Family of saints

It's true that the pagan world is filled with a vast landscape of man-gods, each gifted with a particular power and folklore, each desperate for their own individual cults of worship and allegiance from the faithful. And each no more divine in their Godly attributes than me in my most saintly moments...which is not much to say the least.

The ancient Greeks had their own pantheon of heroes glaring from the heights of Mt Olympus, often none too amicably. Taoism and Hinduism can also boast of a race of semi-human characters and divines that live, govern and rule the universe with a compassion and hostility that borders on schizophrenia sometimes.

So it's understandable that when Protestants see old Catholic women bowing obsequiously before plaster images of the Saints, they recall the same implications in pagan worship, and find no hesitation in condemning this "obviously" satanic corruption of Christianity.

For many Christians, the Catholic teaching on the Communion of Saints is pure sacrilege. For them, there is no scriptural evidence to support this unnatural devotion and to all appearances, Catholics sin in idolatry by honouring the memory of these "dead people" too much.

In reality, there is nothing more natural and praiseworthy than having family members speak to one another, especially when they're fraternally bonded in the love of Christ.

But wait a minute, isn't communicating with the dead bordering on necromancy, which Deuteronomy absolutely forbids under pain of death? How is talking to the saints any different from a "pow wow" session with ghostly spectres through a séance?

For one thing, the saints are not dead; they're gloriously alive in the resurrection of Christ. For another, asking a saint's intercession to draw closer to God is spectacularly different from hob-knobbing with unknown spirits through a pagan medium, whose sole curiosity and desire is to try and harness a supernatural power for personal ends, and which in their very nature rejects the sovereignty and kingship of God.

In order to better understand the Catholic communion of saints, it is first necessary to explore the Catholic ideal of the mystical Body of Christ.

Many Protestants have difficulty grasping this beautiful doctrine and perhaps in some ways, this is due to the lack of corporal unity among the various denominations since the Reformation.

In as much as both Catholics and Protestants agree that the Church is the mystical body of Christ as affirmed by St Paul, protestantism lacks the concrete manifestation of this belief, particularly in their corporal bond to each other since every church is often an authority and independent member unto itself.

The Catholic idea of the Body of Christ, (with one head in Jesus, one heart in communion and one creed in apostolic authority), bears witness to a unity that is so unbreakable, it extends beyond heaven into this world.

In other words, Catholic theology sees this united "Body" as more than just a symbol of our loose connection to each other. Nor is it just a mystical expression of a theological metaphor.

Rather, the Church sees this family unity or communion as concretely visible. She teaches that this bond of fraternal love is so strong, it unites us to one another across time, space and even beyond the shadow of death, in order that the Bride of Christ may continue to bear courageous testimony to the One Triune God, since the unity of the Holy Trinity is what binds the members of Christ's body together as a witness to all generations.

In contrast, Protestant churches who proclaim their testimony as the mystical body of Christ embrace a claim that is not supported by any evidence of that reality. Not only is there no visible unity among its members in the expression of worship (each relying extensively on its own traditions, experimentations or the inspirations of individual pastors), there is no unity in doctrinal belief, despite a loose amalgamation of religious tenets that identify each as somewhat Christian in character.

A federation of Churches sharing a doctrinally diverse confession of Jesus as Lord does not make a Body.

Imagine for a second that even though the members of my body proclaim obedience to my head, I discover one morning that my arms, legs, eyes, tongue, fingers and torso all bicker, disagree and claim to speak authoritatively for me, each exercising their own will without conformity to my own.

In such an existence, my life would be an abomination. I can’t claim to have a body in the normal sense of the word anymore. And although the various parts of my body may still bear some resemblance to me, they no longer function coherently enough for me to live a normal life, since every member is lost in disobedience.

Instead, I would have a mutiny within myself. And as Jesus said, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand”.

Consequently, a weak concept of the Body of Christ can handicap Protestants in understanding the Catholic Communion of Saints, which is nothing less than the glorious extension of the unity of the Church to include those in heaven and purgatory.

For many Protestant Christians, when someone passes on, they’re with God, separated as it were from the daily grind of human drama, which couldn’t be farther from the gospel truth; as if heaven and redemption exist only above the clouds. There are even those who think of our ancestors in the faith as no longer having any concrete ties to us, except for maybe a vague concern for our welfare.

