Deep in the woods of the lower Laurentians, tucked into one corner of a gravel road that goes nowhere in particular, in a place so remote as to be without power lines, there is a church. Rather, there was a church.
St. John’s Shrewsbury, built in 1858 and the last remaining building of a village that vanished decades ago, was an Anglican church until Saturday.
Shortly before noon that day in what is now part of the municipality of Gore, St. John’s was deconsecrated in a ceremony that also involved the sprinkling of holy water in its cemetery to cleanse the grounds of all traces of “the craft of Satan” or human malice.
Witches, waves of misguided ghost-hunters and self-proclaimed spiritualists, along with common vandals, have swarmed the church in recent years.
“This is the only church that I know of that has been brought to its knees by people … pursuing some sort of desire for supernatural experiences,” Archdeacon Edward Simonton said during the deconsecration service.
Wiccans, assorted other Witchcraft groups, “spiritual” pagans and the like often crow about becoming one with the creation.
Their lack of empathy toward neighbors – the insensitivity, pushing into malice, of descrating a cemetery – gives the lie to their sweet sounding claims.
Fr. Timothy,
I fear that reverence for the dead – like respect for life in all its aspects – is another virtue that is departing society at large and is hardly peculiar to spiritual pagans. Thefts from active churches – which would have been largely unheard of even in the recent past – are now commonplace, as are teenagers congregating in graveyards to smoke and socialize.
Jeremy – good points. There are very few churches that can remain unlocked for people to come in and pray, for instance.
I singled out the pagans because, in this case, they were very active in the desecration of the sites. You are right about the general coarsening of our society and its loss of reverence for life – I’m just saying that the paganism practiced in the society doesn’t deliver on its claims to rise above that.
Meeting with the dead. Or praying to the dead, like Mary Mother of Jesus. Or Saint Anne, mother of Mary … And the difference, exactly is what? It’s all paganism. Let the Anglo-Catholics go. They’re still basically pagans, attempting to communicate with the dead. Please read Luke 16.
Bart, your ignorance is showing ——-
desert padre
I have an abiding curiousity which has never been satisfied when I hear Protestants who recite the Nicean creed say things like this. What is your interpretation of the “communion of saints” which I assume you say every week you believe in? I’m honestly asking.
Or rather the Apostle’s Creed and not the misspelled Nicene Creed. That’s what happens when you multi-task and spend your time on blogs when you’re supposed to be doing something else. 🙂 Same question though.
The archdeacon’s comments are spot on and reflect something of the social context he is living in. Quebec is the most secular society in North America. But as the actions of the vandals would suggest, ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. We too should feel compassion for the vandals even as we deplore their actions.
Ross
Satan will quickly rush into any place where Jesus is not present. Sin abhors a vacuum.
#4 Bart:
Do some readings. Study your bible. The Bible directs us to invoke those in heaven and ask them to pray with us. Psalms 103, we pray, “Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will” (Ps. 103:20-21). And in Psalms 148 we pray, “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host” (Ps. 148:1-2).
The faithful departed are very much alive and can and do intercede for us. Revelation 5:8-tells us that the saints in heaven do actively intercede for us.
Bart #4, I know of at least one couple at Christ Church’s 8am Mass that pray to the dead. It’s a very Christian thing to do as #10 points out. Be careful…you’re calling your fellow parishoners pagans…
Wiccans are not usually Satanists. I doubt that the desecrators of this church and its grounds were trying to achieve oneness or harmony with creation. They were more likely Satanists practicing the inversion of Christianity or dabblers in the occult trying to contact the unquiet spirits of the dead. Though I neither practice Wicca or pray to saints for intercession, I know people who do both and they are, in their respective ways, engaging in something quite different from what is described here
Sorry, folks, “praising” God is not the same as “praying to” a created being. I’ll even accept (without difficulty) that created beings can continue their relationship with the Creator after their earthly death.
My earthly father may well be petitioning God on behalf of his great-grandchildren. There is, however, no particular point, or biblical justification, in my praying to [i]him[/i] that he might intercede on behalf of those same great-grandchildren.
Praying to created beings, be they Mary, Satan, or great-aunt Susie, is utterly without effect and it remains to be demonstrated that there is anything in the Bible suggesting it’s anything other than a pointless exercise in self-deception.
I know there are a lot of Anglo-Catholics on this list. A majority, however, means nothing. Otherwise we should have to accept that the theology of the Episcopal Church is accurate and valid merely because it carries a popular majority.
