'All Saints, Pray For Us'?

Ora Pro Nobis.

Traditional Roman Catholic prayer to a saint, i.e., 'Pray for us'.

Anyways, I was raised a Roman Catholic, and I am still semi-practicing, I guess, even though I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and probably reject easily half of Catholic doctrine, if not more.

Anyways, after all these years one question still lingers, and this is to my Catholic friends here (or anyone else who knows). I know there is an All Saints Day. But can you simply pray 'All Saints, pray for us'? Because that would certainly help you, if you couldn't decide.

Plus I would think that'd be a pretty powerful invocation. Is it? Has anyone ever prayed it? And did it work? I know the RC church says some prayers are more efficacious than others. What about this one? And finally, what exactly is the indulgence for this prayer? Praying this prayer to one saint typically gets you a small indulgence. Does this one get you all of them?

 

I'm not a catholic -- but I don't really see how praying to saints to pray for you could be helpful, especially if the saints you are thinking of are dead. I mean maybe if they were alive it might help but then you could just ask them you wouldn't have to pray to them. If they are dead well I'm not sure if prayer really works the same way that it does when you are alive.

In particular, I think of prayers being answered by God as angels are ministered from heaven. So then who is in heaven right now? Well certainly Jesus is seated at His right hand. But as for the saints well I don't think that they are going to receive their immortal bodies until the end of the age. 1cor15:51-52: "Behold, I tell you a mystery: 'We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed -- in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." In fact I believe that the saints are in a place called 'Abraham's bosom' (see the story of the rich man and lazarus in luke 16:19-31)

"So it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom, the rich man also died and was buried. And being in torment in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. The he said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.' But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us."

So if the saints are in Abraham's bosom then can they still pray? It would seem rather strange if they could. Isaiah 38:18-19 "For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You, those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth. The living, the living man, he shall praise You," psalms 115:17 "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence."

Or perhaps the saints are in a different place. In john 8:52 Jesus said, "If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death." and in verse 58, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."

If you want someone to pray for you then you need to ask people who are still alive. Perhaps your friends or your church. Somehow, maybe God is more likely to hear you if thousands of people pray for the same thing.

 

The Catholic teaching is that the souls of the saints are alive in heaven, not dead, while they await the resurrection of the body. See, e.g., Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 476. Therefore, "It is permissible and profitable to venerate the Saints in Heaven, and to invoke their intercession." Ibid., p. 318. Catholics do say, "All the holy angels and saints, pray for us." Catholic convert and Nobel Prize-winning author Sigrid Undset, for one, was attracted to the Catholic Church by the "bright doctrine" of the intercession of the saints <The "Bright Doctrine" of the Intercession of the Saints>. As for the efficaciousness of such prayer--well, if the prayer does work, you might get more than you thought you were bargaining for, such as an opportunity for serious re-evaluation of the Catholic teachings you don't like. This I would infer from Catholic teaching on the divine providence, omnipotence, and mercy, together with the Catholic view that God doesn't agree with you about those teachings.

 

but if it is true that, as 1 cor 15:51-52 which i was talking about earlier suggests, the dead will not be raised until the last trumpet, then the saints are waiting in a place of rest. that is, there is no resurrection until the last trumpet.

it would seem that the saints have become part of a "cloud of witnesses," wherever they are, and whether they have contact with God or not. hebrews 12:1-2

 

You can see the essence of two Catholic teachings in the two Scripture passages to which you're referring. (1) The general resurrection of the body for all human beings (which has not yet occurred as of this writing) will take place at the "last trump." (2) We are now surrounded by a "cloud of witnesses," which are the immortal souls of the saints. To be a witness, by definition, you have to be able to observe and communicate. The souls of the saints are in a favorable position to pray for us because they can see us, and (unlike us) they also see God.