Do Catholics Pray TO Saints and if so why?

Prayer to Saints Explained

    In my journey back to the Catholic Church one of the questions I had to confront was this idea of Catholics praying to Saints in heaven.  Isn't that blasphemy?  We should pray to God alone, shouldn't we?

     I didn't see the logical fallacy in my objection: I didn't define terms.  I assumed that everyone defined "prayer" as "worshiping God."  By that definition, yes, "prayer to" Saints would be blasphemous.

     However, it blew the lid off that objection when I discovered that "prayer" has TWO definitions.  According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary the word "Pray" means 1) To speak to God and 2) To seriously ask for something.  I then discovered that until very recently, most people used the word "pray" to mean "to ask" even in regular speech: a detective might have said, "Pray tell, what happened?" not meaning, "I'm worshiping you so that you'll tell me what happened."  but merely meaning "I'm asking you to tell me what happened." 

     We still use "pray" today to mean "to ask" in certain circles.  It was a game changer the first time I had to fill out a search warrant for my job (Police Officer).  The warrant says, "I pray the court [grant me this search warrant]."  Now in our "Separation of Church and State" crazed world, would anyone think that I'm performing an act of Worship to the court for a search warrant?  No, it's just a formal way of asking for a search warrant.

     The whole "Pray" part of my objection was once-and-for-all put to bed when I realized that the BIBLE uses the word 'Pray' to mean "to ask."  In both the King James translation and the Douay-Rheims translation we see things like 1 Kings 2:20 Bathsheba comes to her son, King Solomon, and says, "I pray thee say me not nay." [Emphasis added].  There are dozens of uses of the word 'pray' meaning 'to ask' in those two translations alone.

But is praying to Saints Biblical?

    I then had to ask if praying to Saints is Biblical?  (It was a while before I encountered the false presupposition in my objection: the idea that everything we believe as Christians must be found in the Bible is, itself, not found in the Bible.)

    In researching, I found bits and pieces of the puzzle, but it wasn't until I heard two explanations - one from Patrick Madrid, and one from Tim Staples - that I not only realized how Biblical it really was, but how unbiblical ignoring this is.

    I have now meshed the two arguments to show you here:

 

Scripture is just about as plain as it can get about the following points:

1) The Church is the Body of Christ (Col 1:18; 1 Cor 12:27)

2) Christ has only one Body, not one here on earth and another in heaven (1 Cor 12:12)

3) Death does not separate us from the Body of Christ (Rom 8:37-38)

4) We are commanded to pray for one another (1 Tim 2:1-4)

5) This command is not rescinded upon death

6) We are told that in the New Covenant we can now approach not only God, but Christ, "innumerable angels" and "the souls of just men made perfect."  (Heb 12:22-24)

7) We see this in action (Rev 5:8) where the elders are taking multiple prayers from multiple believers on earth and presenting them before the throne of God

8) This is not "praying to the dead" because the Saints are not dead, they are more alive than we are (Mt 22:32) and no where in Scripture does it say that those who are in heaven with Christ are "dead"

9) Christ shows us that we can do this in the Transfiguration (Mt 17:3) where Moses and Elijah appear with Him and Christ speaks to them about His upcoming death and resurrection

10) We are told that the prayers of the Righteous are powerful (Jas 5:16) who is more righteous: those living on earth still mired in sin or those who are permanently free from sin in heaven?

11) This does not violate the One Mediator-ship (1 Tim 2:5) of Christ any more than one Christian on earth praying for another.  Why not just tell them to approach God themselves and stop putting you in the middle (which is the definition of mediator)?

 

This is a very brief explanation.  For a full treatment I suggest Patrick Madrid's book "Any Friend of God's is a Friend of Mine" or Tim Staples' "Friends in High Places."

 

I hope this lends some understanding to the very Biblical practice of praying to Saints.

 

All you Holy Men and Women PRAY FOR US!