The glorious truth is, released from their human burdens of imperfections and purified in the fire of God’s love, they now love us and desire our happiness more than they ever did on earth, hence, the natural intercession of the saints for us.

This is our Christian family; a family fully alive in the Church triumphant (heaven), the Church militant (us who are still struggling here on earth) and the Church suffering (purgatory), all of whom are bonded to each other through the Lord Jesus, and who continue to love and care for each other in that special way that family members do.

But caring about our pains, hurts and struggles on earth, and actively interceding for us do not lessen the joy of the saints in heaven. Rather, it increases their joy as the beatific vision always encompasses love for neighbour.

St John called the man who loved God and not his brother a liar. Well, Mary and the saints certainly loved God, so it stands that they must love us exceedingly too, or their presence in paradise would be an affront to God, in whom no selfishness is compatible.

Think about it...

If love is a communication between two parties, then surely, a Christian family that is made up of members who love each other, must obviously find some way to communicate that love?

In fact, I can't think of anyone I know who isn't attached to a cell phone or email facility like it was part of his or her liver. Yet who can blame them?

We all feel an innate desire to connect and remain in communication with each other. To not be able to do so is to risk being cut-off from the rest, to be outside the communion of humanity, isolated, alone and misunderstood.

Now if this reality pervades every level of our existence, it makes sense that some kind of communication must also exist within the realm of the saints, perfectly bonded as they are in the love and unity of the Holy Trinity.

This is what is meant by the Communion of Saints, a fraternal bond that is so strong in the love of God that it transcends and defies death through the resurrection of Christ, and unites us as a living family with our brothers and sisters who are either triumphant in heaven, journeying on earth or anticipating the joys of redemption in purgatory.

Christ our Lord has said, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (Jn 11: 25-26)

Our God is a God of the living and not of the dead. Those who die in the grace of God are born into everlasting life, where death has no power and hell has no hold, so that even when dusk approaches, no one who sleeps in Christ sleeps forever.

Instead, our love for one another is purified in the presence of the living God, stripped as we are of our faults and selfishness. And because we are not separated by death but continue to be a living family, it is necessary that family members must continue to care for one another. And to do that, we need to speak to each other.

A family that doesn’t communicate with each other is a family that strays apart. And yet, remember the old adage: “A family that prays together stays together”?

Well, what is prayer if not the joy and need for spiritual communication?

Still, if 'praying' is an effort to communicate or connect with a spiritual being, are we crossing the line since prayer is traditionally addressed to God? In this, we must not confuse "prayer" with worship which is due only to the dignity of God. Within the judeo-christian tradition, worship with a capital "W" always involves sacrifice which can only be offered to God, and for Orthodox and Catholic Christians, this sacrifice is offered in the ritual of the mass.

Protestant worship however doesn't distinguish between prayer and sacrifice, so it sometimes scandalizes Protestant Christians when they see Catholics doing to the saints what they do to God, which is prayer. Prayer in itself is considered worship in the protestant sense of the word. For Catholics, prayer is simply talking to God and to others within the family of God, and does not necessarily constitute divine worship. We have the Catholic Mass for that.

Now scripture often speaks of prayers being offered up to God with great incense and ceremony, whether it's in describing the priestly functions of Zechariah, the examples of the prophets or the liturgical functions of angels in the Book Of Revelations.

The Archangel Raphael in the Book of Tobit for example not only confesses to being one of the seven Angels (Revelation 8:1-2, Tobit 12:15) permitted to stand before the glory of the Almighty, he claims to have presented the prayers and petitions of Tobit and Sarah before the Lord's throne. (Tobit 12:12)

In other words, it can be surmised that all prayer is ultimately offered and addressed to God and find their fulfillment in God, even though sometimes those prayers may pass through an intermediary like the Angel Raphael.

But there are some who will cautiously ask, “Why do we have to go through the mediation of saints and angels? Isn't there only one true mediator with God who is Christ the Lord”?

Praise Jesus, yes indeed!

It is true that there is only one mediator with the Father who is Christ Our Lord. All graces and blessings come through the merits and sacrifice of Jesus alone.

In his encyclical "Dominus Gesu", Pope John Paul II affirmed that "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

But scripture also teaches that Jesus chooses to work through His Church, and there is no reason to believe that Christians can no longer help and pray for their brothers and sisters on earth once they themselves are in heaven. Based on the perfect mediation of Christ, we are all intercessors with one another.

