PRAYING TO MARY, THE ANGELS AND THE SAINTS by Atty. Marwil Llasos of Defensores Fidei Foundation

Mary Crowned as Queen by the Holy Trinity

Praying directly to God is not an issue. Catholics do pray directly to God. The Liturgy of the Church is directed to God the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. We also pray spontaneously to God for a variety of reasons: petition, thanksgiving, adoration, etc. However, we also pray to Mary, the angels and the saints. And when we do, Protestants accuse us of idolatry. This prompts evangelical Prof. Tim Perry to comment: “many contemporary Protestants have to overcome a history of both lobbing charges of idolatry without really understanding why and uncomfortable silence with respect to anything other than criticism” [Mary for Evangelicals, hereafter “ME,” p. 299].

By Prof. Perry’s admission, contemporary Protestants accuse Catholics of idolatry without really understanding why. That certainly is not fair. In the words of Scripture, “these men revile whatever they do not understand" (Jude 10).

For Catholics, praying to Mary, the angels and the saints is talking to them as our intimate friends and family members and asking them to pray for us to God because we belong to the same “household of faith” (Gal. 6:10) and we are “but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19).

Protestants have difficulty understanding this. Prof. Tim Perry succinctly states the issue –

“Mary’s intercession, on closer inspection, falls into two sets of questions. The first set has to do with the ongoing role of the church triumphant in general. Do the saints in heaven pray for us? If so, is it possible to ask for their intercessions? If it is possible, should we?” [ME, p. 300].

Anent the question of “do the saints in heaven pray for us,” the same Evangelical scholar and theology professor builds a “cumulative biblical case” for it. I wish to borrow his analysis and adopt it as my own:

“The first piece of evidence has to do with the continuity of the church across not only space but also time – which is to say that it is not bounded death. Indeed, to treat death as that which sunders the bonds created by our identification with Christ in baptism can (and should) be presented as an implicit denial of the resurrection of Christ, which, by our baptism, we now partly enjoy and hope one day fully to share. How can the risen Lord, the head of the body, who reigns now in his divine humanity, have that reign attenuated by the enemy he conquered when he stepped out of the tomb? Those who have died in Christ are still, after death, infused by the Holy Spirit with the resurrection life of Christ and are therefore, even as now await the resurrection, alive to and in him. So it is that Jonathan Edwards could rightly insist that the “church in heaven and the church on earth are more one people, one city, and one family, than is generally imagined” [ME, p. 300].

The second piece of evidence has to do with the ontological status enjoyed now by those who, although dead, remain alive in Christ. If what I argued above is correct, the departed are alive in Christ not because of some doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul, but because in baptism Christ’s identity has become their own even as his resurrection life has been infused into them. It is on the basis of this shared life in Christ that Christians can and so intercede for one another across geographic differences. It is his life that is the basis of our communion as church, as his people, his very body. And part of this is the mutual bearing of burdens and the pleading of God’s mercy and favor on our brothers and sisters. If Christ is not only the bond of our communion, but the source of its life – a life that transcends bodily death – and if on the basis of our union with Christ that we intercede for each other, it is quite possible to conceive not only that the saints now in heaven pray for us, but that they can be implored to do so, much in the same way as we ask brand sisters here on earth” [ME, p. 300].

I thoroughly agree with the analysis of the Evangelical professor. I wish to add that the saints in heaven are not dead but alive in God forevermore. Jesus Himself solemnly declared this when He said: “And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye therefore greatly err” (Mk. 12:26-27).

Thus, Mary and the saints are the great cloud of witnesses mentioned in Hebrews 12:1. They are the “spirits of the just made perfect” (Heb. 12:23). We are not separated from these Christians who “absent from the body” but “present in the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). The saints in heaven are not anymore bound by space and time; hence, physical distance is not a barrier to the Communion of Saints. Death itself has no power to separate us. The testimony of Sacred Scripture on this is clear: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

Prof. Tim Perry concluded that it is “possible, based on our shared identity in Chris, both to conceive of the saints in heaven praying for the saints on earth and to invite them to do so” (ME, p. 301]. However, he also pointed out that, at least for Evangelicals like him, “[t]he last question, “should we?” is more difficult. As an Evangelical, he takes the view that “the Bible is silent” on this matter. He says that “Scripture neither requires nor prohibits it” although “the practice of the church from ancient times suggests that the answer to this question is “yes” [ME p. 301]. Prof. Perry states that most Protestant theologians acknowledge that the church triumphant does in fact intercede for the church on earth, however, they would hasten to add that because of (allegedly) “clear lack of biblical commandment to seek its [church triumphant’s] aid, coupled with the many historical examples of such devotion tending toward idolatry, believers ought not to engage in the practice” [ME, p. 301].

