An adequate reply: If that’s the way you feel then don’t you ever, ever ask me to pray for you ever again. You see, the minute you ask me to pray for you in your time of need you are putting me between you and our one mediator, Jesus Christ.
What we Catholics are doing when praying to Mary is to ask
her to pray to Jesus on our behalf in the same way as you would ask me to pray
for you on your behalf. When Paul spoke
of the one mediator he introduced the subject by stating that it was good for
us to pray for one another (1 Tim 2:1-5).
It is good for one member of the Body of Christ to pray for the
well-being of another member of the Body of Christ and since not even
(physical) death can separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ
(Rom 8:38-39) then even those members of the Body who have physically died are
alive and well in heaven because Jesus tells us directly that the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jabob is a God of the living implying that Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob are alive(Matt 22:32). And because
death will not separate us from the Body of Christ means that those who have
died in friendship with God are not only alive but that they are STILL members
of the Body of Christ.
Questioner: But they’re dead. They can’t hear your prayers.
Reply: What
would be the point of asking for intercessory prayers if the people we are
asking are not aware of us or of our prayers?
Well we can find that they ARE aware of us in Heb 12:1 where it
says: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a
great cloud of witnesses, let us
throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let
us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Or in Luke 15:18 where Luke tells us that
their “is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner
that repenteth.”
We can see that the saints in heaven are not only alive just
as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive but that they are indeed aware of what is
happening here on earth.
And so ‘dead’ saints are alive in heaven, aware of what is
happening on earth and can pray for our well-being just as we can pray for the
well-being of others.
God Bless
Nathan
Another answer to the "they're dead and unaware of us" argument can be found in the Transfiguration of Jesus. Moses and Elijah seemed to be very aware of both current events and upcoming (future) events which they discussed with Jesus. Since these events included others than just Jesus (for example those who travel with Him and those who would betray Him), the awareness extends beyond just the Divinity of Christ and to us ordinary folks.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jamie, for you response and perspective on this issue!
ReplyDeleteExactly right Jamie. For the sake of brevity I purposefully cut short my post. As you rightly know, there are many other Bible verses one could use to point to the reality of the Communion of Saints whether one is physically dead or not. Thanks for the comment!
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