Two people out of 150 at our early service isn’t even a majority, and there are plenty of others at that service or the main ones who make significant theological errors. Church is not a bad place for them to be.
Please do not, like me, make the logical error of the “undifferentiated middle” — people have ears, and elephants have ears, therefore people are elephants — which is what I wrote in my haste in #4.
The fact that pagans pray to dead people and some Christians pray to dead people does not make those Christians “pagans,” and you are correct to rap my knuckles for that careless conflation of the two.
It does not, however, make praying to the dead a biblical practice.
So Bart, can you clarify. What does “the communion of saints” mean? Or don’t you say the Apostles Creed? I seriously would like to understand.
I am amused by the idea of Protestants reciting the ancient creeds of the Church when they uniformly reject so many of the ancient Church’s teachings. That said in my experience there are very few western Christians who recite the Nicene Creed. Most use the Creed of Lyon and call it Nicene.
In ICXC
John
#13 – no one said that praising god is the same as praying to a created being.
[blockquote]Definition of PRAY
2: to get or bring by praying
transitive verb
1: entreat, implore —often used as a function word in introducing a question, request, or plea
intransitive verb
1: to make a request in a humble manner
2: to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving [/blockquote]
Praying to a saint is essentially the same thing as asking a fellow Christian who is alive to pray for you. It’s difficult to see how that is an unbiblical practice.
No. 16 Charles, thanks for the definitions of the word “pray.” The word has come to have, for many of us, an almost exclusive reference to communication with God, and that sets up a problem with the idea of praying to the saints.
[blockquote]Prayer to Saint Anthony of Padua
Dear Saint Anthony, you are the patron of the poor and the helper of all who seek lost articles. Help me to find the object I have lost so that I will be able to make better use of the time I will gain for God’s greater honor and glory. Grant your gracious aid to all people who seek what they have lost – especially those who seek to regain God’s grace. Amen. [/blockquote]
Folks, this is idolatry. This is not a “prayer” requesting St. Anthony to pray to God for us. This is a direct prayer to a mortal man that is deceased. There is no warrant for this in Scripture and in fact it is a violation of the first Commandment. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” If it is said in conjunction with a little prayer card, graven image on jewelry, painting, or statue, it is a violation of both the first and second Commandments.
This is common practice among Roman Catholics. It is a sin.
#18-Nope, sounds like intercession, not adolotry. Saint Anthony aides through prayer, thats all.
We say we believe in the ‘communion of saints’. In Baptism we pass from death to life; death no longer has dominion over us. “Christians believe that there is no real distinction between the believer in human life and after human life. Saints, living or dead, are indistinguishable before God”.
I truly believe that if we can pray for and with saints in this life, we can pray for and with those saints after human life.
.
Re # 4
If I were Catholic (I’m not) I would take that comment and plaster it on billboards from Portsmouth to the Orkney Islands with the question…
“And you’re staying because…?”
“Help me to find the object I have lost…”
“Grant your gracious aid…”
These are direct appeals to St. Anthony, not requests that he pray to God on our behalf. I have some sympathy for the notion of asking a deceased Christian to pray for us (although I would be personally uncomfortable with doing so, because of my upbringing) but this is clearly a prayer to a mortal man that is deceased, asking him, not God, to help. Again, that is idolatry. Praying to a man for help rather than praying to God for help is putting another god before Him.
St. Anthony only ‘aides’ through intercession. He only ‘helps’ through intercession. A properly catechized catholic (anglo, orthodox, roman) knows that. Your ‘upbringing’ is influencing your interpretation of this prayer.
Not only do those in heaven pray with us, they also pray for us. In the book of Revelation, John sees that “the twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8). So the saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.
Angels do the same thing: “[An] angel came and stood at the altar [in heaven] with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God” (Rev. 8:3–4).
Jesus himself warned us not to offend small children, because their guardian angels have guaranteed intercessory access to the Father: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 18:10).
‘What is your interpretation of the “communion of saints†which I assume you say every week you believe in?’
Well, historically the phrase “communion of saints” in the Apostles Creed (in its final form a much later formula than the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, probably around the end of the 8th Century, although most of it comes from the so-called Old Roman Creed which can be traced back to the 3rd/4th centuries) is part of the latest stratum of that creed, and probably comes from the Greek (as Werner Elert in his *Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries* demonstrated at some length) “ton hagion [genitive plural] koinonia* via the Council of Nimes of 396, and the meaning is “the communion of holy things” (cf. the medieval French translation “la communioun des sainct choses”) rather than “the communion of holy persons.” In other words, it professes belief in what conservative Lutherans call “closed communion” and which is the practice of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church — that the sacraments are to be conferred upon, and specifically the Eucharist given to, only to those who are members of the (visible and indivisible) Catholic Church.
