It will be interesting to see where this one goes…
I’m sure that you are all no doubt aware that we, as Catholics, are often charged with being idolaters – that is, worshipping idols rather than God Himself. This claim is usually aimed at us due to the number of statues and paintings we have of the saints that have gone before us, and of Our Lady and even of Our Lord. When we pray the “Hail Mary” or ask the saints to intercede for us, this too is seen as praying to those who are not God. A lot of this is based on the Second Commandment:
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I The Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My Commandments.
Right? Now, basically when I have had this levelled at me, my response is that I do not worship the saints or Mary – I worship God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I say that the statues and paintings etc. are simply reminders of those that have gone before me in Faith and whose stories are often inspirational because all saints were fully human. In other words, there really is no reason why I could not be a saint. So these images draw my mind up towards God and Heaven and inspire me to keep on fighting the good fight.
As for the “Hail Mary” and the intercession of the saints, the former is taken straight from Scripture and I take some comfort in basically quoting an angel. 
The latter (and the second half of the “Hail Mary”) are easy enough for me to reconcile with. I believe that the saints are in Heaven, with God, with no interruptions or other thoughts bouncing around in their heads…unlike me, when I pray. So, asking them to pray for me in addition to me talking straight to God, is not too much of a stretch if you believe in life after death in Heaven and can be a good idea so that my intentions don’t get mixed in with my food shopping list and deadlines. 
(Interestingly back on the Commandment, notice how it says “is in heaven above” and not “is in Heaven above”? I always took that “heaven” to mean the sky – i.e. don’t go making statues of birds and bowing down to them!)
Now, the reason why I bring this all up is that while I find it relatively easy to “justify” the Church’s teaching on saints, statues and intercession, I struggle with relics. This story on the NZ Catholic website really got me thinking about this. For those not familiar with relics, these are basically the remains of saints, or objects used by saints, or objects that have been in contact with things that have been used by saints (first, second and third class relics respectively). Anything used by Christ Himself is also a first class relic (e.g. the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin [if it was His burial cloth]).
Considering that they had to call a whole ecumenical council just to sort this issue out (cf. The Second Council of Nicea), I don’t expect to sort this out in one blog post, but I do feel a bit uneasy about digging up the grave of some potential saint so as to take his bones. I suppose the nature of my unease is that there are many, many Catholics out there who are confused and/or have not had enough catechesis to know that we do not worship the saints. As Saint Jerome once stated:
We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose martyrs they are
But for those who don’t know this, I fear that they may be unwitting idolaters – those who actually do worship the remains/image rather than God who sent them. Those who believe that Mary herself can heal them, or that Saint Christopher can physically protect them on the roads, or that Saint Anthony will literally come down from Heaven and find your missing keys.
Are my fears unfounded? I don’t think so, but I’d be keen to hear your opinion on this. How can we as a Church better educate our own as well as the world as to what we actually believe on this matter?
It goes with saying that better Catechesis is the way to better address this issue. It would help tremendously though if Biblical references were used in teaching so that the Catechesis is more firmly grounded. For instance, Catechists could mention in the Acts of the Apostles when Paul would bless objects and the grace from these sacramentals was known to heal.
When my protestant friends ask me about us “praying to the saints”, I always say, ‘well you know how the other day I asked you to pray for me? Well it’s pretty much the same thing except they’re already in heaven so they’re waaaaaay better at it than you or I.’
cgvnau: Agree.
James
“Those who believe that Mary herself can heal them”-tell that to the millions of pilgrims who attend Lourdes and Fatima and the millions of Catholics who attend Novenas to Our Lady.
Helens Bay,
That’s what I’m talking about.
Those who flock to Lourdes and Fatima and believe that Our Lady is healing them need to get a quick realignment check and recognise that it is God that heals them, NOT Our Lady! She may intercede on their behalf and pray for them to Our Father, but it is He who heals them!
You can see what I mean about people getting carried away…
What about all the miracles attributed to Saints and surely Jesus gave the apostles the power to heal?
Only last month the Holy Father knelt at the tomb of Mary Mc Killop praying that a miracle be attributed to her, so that she may become a Saint
I think James is right that the power to heal originates in God and not in Mary.
But I think Helens Bay is also right in that Mary is God’s chosen channel of grace to all of us (Mary is the Mediatrix of all Graces). Without Mary : no graces, no miracles.
The main problem amongst Catholics in NZ today is not the worshipping of Mary or Saints.
It’s a functional protestantism which refuses to recognise Mary’s essential role in salvation. Her role is much more than just interceding and praying.
God Bless
I agree Chris the power to heal originates in God but as chairman of the board HE has the right to delegate those powers to others HE has chosen.
Otherwise praying to saints is a waste of time and we should go directly God and the Ptrotestants are right!
Chris you said:
It’s a functional protestantism which refuses to recognise Mary’s essential role in salvation. Her role is much more than just interceding and praying.
Mary is utterly unique and therefore has ongoing utterly unique role to carry out in plan of salvation. This is our Catholic faith, she is not simply St Mary, or Holy Mary, she truly is Theotokos and Immaculate Conception. Once heard a priest refer to her as ‘Mrs Holy Spirit”.
No other saint can have that said about them. Her communion with Trinity unrepeatable. Says a great deal with profound theological significance even if slightly audacious modern imagery and colloquialism. Made me think.
Ave Maria, Happy Birthday, Ave Ave.
J
It’s a functional protestantism which refuses to recognise Mary’s essential role in salvation. Her role is much more than just interceding and praying.
How do we know this?
Mary has no other role than to show people Christ, or else she has a Spirit which can move in power on the face of the earth too. And the moment this happens, things start getting a bit weird as far as I’m concerned.
