great post Athanasius : )
I can relate to that. I used to give thanks to God and then talk to Jesus for the "small stuff". I always felt like Jesus was a big brother.

Today however, I go straight to the source.

Do you think it is the fear of God that keeps people from going straight to God?

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May your awareness be perfection

Thanks for the compliment God bless you! Yes I do think that fear may have something to do with it. I also think that bad or little Catechesis(teaching) has something to do with it. We Catholics are always called to pray to God first and make him our Lord and savior. The saints should be supplemental prayer. We must always go to the source(God) directly. But we can also pray to saints. After all the more people praying to God for us the better we are.

Catholics and Christians in general see Jesus as being God himself. The second person of the Blessed Trinity. Jesus is not a saint, he is God(Jn 1:1). So going to Jesus is going to the source in our belief. Actually you could go to any of the 3 persons in the One Godhead, the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit and in our belief you would be going directly to the source(God himself). I hope that helps. Good questions as always!

God bless you! In Jesus through Mary

Athanasius

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Roma locuta est causa finita est

YES! I think fear is too great a barrier between ourselves and God. The best approach to God is through love. Love and fear are incompatible.

One form of Liturgy I use every now and then (about once a month) has the following words:

"God is love, and we are His children. There is no room for fear in love. We love because He loved us first."

I think fear of God is a preliminary stage; God is a greater being than ourselves - or even, THE greatest being - and so we should obey and worship Him. Later, when we understand it all better, fear is replaced by love.

Do you pray for the apostle John?

How do you know that saints" are in heaven now? What if they had very secret sins that no-one knew about and are still in purgatory?

Why not take Jesus' word for it though:
St. John 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
Do you know of any scriptural examples of it?

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Hi Paul, Good questions as always.

To your first question: No we do not pray for the apostle John, we believe he is in heaven so we pray to him.

Your second: We know that the saints are in heaven by infallible declaration of the Pope who canonizes them. If the saints are in purgatory we can still pray to them as they can still hear our prayers and pray for us. We call this concept the "church suffering" in Catholic theology. We also would in that case pray for them to be relieved of their sufferings in purgatory and enter the glories of heaven.

Your third: We agree with this passage you quoted. This passage is why we also pray to saints too. The more people you have praying for you to God through Jesus name the better.

Your fourth: Yes the scriptural example I gave was Rev 5:8 where we see the saints in heaven are taking the prayers of the saints on earth and offering them before Gods throne in the form of incense. as I mentioned earlier in my other post the concept is entirely biblical as I have shown 4 criteria from the bible that show this and also the early Christians viewed it the same way . These were the same early Christians who gave us the canon, and the authoritative church councils(like Nicea and Ephesus) that fought and stamped out the heresies of the early Church. But why would I have to have any proof from the bible at all for it to be Dogma for a Christian?

God bless you my good friend. Hang in there,

In Jesus through Mary,
Athanasius

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Roma locuta est causa finita est