Of course, not that I have any objection to requesting the intercession of Our Lady and the saints — it is part of my daily prayer practice, and is both ancient and Catholic (cf. the ancient prayer “Sub tuum presidium confugimus …” which can be traced back to the 3rd Century, and the scribbled petitions along the lines “Petre at Paule petite pro …” on what is called the “red wall” in the old necropolis under St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and which archaeologists believe was concealed around 165-175 AD by further building on and around it), and so is fully accordant with the Vincentian Canon of “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est” to which numerous Anglicans have been wont to appeal.
There is a persistent error in that some folks think that those who invoke the name of saints in their prayers are praying to those saints. Not so. They are asking those saints to intervene, from their position close to the Father, on their behalf. That is a lot different than praying “to” those saints for the answer to prayer.
desert padre
Well, I guess I shall never know the answer to my question in this life. Still can I just ask it once more on the off chance that someone might answer it? What do Protestants who do not pray to the saints think “the Communion of Saints” means? Or don’t they say the Apostle’s Creed?
Sick & Tired:
Maybe this might help. Let’s put your name in this prayer (or petition) and see if it offends:
Dear Sick & Tired of Nuance,
Help me to find the object I have lost so that I will be able to make better use of the time I will gain for God’s greater honor and glory. Grant your gracious aid to all people who seek what they have lost – especially those who seek to regain God’s grace.
Sorry, but I see no sin in asking you to help me so that I may make better use of my time for God’s greater honor and glory. It sounds like your issue is with the person’s death. But doesn’t the end of our earthly life bring us closer to God? And in Heaven, acutely aware of God’s judgment, wouldn’t our concern for our fellow Christians be that much greater?
#22 said: “St. Anthony only ‘aides’ through intercession. He only ‘helps’ through intercession. A properly catechized catholic (anglo, orthodox, roman) knows that. Your ‘upbringing’ is influencing your interpretation of this prayer.”
But the language of the prayer does not support this. If the prayer said: “Implore the Father on my behalf to help me find the object I have lost…” instead of, “Help me to find the object I have lost…â€, I would understand this as not idolatrous. If the prayer said: “Pray for us that the Father grant His gracious aid…” instead of “Grant your gracious aid…â€, I would understand this as not idolatrous. As it is written and as it is said, it is idolatrous.
#24 I do not speak for all Protestants, just myself. My understanding and belief about “the Communion of Saints” is this:
For here and now –
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Heb 10:25)
For when Jesus bodily returns –
“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” (Matt 24:31)
These concepts of “the Communion of Saints” have Biblical support. I am very wary of entreating those that have passed on to their reward to pray for me, because it smacks of necromancy. King Saul did this in 1 Sam 28. He went to a medium and they invoked “the soul of Samuel”. Despite the fact that he invoked Samuel the Prophet of God, it was a wicked act.
Further, the scenes in heaven described in Rev 5:8 and Rev 8:3-4 do not include any instruction or example that we on earth are to “pray” to those in heaven and ask them to bring the prayers of the saints before the throne of God.
So the “Communion of Saints” means that Christians who are alive on the earth at this time should — so to speak — “commune” with one another — support and exhort one another? “I believe that…Christians should not forsake assembling with one another” is the kind of short succinct statment of esssential Christian doctrine necessary to include in the Apostle’s Creed??
I didn’t write it and they didn’t ask me my opinion. lol I do believe it, though. In the Scriptures, all believers are called saints, not based on their merit, but upon the merit of Jesus.
I’m suggesting something as obvious and non-doctrinal as “Christians need to hang together” would hardly qualify as a doctrine that needed to be spelled out in a succinct statement of esssential Christian belief like the creeds. There are less than 20 specific beliefs spelled out in the Apostle’s Creed (and that’s counting “”was crucified, dead, and buried” as three beliefs.) How could something which is essentially just “good counsel for Christians” possibly rise to the level of these key beliefs?? You could find 100 statements of Pauls at the same level. Whatever “the communion of saints” means, it obviously means something about which the early Church though it necessary to make a clear statement of belief. Simple logic would refute the idea that it means nothing more than what you say.
