A family of Saints

A family of Saints

I t’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. 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.

Mystical Body of Christ

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.

Our Christian Family

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.

The Communion of Saints

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 scandalises 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 (Rev 8:1-2, Tob 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. (Tob 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.

Saints as Mediators
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 Cor 1:10-11).”

Does this holy intercession for each other end with death? Of course not, St John saw
in Rev 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?

True Love imitates Christ

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 Tim 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.” Gen 12:3. 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.

Thomas Tan adores classic adventure sitcoms and Sunday morning cartoons. He’s a
Knight of Malta and former Creative Head for HBO. When he’s not chasing deadlines in
his current role as Creative Director of A+E Networks Asia, he’s telling stories to
evangelise the imagination.