St Paul certainly encouraged the saints on earth to pray for one another, saying: "On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many." (2 Corinthians 1:10-11)

Does this holy intercession for each other end with death? Of course not, St John saw in Revelation 5:8 that the souls of the righteous continue to fill paradise with their prayers for us: "And when He had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

Indeed, because of the perfect love, which exists in heaven, the saints would presumably be even more willing and able to intercede for us than they were on earth. But before we go any further, remember that the saints themselves do not and cannot grant us any heavenly favors apart from what God wills for us in the first place. However, they can surely join their prayers to ours by interceding for us before the One Mediator who is Christ Our Lord, petitioning Him for our sakes and joining their holy voices to ours in prayer and solidarity for our needs.

Their humble mediation is subjected to the perfect mediation of Christ Our Redeemer. In remembering us, they offer to join their finite prayers and merits to the infinite prayers and merits of Jesus on the cross for our salvation.

This may seem difficult to grasp at first until we realise that in our daily struggles, we experience this reality more often than we admit.

After all, when we ask our parents, friends and pastors to pray for us, do we not enlist their mediation with Jesus in the hope of obtaining some grace for ourselves? Do we not make of them a co-mediatrix with Christ in asking for their prayers?

Yet, we are not scandalised that they should have the audacity to pray for us. We don't tell a mother who prays for her child to stop it because she is usurping the role of Jesus as sole mediator with the Father. We know that such an act comes naturally as an extension of love, since true love always seeks to imitate Christ.

Let us be conscious that although Jesus IS our sole Mediator with God, scripture also calls us to cooperate with grace and be co-workers with Christ, especially in His great work of redemption.

St Paul, possibly the greatest co-worker of Christ, calls us to pray for one another: "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone...This is good, and pleases God our Savior..." (1 Timothy 2:1,3)

Now if we believe that the prayers of a Godly friend or a respected pastor can influence God's will towards us, why should we deny the same to men and women who are even more meritorious in the sight of God, having fought the good fight and won the eternal race as St Paul declared?

Truly, they are champions of our faith whom God has already crowned with the mark of salvation, except unlike worldly champions who cling steadfastly to vain trophies, these Christian heroes fill the sidelines and cheer us on in our own race for the crown, urging us not to give up while strengthening us with their love and prayer.

So even if our own personal journeys leave us tired and bruised, we need only look up from our struggles to see a brother who has been there and triumphed, a sister who has endured that very same difficulty and won, and who now run beside us, cheering us on with unwavering love and support until they see us safely in heaven where we belong.

If James 5:16 says that: "The prayer of a righteous man avails much...", am I then to suppose that when someone asks for my intercession and prayers for a difficult situation, I am more inclined to be heard by God than St Francis of Assisi, or St Maximilian Kolbe or any of the other heroes of our faith?

I can honestly admit that my love for friends and family even at its most inspiring, is but a poor shadow of the love that the saints have for us, they who continually bask in the fiery love of the Lamb Of God and whose merits before Christ are as brilliant to mine as the sun is to the darkest night.

Is it thus not silly to trust in the prayers of sinful humanity and to reject the intercession and love of the saints? After all, what do the saints do with our prayers?

When they are petitions, the saints join these petitions with their own more meritorious prayers and present them before the throne of God just as Raphael does. If they are thanksgiving and praise, the saints likewise pass on these accolades to the Most High, joining them with the thanksgiving and praise of their own untainted hearts for our sakes.

The truth is, we have to stop thinking of the saints as impediments to our relationship with God. They are a gift from the Almighty to aid us on our pilgrimage on earth, so that strengthened by our faith in Jesus and aided by the love and support of our elder brothers and sisters, we too may win the crown of eternal joy someday.

Therefore, let us be careful not to despise the saints because in doing so, we risk despising God. Did not our heavenly Father say to Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.” Genesis 12:3 + 27:29. And since God treasures the friendship of the saints, why should we find such displeasure in their intercession?

Truly, it can be said that a parent’s crowning glory is in His child. And no one will deny that the saints are the best of God’s children. Let us confidently ask our brothers and sisters to continue praying for us, so that for the greater glory of God, we too may bear fruits of sanctity and perfect love.