I can understand why someone might **not** believe in the “communion of saints” but then I would expect that they would not recite the Apostles Creed.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I am curious about one thing: to those who ask saints to intercede on their behalf, why should God be more likely to grant the prayers of a saint in heaven than to a sinner on earth? Are prayers answered based on the merit of the person who prays?
Surely God hears my prayer whether it’s just me who prays it, or a legion of saints and angels on my behalf; and surely God is capable of deciding purely based on his own will, plan, and mercy whether to grant my prayer. I’m not seeing where intercession comes into play.
Let us begin with basics. [i]Communio sanctorum[/i] can refer equally to the “holy people” or the “holy things.” As the Apostles’ Creed developped over half a millennium or so there are quite reasonable grounds for accepting the latter translation — specifically as referring to the blessings all believers share in common, such as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, rather than to the dead people the church may have declared to be “saints.”
Therefore, in the Apostles’ creed when I state “communion of saints” I am referring to the commonality, the community, the “communion” of all believers, living and dead, in sharing the gifts of the Spirit.
Much is made on the Roman side of 1 Cor 12, but I see nothing in that chapter even suggesting that it refers in any way to dead people. He is writing to, and about, the living church in Corinth.
Much, too, also hinges upon whether the “detestable ways” described in Deuteronomy 18 can be dismissed as “ritual law” now fulfilled by Christ. The topics therein, however, address issues repeatedly considered as [i]moral[/i] law in the New Testament, and therefore still prevailing. Most germane to this particular discussion is the passage condemning anyone “who is a medium, or spiritist, or who contacts the dead.”
What is it about “anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord” that eludes Romanists?
I know this will frost numerous backsides on this particular list, but the entire Oxford movement could disappear and it wouldn’t bother me a bit. The Reformation happened for a number of very good reasons. The Roman proclivity to pray to dead people is one of them, and it was addressed in the Thirty-Nine Articles. The Oxford movement has been little more than an anachronistic attempt to return Anglicanism to a theological era deservedly left behind in the Reformation.
[blockquote]I’m suggesting something as obvious and non-doctrinal as “Christians need to hang together†would hardly qualify as a doctrine that needed to be spelled out in a succinct statement of esssential Christian belief like the creeds.[/blockquote]
Oh, I don’t know. God seemed to think that it was important enough to put in the Holy Scriptures for the edification and instruction of all believers from that time forward…so maybe it isn’t so far fetched that the early Chruch Fathers would include it in a creed, especially if it had been convenient to forsake gathering together and self identifying as Christians to avoid persecution by the pagans all around them. It might also be a nod to our future together with Christ in heaven and the joyous communion we will enjoy with our departed loved ones for all eternity. I know that I look forward to spending some of eternity with my beloved yet now deceased grandparents and some of my cousins. I think that is a fine thing to be reminded of in the Creed.
Why does anyone ask anyone to pray for them? I mean, if you pray to God, then God knows what you are asking for. (Actually he knows anyway, but lets not get into that.) So what’s the point of asking *anyone* to pray for you?
And, of course, strictly speaking, in Catholic teaching only the “technical” saints are prayed to — in other words, only those departed Christians who have been canonized — since those are the people that the Church has declared as *known* to be directly with God (as opposed to in purgatory.) But let’s assume for this purpose that *all* departed faithful are with God. Isn’t being with God in heaven a different condition than being on earth? Isn’t God known in a different way? “Now, as through a glass darkly” as the St. James version has it, but “then face to face.” ?? Wouldn’t you ask someone who is face to face with God to pray for you??? If not, then who, if anyone, would you ask???
>>the “communion†of all believers, living and dead, in sharing the gifts of the Spirit
Well, that is indeed the interpretation of the Church for the last x millenia. Now — for the $64k question — what does it mean for the “living and dead” to be “in communion” with one another if they cannot in any way shape or form “communicate”??? The idea that they are “in communion” because both, in their own ways, are “in communion” wih the Holy Spirt but they are **not** in communion with EACH OTHER seems hardly to fit the plain meaning of the words.
Scripture encourages us to pray for each other…here on earth. There are numerous examples of praying for each other, to God, while both parties are on earth, in the Scripture. In fact, that is the normative description of prayer and commands for prayer throughout the entire accepted cannon of Scripture. So, if the Scriptures teach us to pray for each other…even though God already knows what we need before we ask…if Jesus himself tells us to pray for each other, who am I to say no or disobey? The same cannot be said about “praying” to deceased people and there is a postitive Scriptural argument to be made against such activity as being detesable in the eyes of God and similar to the necromancy of King Saul.
