Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Stephen Simmons) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: 'Veneration of the 'Saints'' Message-ID: Date: 5 Jul 90 04:56:10 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: CIE, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY Lines: 170 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article ta00est@unccvax.uncc.edu (elizabeth s tallant) writes: >In article , cms@dragon.uucp writes: >> for Catholics, either angels or saints are the intermediary. > >Irregardless of whether you are Catholic or Protestant, any and all Christains >have Jesus Christ as their intermediary. Neither an angel nor a saint can >be an intermediary between God and man. > >Don't you believe Jesus when he says, >"I am the way and the truth and the Light. NO MAN COMETH TO THE FATHER BUT >BY ME." (John 14:6) > >That is, no single person can communicate with the Father unless Jesus is the >intermediary. Jesus is the ONLY link between the Father and man. It is true that Jesus is our intermediary, but I think that Cindy has pointed out that this does not exclude angels from being inbetween also. Neither does this passage suggest this. What we are talking about is something like this: Catholic view: (a) Human --> Angel/Saint --> Jesus --> the Father (b) Human <-- Angel/Saint <-- Jesus <-- the Father Protestant view: (c) Human --> Jesus --> the Father (d) Human <-- Jesus <-- the Father None of the above are explicitly incorrect, and some have been used in the Bible. Stephen, in Acts 7:59 prayed directly to Jesus. I think it is hard to argue that there was an intermediary of any kind between Jesus and Stephen here. On the other hand, John received the revelation of Jesus Christ from an angel, specifically, Jesus' angel (Rev. 1:1). Furthermore, there are some Protestants that argue that the angel was not an angel per se, but a saint! They base this upon the idea that the angels just means "messenger" in Greek (don't quote me on this) and that the angel of the Revelation said this: "See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book." Rev. 22:9 and: "See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus; worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Rev. 19:10 Here the angel is called John's brother, fellowservant, and holds to the testimony of Jesus. But also, there are places in the Bible were it is written, "The Holy Spirit said..." (Acts 21:11, for example). Therefore, we have New Testament examples of (b), (c), and (d). The only remaining one then, is a human praying to a saint/angel who relays this to Jesus or the Father. I do not say that there are no examples, but that I do not know of any. Why is there lacking an example of the fourth kind? Because God hears all things. He doesn't need agents to listen in on things. An angel told Daniel, "Your prayer was heard from the first day you humbled yourself before God..." Humility, not number of people praying for you or the importance of the carrier, is the true measure of the hearing of the prayer. Humility, whether yours or someone else's praying with you (whether saint alive, saint "dead", or an angel), is what makes the prayer fervent and effective. The diagrams above are crude; for example, I am of the view that I am to ask things of the Father, but not of Jesus (i.e. Jesus said, I do not say that I will ask the Father for you...). But I commune, or talk with all three members of the Trinity. God talks back to me; I see no possible way that there could be an angel or a saint that carries the words of God to me or my words to God. God knows what I say. I do not need another human or an angel to attempt to appease God for me; God would not be satisfied. It is only out of his love that he listens to us. However, I have read/heard quite a number of stories of people talking with angels (I don't believe them all...), but even in the most bizarre of these the angel does not carry the person's words to God! As long as Catholicism leads people to ask saints to pray with them, and not for them, they are not doing wrong; but, consider that the saints (under question) are in heaven; they have a much bigger picture of things of things than we do. Wouldn't it be better to let them alone and let them pray for God's will, rather than asking them to pray with us in what might be our will and not God's? On the otherhand, there are dangers and abuses of the system, or way of life of praying to or through or with the saints. As an example, I quote from "Our Lady's Urgent Appeal to Us in the 1980's", pp. 10 & 12 by the International Fatima Rosary Crusade (apparently approved by Most Rev. Laurent Morin, Bishop of Prince Albert). I find a great contrast between what Catholic practices are, as described by the net, and what this booklet describes. Don't take offence at this; I want answers though, as these statements seem to take disregard for the Biblical ideas that salvation is not by works, that Jesus Christ is the only way, that Jesus Christ has overcome the world, etc. "Our Lady said [to the children at Fatima] 'You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go, to save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my immaculate Heart.'" The same source writes, "St. Alphonsus, (Doctor of the Church) teaches that Devotion to Mary is necessary for Catholics in order to save their souls. He also teaches that Mary has snatched many souls from the clutches of Hell and saved them for Heaven because these persons have repeated during their lifetime some little act of devotion to Our Lady -- for example, praying the three Hail Mary's to Our Lady every day, or fasting on Saturdays in Her honor. ... Thus we can see why God wants to even better establish devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary throughout the world because thereby many more souls would be saved. God furthermore wants mankind to realize that God grants graes to us through Mary. As Pope Leo XIII taught, all graces come to us from God through the humanity of Jesus Christ, through the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary to us." p. 10 In this passage, we find stated that Mary has "saved" many souls! And the way she saved them was because those persons honored Mary, and not necessarily God. Admittedly, devotion is not the same thing as worship, but it implies that we spend time holding the person devoted, in honor. This disturbs me, because nowhere in the Bible does it say for one to devote oneself to another person, not to their phyiscal or spiritual needs, but to their honor. Paul lamented that marriage was a problem for him, because it would take away from the time that he could devote to the Lord. It is ironic that the priests who remain celibate to devote time to Lord will end up devoting time to Mary. Is this really proper? "Let us lift up our heads and raise our hope in God, for He said that the Blessed Virgin would defeat the devil and his followers and his plots: 'I will put enmities between thee and the Woman, and thy seed and Her seed: She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for Her heel.' (Gen. 3:15) And the Blessed Virgin has come in our time at Fatima and promised us Victory in our time, over all these forces of evil. 'In the end My immaculate Heart will triumph and a period of peace will be given to mankind.'" p. 12 Clearly, this misquotes Gen. 3:15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; IT [thy seed, not Mary] shall bruise [or crush in modern translations] thy head, and thou shalt bruise HIS [not her] heel." Jesus, the (note singular) seed of the Woman, is the One of brought the victory (past tense). We are now in a transition period between the end of the war and the start of the New Government, which will be everlasting (Isaiah). I think that there are a number of other things in the above passages that I know Protestants would object to. But this whole booklet, including the above passages seemed to be very much like Marian worship. No, the writers did not use *worship* but carefully used devotion instead. But at any rate, the pictures, as well as the text elevated Mary on a pedastal (the cover has a picture of Mary on top of the world; another had Mary on top of a tree, with children kneeling near the tree). James tells us "My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto you assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, 'Sit thou here in a good place'; and say to the poor, 'Stand thou there,' or 'sit thou here under my footstool': are ye not then partial in yourselves and are become judges of evil thoughts?" (Jas. 2:1-4). The Bible sayys we are to honor *all* men, not one particular person.(1Pet. 2:17). On these passages, I think I know what the opinions of the Protestants are, but what are the opinions of the Catholics? Is this acceptable to the RCC, or taught by the RCC, or rejected by the RCC? --Stephen Simmons