Conversation with Non-Catholic

Questioner:  You know, when you pray to Mary you are introducing a mediator between God and man and that goes against God  because He said that “there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.”

An adequate reply:  If that’s the way you feel then don’t you ever, ever ask me to pray for you ever again.  You see, the minute you ask me to pray for you in your time of need you are putting me between you and our one mediator, Jesus Christ.

What we Catholics are doing when praying to Mary is to ask her to pray to Jesus on our behalf in the same way as you would ask me to pray for you on your behalf.  When Paul spoke of the one mediator he introduced the subject by stating that it was good for us to pray for one another (1 Tim 2:1-5).  It is good for one member of the Body of Christ to pray for the well-being of another member of the Body of Christ and since not even (physical) death can separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ (Rom 8:38-39) then even those members of the Body who have physically died are alive and well in heaven because Jesus tells us directly that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jabob is a God of the living implying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive(Matt 22:32).  And because death will not separate us from the Body of Christ means that those who have died in friendship with God are not only alive but that they are STILL members of the Body of Christ.

 

Questioner: But they’re dead.  They can’t hear your prayers.

Reply: What would be the point of asking for intercessory prayers if the people we are asking are not aware of us or of our prayers?  Well we can find that they ARE aware of us in Heb 12:1 where it says: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”  Or in Luke 15:18 where Luke tells us that their “is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”

We can see that the saints in heaven are not only alive just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive but that they are indeed aware of what is happening here on earth.

And so ‘dead’ saints are alive in heaven, aware of what is happening on earth and can pray for our well-being just as we can pray for the well-being of others.

 

God Bless
Nathan