The creed does not say that the “living and dead†are in communion.
Bart Hall said it. That’s why I indicated it as a quote. But I’ll pray to Blessed John Henry Newman to open your minds to this truth. 🙂
I am in communion with the “saints” (Paul’s usage, not Rome’s) in Kabale, Uganda, even though I cannot speak with them. We share in the love of the Lord and the gifts of the Spirit.
Our point of connexion is God. The dead are in relationship with God. We living are in relationship with God. Our “communion” arises from that common relationship with God, not from any communication between us.
#33 Catholic Mom says:
Someone who is “face to face” with God perceives God more clearly than is possible to ordinary living human beings, and surely that is a blessed state to be in. But God does not perceive that person any more clearly than he did when they were walking around on earth, and he can hear their prayers just as readily whether they are alive on earth or in glory in heaven. So why should this person’s prayers be more “effective” than those of an ordinary living sinner?
Ross,
First, let me say that a good 90% of my prayer life does not consist of the intersession of the saints in heaven. Sometimes I think people believe Anglo-Catholics, RCs and Orthodox don’t pray directly to Jesus.
That said, Jesus regularly supplied for one person based on another person’s faith (e.g., Matt. 8:13, 15:28, 17:15–18, Mark 9:17–29, Luke 8:49–55). And it should be obvious that those in heaven, being free of the distractions of this life, have even greater love for God than anyone on earth.
St. James declares: “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit” (Jas. 5:16–18). Couldn’t we argue that we are certain the saints are righteous men and women? Christians in heaven have been made perfect to stand in God’s presence (cf. Heb. 12:22-23). Why should I not ask for the prayers of both my fellow Christians on earth and in heaven?
This discussion ignores a couple of what I think are obvious facts.
1. For some the invocation of the Saints [i]is[/i] idolatry. There is plenty of what Bishop Wright calls low, popular-level piety abroad in the land, especially among RCs. Statues with healing qualities, the BVM as some sort of goddess, syncretistic practices like Santeria, etc.
2. It is a danger when anyone uses the intercession of the Saints as a complete substitute for direct prayer to the Father through Christ by the power of the Spirit.
3. There is much quibbling over semantics, when the meaning of many words such as “aid” depends so very much on the intent of the person making the prayer. One can pray that very prayer to St. Anthony quoted in #18 believing that the “help” and “aid” being asked for is intercession. The prayer is not in and of itself idolatrous. Yes, I myself would use more specific language asking for intercession. But to assume the worst is to assume bad faith in a fellow member of the Body of Christ.
4. What may be less obvious is the other value that might be derived from such prayer. Many of the arguments against prayer to the Saints, such as that specifically made by Ross in #30 by nature extend to the living. If our prayers are just as efficacious as anyone’s, as indeed they are, then why ask anyone living or dead to pray for us? And yet scripture asks that we do precisely that with the living. Why? The answer goes to the very heart of prayer. Are more prayers by more people more efficacious? Passages such as the parable in Luke 18 suggest that is possible. But is there not also another function of prayer, of drawing us together as a community and Body of Christ, of being aware of each others’ needs and blessings, and growing in holiness by the example of others? If praying the intercession of the Saints draws us closer to them and to their example, it cannot but be for the good, just so long as it does not stand in the way of our relationship with Jesus.
I guess what I am saying is that this is a false dichotomy. It is neither evil, nor necessary, though it can be either helpful or obstructive depending on how one approaches it. I myself have prayed to the Saints on occasion for their intercession, being careful to phrase it as a request for intercession, and drawing the question as bringing us closer together in Christ. I’ve asked St. Anthony for such help in finding something lost, and was amazed how quickly I found it. In one of the most profound experiences in prayer I have ever had, I felt moved to ask Our Lady to intercede on behalf of my mother who was in some trouble, and was amazed that within hours a seemingly intractable problem had begun to find resolution for her. Was it a coincidence? Atheists would say all such answer to prayer is coincidence. What I do know is that the experience, by asking His mother to pray for my mother, drew me closer to Jesus. I would never substitute the Theotokos for the Theo she was tokosing, but there was value in that.
I think we need to take care to encourage each other always to keep our focus on Christ, but also to not let such quibbles add to the division of the Body of Christ.
Kendall, thanks so much for providing such a welcoming and thoughtful site. I wish you and yours a blessed Advent and a most happy Christmas.
