At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them
answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in
answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you
will be able to:
Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+
topics.
who do you pray to in church? Mary, God, Jesus???? I am a cradle catholic and have just become extremely interested in what i have been doing all my life. I know that Jesus is the son of God. Do you pray to Jesus, who took his life for us? Do you pray to Mary for she is the one that gave birth to Jesus? Is there a correct answer for this?
I personally believe it is of great importance who you pray to.
1 Timothy 2:5 "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
It is also my belief that Jesus coveys the prayer of our Spirit to God.
If we are not praying from our Spirit the prayer is futile anyway. Jesus searches our hearts and knows what our Spirit is saying. He then conveys that message to God.
Romans 8:26 & 27 "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God."
Of course Catholics do not "PRAY" to Mary, they do ask for her to intercede to Jesus for them. But the prayers are to God the Father, since Jesus is also the one to intercede to God for us.
All Christians, Catholics, Baptist, Lutherans and all, all pray to God, they do it in Jesus name and/or they ask one of the Saints to intercede for us.
Personally, I pray to God the Father with the occasional "help me Jesus" prayer thrown in for good measure.
All I know is the NT model, which is summed up best in the Lord's prayer, "This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father..." That seems to be the standard.
"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father..." Matthew 6:6
"One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." Luke 6:12
"Now we pray to God..." 2 Corinthians 13:7
"We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you..." Colossians 1:3
"The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help." 1 Timothy 5:5
"When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God." Acts 4:24
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God..." Romans 10:1
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6
Who I pray to in church is the same one I pray to at home, and in the car, and anywhere. GOD. God is our Father, Jesus is our Savior and our mediator. We pray through Jesus to God the Father. "No one cometh unto the Lord but through Me" (Jesus the Son). Mary, the mother of Jesus our Lord, was just that--The mother of Jesus. God did not put Mary up as someone to worship or to pray through. She was a woman, a wife, a mother. I don't understand why anyone would think that praying to, or through, Mary would be the right thing to do instead of praying to the only one who can do anything and everything in our lives. God is our Father, who we pray to. Jesus is our Lord and Savior, who we pray through. Mary WAS a woman whose greatest claim to fame is being the Mother of Jesus our Lord. Mary can do nothing for you, no matter how long and hard you pray to her. God said,"I am a jealous God" and "Put no other Gods before me." If someone is praying to or through Mary, they are putting Mary up as a god, before God. We have one God and Father. We have one Savior and Mediator whom we pray through, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Put no other gods before HIM.
To learn more turn to God's word, the Holy Bible. You will not find anywhere in the Bible were God tells us to pray to or through Mary, but you will find many times where God tells us to pray to Him without ceasing and pray through His Son, No one else. Hope this helps you.
Forgive me as I'm not trying to stir anything up here, but I still do not understand why any Christian would ask a "saint" to intercede for us. I have yet to see any explicit example in scripture of why we should pray through Mary or anyone else.
The reasoning I find seems more of an assumption than anything else. Because Mary was "the mother of God" or "favored by God?" Because Jesus is the King of kings Mary is the "queen mother" which gives her a favored position? Because the saints are alive in spirit or because the bible says of Mary "all generations will call me blessed?"
How does any of that add up to praying through the saints, in light of the fact scripture does state explicitly to pray to "Our Father" and only tells us the Holy Spirit and Jesus himself intercede for us? And if Mary is to be bestowed with such a high honor, why is there no explicit mention of her beyond the first chapter of Acts? Jesus is the entire focus of the establishment of the church isn't he? What am I missing?
This is a issue that will just divide by denomination, the newer of the churches, do not reconise the saints for some reason, and the older churches all reconise them. The Catholic, the Orthodox, all of the Anglican, the Episcipal, the Lutheran and Methodist and several of the independent groups all reconise the saints in thier doctrine . Many of thier members don't even know it, ( the silly part) in some, but just repeat the words or hear the pastor mention "and all the saints" without even thinking about it. And those that don't, reject it because of thier teachings of the bible. So by far the majority of christians world wide accept Saints as a valid group that are asked either in pural or individual for intercession. The Catholic and Orthodox and Anglican do it more publicly. But please understand it is not a "Catholic" thing, it is a christian thing, that some denominations just don't accept. And many of these groups to me are in fault when they pray to Jesus, since even he tells us to pray to THE FATHER, and he will intercede for us.
This dos not mean our prayers as Catholics are not to the Father, they are always to the Father, we just ask as many people as possible to intercede, not really any differnt than a prayer list in the sunday handout.
We as Catholic, or Anglican or Orthodox or others ask a larger group of Saints to also intercede.
But I understand those that have been taught this is wrong by thier denomination teaching, just don't accept it.
I am amused at the poeple who will not ask a Saint to pray for you, but they will email 100 people, send out lists in church for the church on earth to pray, but refuse to ask the church in heaven to pray for them,
And it is not just Mary, but it is Joseph, Basil, John, and a 1000 of other saints that are asked to intercede. Mary is just one of the most popular for the reason that a mother may have more influence on her son.
In the end, those that beleive that Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans or more pray to saints have just been taught wrong, they do not, a few mislead groups did and some mislead people may still. But it is not the churches teachings. Sadly some groups on purpose teach incorect facts and then sadly some without investigation merely beleive what they hear.
Granted Chuck, that many Christians just don't know much about any of it, but it isn't that we don't recognize the saints, we just recognize scripture as the final authority which says nothing (as far as I can tell) about praying through the saints gone before us. If you can show me otherwise I'd love to see it.
However, scripture DOES tell us to "pray one for another," as in James 5:16, Colossians 1:9 and many other places. So, if we "email 100 people, send out lists in church for the church on earth to pray" we ARE explicitly following scripture.
Linear Mode