For Perry, the actual practice of the invocation of saints is “not directly addressed by the Bible” although “certain clearly Biblical beliefs do appear to justify it.” Since, according to Perry, the practice of invoking the saints “often to endorse what the Bible prohibits,” his solution to the quandary is “to proceed to allow the practice and its denial as authentic forms of Christian witness” which means that “the practice affirms against its denial the time-and-space-transcending reality of the body of Christ, while the denial affirms against the practice the deleterious effect it has had when divorced from sound teaching.”

The issue is now clear. While clearly Biblical principles justify the invocation of saints, there may be abuses in its actual practice. The Catholic solution to the problem is to get rid of the abuses. The solution to abuse is not unuse or disuse but proper use. Prof. Tim Perry’s statement, I believe, already implies the solution to the problem when he said that “the denial affirms against the practice the deleterious effect it has had when divorced from sound teaching.” So, the solution is “sound teaching” – or catechesis – to enable the believer to properly understand the practice of invoking Mary and the saints.

Hence, we shall now state and explain the Catholic teaching on praying to Mary, the angels and the saints.

We pray to Mary and the saints. We pray to the holy angels, too. Protestants object to this and point out that praying to anybody other than God is idolatry. Idolatry is the worship of someone (or something) who is not God. The Almighty God alone is to be worshiped, and no one else. To “pray,” however, does not mean “worship.” It simply means to “ask,” “beseech” or “request.” In Acts 8:34, we read, “And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or some other man?” Also in the Old Testament, we read about patriarch Jacob addressing the angel, “And Jacob asked him, and said; Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, wherefore is that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed them there” (Gen. 32:29).

The original meaning of prayer as “request” survives to this day in legal jargon wherein a lawyer ends his pleading with a “prayer” requesting the Court to give his client the relief sought.

The angels in heaven can hear our prayers. This fact is clearly indicated in the book of Revelations: “And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God” (Rev. 8:3-4, RSV). Angels are not the only heavenly inhabitants. Innumerable saints have also been in heaven. The Book of Revelation tells us that they also present our prayers to God: “And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8, RSV).

The prayers presented to God by the saints in heaven are the prayers of the saints on earth. This reveals that those in heaven are aware of prayers which are not even directed to them. Angels and saints are aware of our prayers and intercede with God on our behalf.

Protestants object to praying to Mary and the saints. Their objection is primarily based on their supposition that Mary and the saints in heaven are not conscious or aware of what is happening on earth. The Protestant thinks that the blessed in heaven cannot hear us when we pray to them.

The saints (Mary included) can hear our request. They may not be omniscient as God, but certainly they are aware of what is happening to us in this world. The testimony of Scripture is clear: the saints in heaven, including Mary, are aware of what is happening here below and they are able and willing to help us through their prayers. Our Lord taught us to pray that the will of the Father be done on earth as it is in heaven (Mt. 6:10). Since it is the will of the father that we pray for each other on earth, we are assured that it is also the will of the Father that we pray for each other even in heaven.

Our Lord affirmed that the inhabitants of heaven (that includes the angels and the saints) are conscious about what is happening in each and every human being here in this world. Jesus said in Luke 15:7: “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” It means that all the citizens of heaven rejoice for one single soul who repents. How can they rejoice if they do not know what is happening to each and every one of us? Since repentance is a state of mind, the passage indicates that the saints are also privy to our innermost thoughts.

The Book of Revelations, an eschatological book that tells us about the last things, amply supports the truth about the consciousness of the saints in heaven:

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev. 7:13-14).

And they [the elders] sang a new song, saying, “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.” (Rev. 5:9-10).

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ [this tells us these are the voices of humans], and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).

And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying, “We give thanks to thee, Lord God Almighty, who art and who wast, that thou hast taken thy great power and begun to reign. The nations raged, but thy wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear thy name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth” (Rev. 11:16-18).

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren [this indicates it is a human voice] has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Rejoice then, O heaven and you that dwell therein! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Rev. 12:10-12).

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” Once more they cried, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever” (Rev. 19:1-8).

The Book of Revelations also unmistakably shows that the souls of the martyrs in heaven are conscious of what is happening on earth and pray what we call imprecatory prayer (Rev. 6:9-10; cf. Ps. 35, 55, 65, 79, 109, 135 and Zech. 1:12). Actually, imprecatory prayers are intercessions on behalf of the righteous.

The saints in heaven (Church Triumphant) and the saints on earth (Church Militant) are not divided. There can be no division in the Body of Christ, the Church. All members have the same care for one another. St. Paul makes this point clear in 1 Corinthians 12:25: “That there should be no division in the body; but that the members should have the same care for one another.”

Mary and the saints need not be omniscient or omnipresent to hear us and help us. Omniscience and omnipresence are two attributes of Divinity. Catholics never consider Mary and the saints to have these attributes for the obvious reason that they are not God. Catholics do believe, however, that Mary and the saints certainly have more knowledge than we do in this life. They enjoy beatific vision, seeing God face to face. And that enables them, in the light of God, to know infinitely more than we do in this world: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12).