What greater pleasure could the mother of our Lord have than to pray for her many adopted sons and daughters?
True, but that concerns other humans like ourselves, living still in this Earthly life. Spirits are obviously not included in that admonition, and for several reasons.
I suppose we might say that, but there is nothing whatsoever to be found in Scripture that either implores us to direct our prayers to spirits or, worse, to attribute to them the power to act upon those prayers.
yeah, it is not really possible where I live. There is only one ACNA church and they are very unstable, having moved around the metro area multiple times it seems and currently rather far from me, and in a temporary location anyway. There is another independent Anglican church very close.....but a completely independent church seems to be rather contrary to some core tenants of Anglicanism.
To a degree sure, but there are of course still more conservative denominations that may qualify, such as LCMS, WELS, ACNA, etc. but I have varying degrees of issues with those as well. Honestly, if it were not for a familial issue with the RCC I would likely return there before one of those churches. At the moment I am with a rather conservative UMC church that at least my family is happy with. I wish the service were more traditional, but that is what it is right now.
Broadly I agree. Even when I was a practicing Catholic I found it un-necessary to pray to saints for intercession. The scriptural support is thin, but then there are some scriptures that seem to imply it and then Tradition if one goes down that road.
That does not seem to be backed up by scripture, maybe by people's experience, but experiences don't work in this discussion or saintly intercession, otherwise we could point to many people's experiences with direct intercession by a saint.
Yeah, I know what you're saying. ACNA got off to a bad start and has (IMHO) been much more successful at being noticed by the religious news services than it has in establishing itself as an alternative to The Episcopal Church.
Hmm. Also very unusual, too. There are a number of smaller but orderly Anglican "continuing churches" around and a completely unaffiliated one--although I have heard of a few--is rare.
Yes, there are a precious few. I'd call WELS one, but I wouldn't include ACNA. And the Roman Catholic Church has lately become far more "woke" in practice if not in print, than people realize.
Yep. That situation is similar to the ones experienced by many other Christians in North America. Lots (of congregations) to choose from, but not much to choose among when it comes to doctrine and practice.
A couple of reactions to that--
Pray for all those millions of people? I don't know. Walk in a heavenly park, praise God, not being treated and bothered like a celebrity. I already found it annoying when we had this tiny church and those people were like: pastor pray for this, pray for that. Once a guy from church called: oh a man is on a building here. Pray he doesn't kill himself and others. Can't remember what is was exactly, but something like that and very dangerous, so I had to immediately pray. Now it's great to pray for people, but hello don't dump it all on some supposed holy man or holy woman. Why did I now get this prayer load, while he just lazily chills and dumped it on us? They always did that. Annoying. So even if it were possible I would never bother Mary. I'd ask Nebukadnesar if I had to pick someone.
I'll PM you about it so as not to take the thread off course.
Let's back up a bit and look again at the statement to which you are responding.
Granted, most of the practice is based on the idea that the saints are living members of the Church, just not on Earth. So much of the basis comes from passages talking about praying for one another, of which there are more than a few. Also
Good idea, a 'Conversation'.
My memory tells me, though, that the people we are to ask to pray for us are identified in one way or another as being neighbors and/or people in our same situation, etc., not spirits. And then too, praying FOR someone else isn't the same thing as praying TO someone.
Yes, indeed; what greater gift to Blessed Many than to have millions of faithful children? And how can she not be a celebrity when her son is God?
Well, the departed saints can and did go through the same or similar situations, and praying "to" a saint is merely talking to them like we would any other. The real question is if they can hear us.
We don't know anyone according to the flesh. Maybe she sits near His throne. Who knows. That's not a problem, but nobody knows her personally. You just assume that she would be honored being treated like a celebrity and I think she would hate it and wants God to get all the glory instead. The Bible says nothing about it. It sounds disfunctional to ask her to ask God for you. As if God is this scary dad and you have to ask mom to go ask him for something. And if God wanted us to do it Jesus could have taught his disciples: go ask Mary, which He didn't.
Whether or not they can hear is worth contemplating, I agree, but that seems secondary to the theological issue of whether attempting this is proper.
Got it.
That is very true. Mary was not treated, in this life, as though she were a celebrity. Indeed, when she is referred to--as, for example, when Jesus was preaching, or when the disciples were gathered in the upper room--her presence was almost always merely noted.
Bingo, I 100% agree.