Her communion with Trinity unrepeatable
I don’t know if Mary has any more special communion with the trinity than what we have. Surely she should be venerated because of her special role in raising Jesus. But the trinity is only three persons: not four. The church is included in the trinity by the fact we marry Christ. And we become spiritually one flesh with him (in some way) which grants us access to the love between the father and the son. We join Christ in worshipping the father and in receiving the Holy Spirit.
Those who flock to Lourdes and Fatima and believe that Our Lady is healing them need to get a quick realignment check and recognise that it is God that heals them, NOT Our Lady!
If this is so, then why is it only in certain places that healings occur more than in others. Surely this sounds slightly ridiculous. If it is God that heals people, why does it take some water springs in the middle of France to heal someone, he is rather well… omnipresent would be the word I guess.
Lawrence
Lorry,
To answer your question on the principle of double effect in the “All you can eat Tuesday” thread whic is unfortunately now closed :
Firstly, double effect is just a theological theory. It is widely accepted and might even be true. But it’s not taught definitively by the Church. It is possible that it is a moral theory which is flawed.
One of the preconditions to apply Double Effect is that the good being sought is not achieved as a result any evil moral choice. And that the moral choice is not a choice for anything intrinsically evil.
In the 2 button scenario, the choice to kill one person is a choice for something intrinsically evil (killing an innocent) and the good of saving the 1,000,000 is achieved by the evil of killing the one. Therefore it does not meet the requirements of Double Effect on two grounds.
The pregnant woman with cancer does meet the Double Effect conditions. The women’s life is saved, not by killing the baby, but by treating the cancer. Treating cancer is not intrinsically evil. The subsequent death of the baby from the cancer treatment is not intended and saving the mothers life does not result from the death of the baby.
The key question to ask is “if I could treat the cancer and save the baby, would I choose that” ?. If the answer is yes then the death is unintended. If no then the cancer treatment is just an excuse to abort.
Hope this helps.
Liked your answer to FXD on divinisation !
God Bless
Mary has no other role than to show people Christ
Mary does not just show people Christ but she brings him into the world. Not just at his human birth but in on ongoing and continuing way in the world today. Now, it’s true that God could have chosen to make himself present without Mary. But he did choose to make himself present, then and now, through Mary and we need to respect and acknowledge that as something which hinges on mission – God’s choice to use human persons as ministers of his grace.
As to Lourdes, God has often chosen particular places and particular material things (the water at Lourdes, the earth Christ used to heal) through which to heal. The choice of Lourdes is bound up with the confirmation of the doctrine of the Imaculate Conception by Mary to St Berndaette.
Miraculous healings happen all the time and I think most occur a long way from Lourdes.
God Bless
Helens Bay,
Notice how the Apostles always healed or performed miracles in the Name of Christ? In other words, it was God who was doing the healing – not the Apostles.
The Holy Father was not praying that Blessed Mary McKillop would heal someone – as she can’t – but rather that a miracle would be attributed to someone asking her to pray for them. That would provide evidence that Mary’s prayers were, in fact, heard by God and that she must, by logic, therefore be in Heaven.
That’s very different from praying for her to perform a miracle.
It is a waste of time praying to the saints. It is not a waste of time asking them to pray for us. That’s the distinction.
All,
On the discussion of Our Lady’s role in Redemption, let’s just get a few things clear. Firstly, if one were to argue that she did not have a special role to play, one would be mistaken as there is only one Mother of Christ.
That being said, Our Lady is not God. She would not want to be considered Him (or one with a lowercase ‘g’), and I’m sure she would be shocked to hear that many Christians accuse Catholics of worshipping her as one! I know there are quite a few Protestant readers of Being Frank, so let me state for the record for you all – Catholic Teaching does not teach a worship of Mary. End of story.
Carry on.
James,
Actually, we do pray to saints because our asking them to pray to God for us is itself a prayer.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, …” is a prayer addressed to Mary (that’s what “Hail Mary” means).
The distinction is not so much one of to whom the prayer is proximately addressed, but that we believe that the power to grant the prayer lies not in the saint but in God.
Helen’s point of God “as chairman of the board HE has the right to delegate those powers to others HE has chosen” is a very important one. The sacraments are built on precisely that delegated power. Not that the power originates in the minister of the sacraments, but that God chooses to act thru their ministry.
God Bless
dulia – reverence due to the saints
hyperdulia – reverence due to Mary
latria – the worship reserved for God alone
Helen’s Bay, if the saints do ‘heal’, or have ‘power’ of whatever sort, it is given them by God. Just as priests have the ‘power’ to consecrate; it is actually God who works through them.
Sometimes part of the problem is that one does not distinguish between different species of prayer.
For example, there are many ways of speaking.
Oi can speak loike oim from Cornwall, can’ toi? Thass allroight. Oi can droive a trak’err.
Or I may, on the other hand, converse in a pluty, posh accent.
Both are speaking, but one is very different from the other.
Praying to saints are prayers of petition – just as we would ask another to pray for us, but couched in terms of great respect befitting the status of one who enjoys the beatific vision in heaven.
However, this is very different from the worship – latria, reserved for God alone.
No-one need be concerned about this, we used to call judges, and maybe still do for mayors, ‘your worship’. Of course this does not mean that we worshipped them at all.
It’s the meaning behind it upon which we ought to focus.
Why would one bother with praying to saints when one can go directly to God.
Thats exactly what he asks of us.
Or if I petition 500 saints will I get more “brownie points ” than if I only ask of 10?
Rather than ’saints’ think of them as QCs, Queen’s Councils, specialists with the inside knowledge to effectively plead your case to the Judge.
“only a fool retains himself as his council”.
Don`t believe they have as much knowledgge as can be found on this blog!