Why Do Catholics Venerate and Ask the Intercession of Saints?
[The following article is based upon the book Mary: Help of Christians by Rev. Bonaventure Hammer, O.F.M. We strongly recommend this body of work to all people of faith.]Why Do Catholics Venerate and Ask the Intercession of Saints?
In the Creed of the Council of Trent, which the Catholic Church places before the faithful as the Rule of Faith, we read: “I firmly believe that the saints reigning with Christ are to be venerated and invoked.”
The Church therefore teaches, first, that it is right and pleasing to God to venerate the saints and to invoke their intercession; and second, that it is useful and profitable to our eternal salvation to do so.
Veneration of the Saints is both useful and profitable
The veneration of the saints is useful and profitable to believers. Men more prominent in life for their knowledge, bravery, or other noble qualities and unusual merits are honored after death. Why, then, would Catholics not be permitted to honor these heroes of faith; those who excelled in the practice of supernatural virtue and are in special grace and favor with God? Think of those holy souls for example, who were raised to such a state of perfection that they were given the supernatural stigmata wounds of Christ!
That the veneration of saints is profitable to us is evident from the fact that the example of them (the saints) incites us to imitate them – those who while on earth exhibited model-like Christ and Marian virtue – to the very best of our ability.
The Veneration of Saints and Holy Scripture
The veneration of the saints is not only in full accord with the demands of reason, but we are moreover enjoined explicitly by Holy Scripture to venerate the memory of the holy patriarchs and prophets: “Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation …” (Ecclus. 44:1), “… and their names continue forever, the glory of the holy men remaining unto their children” (Ecclus. 46:15).
Both reason and Holy Scripture, then, are in favor of the veneration of the saints. We find it practiced also in the early Church. She was convinced from the very beginning of its propriety and utility. As early as the first century, the memorial day of the martyrs’ death was observed by the Christians. They assembled at the tombs of the sainted victims of pagan cruelty and celebrated their memory by offering up the Holy Sacrifice over their relics. We know this is not only from the testimony of the earliest ecclesiastical writers such as Origen, Tertullian, and St. Cyprian, but also from the history of St. Ignatius the Martyr (d. 107) and of St. Polycarp of Smyrna (d. 166). Over one hundred panegyrics (i.e. homilies and testimonies) of various saints written by St. Augustine are still in existence today.
Why would it not be right and useful to invoke the intercession of the saints?
The question must be asked, why would it not be right and useful to invoke the intercession of the Saints? Everybody deems it proper to ask a pious friend for his prayers, why not someone most holy and chosen by God to obtain special graces? St. Paul the Apostle recommended himself to the prayers of the faithful (Rom. 15:30), and God Himself commanded the friends of Job to ask Him for His intercession that their sin might not be imputed to them (Job 42:8). How then could it be wrong or useless to invoke the intercession of the saints in Heaven? The Church teaches that the saints are willing to invoke God’s bounty in our favor because they love us – and they’ve been in our shoes! They, too, had to navigate this narrow and uncertain path through life in order to attain Heaven … and they did so perfectly.
Not only are the saints willing to aid us in invoking God’s bounty, but they are able to obtain it for us … because God always accepts their holy prayers with complacency. That they really hear our prayer and intercede to God for us is clearly shown by many examples throughout Holy Scripture. And if, according to the testimony of St. James (v. 16), the prayer of the just man here on earth availeth much with God, how much more powerful, then, must be the prayer(s) of the saints who are united with God in Heaven in perfect love and are partakers of His infinite goodness and omnipotence?
Efficacy of the prayers of the Saints
A most striking proof of the efficacy of the prayers of the saints is the numerous miracles wrought about and the many favors obtained at all times throughout the centuries by their intercession. Among these miracles are a great number whose authenticity was declared by the Church after the most scrupulous and strict investigation, as the acts of canonization prove.
Moreover, that the invocation of the saints was a practice of the early Church is proved by the numerous inscriptions on the tombs of the Roman catacombs preserved to this day. We read on the tomb of Sabbatius, a martyr, for instance: “Sabbatius, O Pious soul, pray and intercede for your brethren and associates!” On another tomb is inscribed, “Allicius, thy spirit is blessed; pray for thy parents!” And again, “Jovianus, live in God, and pray for us!”
Even Protestant philosophers have agreed
We have also the testimony of one of the greatest thinkers and Protestant philosophers, Leibnitz, for the claim that the veneration and invocation of the saints is founded in reason, on Holy Scripture, and on the Tradition of the Church. He writes:
“Because we justly expect great advantage by uniting our prayers with those of our brethren here on earth, I can not understand how it can be called a crime if a person invokes the intercession of a glorified soul, or an angel. If it be really idolatry or a detestable cult to invoke the saints and the angels to intercede for us with God, I do not comprehend how Basil [the Great], Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, and others, who were hitherto considered saints, can be absolved from idolatry or superstition. To continue in such a practice would indeed not be a small defect in the Fathers, such as is inherent in human nature – it would be an enormous public crime. For if the Church, even in those early times, was infected with such abominable errors, let any one judge for himself what the Christian faith would eventually [have] come to. Would not Gamaliel’s proposition, to judge whether Christ’s religion be divine or human from its effects, result in its disfavor?”
Invocation of Saints is different from invocation to God
But whilst the Catholic Church practices and recommends the veneration and invocation of the saints, she does not teach us to honor and invoke them as we do Our Lord, nor to pray to them as we do to Him. She makes a great distinction.
The veneration of the saints differs from the worship of God in the following:
- We adore and worship God as our supreme Lord and Creator of all things. We honor the saints as His faithful servants, friends, and His created (and made holy) beings;
- We adore and worship God for His own sake. We honor the saints for the gifts and prerogatives with which God endowed to them.
Thus, there is a difference between prayer to God and invocation of the saints. We pray to God asking Him to help us by His own omnipotence; we pray to the saints to help us by their intercession to God (by His grace) on our behalf.
Our veneration of the saints should consist, primarily, in the imitation of their virtues and holy way of living. It is truly profitable only when we are intent upon following their example, for only by imitating their Christ-like virtues shall we share in their eternal bliss in Heaven. A veneration which contents itself with honoring the saints without imitating their virtues is similar to a tree that produces leaves and blossoms but bears no fruit.
In conclusion
Holy Scripture, Church Tradition, reason, and the saints themselves desire that we should follow in the Saints’ example. Each of them, in so many words and in so many ways, exhorts us with St. Paul to “Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 4:16). There is no age, no sex, no station in life for which the Catholic Church has not saints, whose example teaches us to avoid sin and to observe faithfully the Commandments of God and the Church’s teaching at this or that age or station of life.
Therefore the principal object of our invocation of the saints ought to be the obtaining of their help in following their example. In so doing, we shall move them to come to our aid all the more readily. Remember always that God Himself said that He is a God of the living and not of the dead (Matt. 22:32; Mk 12:27; Rev 21:1-4; Is 25:6-9). The saints are just as much with us today, praying and interceding on our behalf, as they have always been and always will be.
“I will fall on my knees, and because I am unworthy to pray to God on account of my sins, I will invoke all the saints to come to my aid. O ye saints of God, I, filled with sadness, sighing and weeping, implore you; intercede for me, a miserable sinner, with the Lord of mercies!” -Origen of Alexandria, 185 A.D., one of the earliest and most important Christian/Catholic scholars and theologians.
0 comments on “Why Do Catholics Venerate and Ask the Intercession of Saints?”