I just don’t have the energy to explain anymore why I don’t believe I should be lumped in with Pagans and others who deny Christ. Obviously I am not a Christian in the eyes of certain people here. People whom I respect and whose opinion I very often share. But the truth is somebody believes if I am condemned to hell because I am Catholic it seems silly to try and persuade them that I have any merit whatsoever.
I’ll be casting a spell tonight to raise up my dead grandmother in the hopes she will tell me my future. After all being Catholic I practice Necromancy on a regular basis.
#41 Alta Californian says:
I consider this a compelling and cogent reply to my comments.
#39, Ross. I’m reduced to copying comments made elsewhere on the internet:
“The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.
(James 5:16 – RSV / KJV: . . . availeth much)
The Catholic and biblical teaching isn’t that Jesus won’t listen to rotten sinners; rather, it is that prayers of those who have attained a higher level of righteousness will have more power (per the above).
Of course, this biblical view isn’t possible when one takes the unbiblical position that there is no differential righteousness, and we’re all sinners to exactly the same degree; even good works are “filthy rags,” etc.”
Re #42
Paula,
Don’t worry. Your in good company. We “pagan” Orthodox do this every day. Even as I type now I do so under the watchful gaze of the Holy Icons above my desk. Through the prayers of the Mother of God and of all the Saints may our souls be saved!
The acclamation of the Fathers of the 7th Imperial Great and OEcumenical Council…
[blockquote] The holy Synod cried out: So we all believe, we all are so minded, we all give our consent and have signed. This is the faith of the Apostles, this is the faith of the orthodox, this is the faith which hath made firm the whole world. Believing in one God, to be celebrated in Trinity, we salute the honourable images! Those who do not so hold, let them be anathema. Those who do not thus think, let them be driven far away from the Church. For we follow the most ancient legislation of the Catholic Church. We keep the laws of the Fathers. We anathematize those who add anything to or take anything away from the Catholic Church. We anathematize the introduced novelty of the revilers of Christians. We salute the venerable images. We place under anathema those who do not do this. Anathema to them who presume to apply to the venerable images the things said in Holy Scripture about idols. Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images. Anathema to those who call the sacred images idols. Anathema to those who say that Christians resort to the sacred images as to gods. Anathema to those who say that any other delivered us from idols except Christ our God. Anathema to those who dare to say that at any time the Catholic Church received idols.
Many years to the Emperors, etc., etc. [/blockquote]
[url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xvi.xii.html]Source[/url]
This is recited by all in every Orthodox Church on the First Sunday of Great Lent (The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy).
ICXC NIKA
John
Would this be a good time to remind everyone that today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception? 🙂
Holy Mary, pray for us.
#46: this Catholic loved it that his middle-of-the-road Episcopal parish where he sings in the choir posted that fact on it’s Facebook page today. Happy feast day to all!
[blockquote]
43. Paula Loughlin wrote:
I just don’t have the energy to explain anymore why I don’t believe I should be lumped in with Pagans and others who deny Christ. Obviously I am not a Christian in the eyes of certain people here. People whom I respect and whose opinion I very often share. But the truth is somebody believes if I am condemned to hell because I am Catholic it seems silly to try and persuade them that I have any merit whatsoever.
I’ll be casting a spell tonight to raise up my dead grandmother in the hopes she will tell me my future. After all being Catholic I practice Necromancy on a regular basis.
[/blockquote]
Yes, and I am “anathama” to many folks because I cannot bow to a statue, kiss a painting, or pray to dead people instead of to the only true and living God. An entire Church pronounces me and folks like me to be anathama daily because we believe it is right to worship God the Father, through Jesus the Son, in the Holy Spirit ALONE, as commanded in Scripture. It’s quite something, isn’t it? It makes the heart sad. Still, for what it is worth, I think most folks professing belief in Christ are Christians and that none of us has the corner on how to express that.
One thing I know; Love covers a multitude of sins. God bless and keep you all, and may you have a blessed Christmas as we reflect on our Lord, the God of all Creation, becoming a man, in the form of a tiny baby…just because He loves us…all of us.
Lord, I am unworthy to unclasp your sandals. Have mercy on me, a sinner. Forgive my many failures. Put your name upon me. Send your angel to mark my forehead with a tau. Write my name in the Lamb’s book of life. Rescue me from my blindness, my nakedness, and my poverty of spirit. Clothe me with your righteousness, for I have none of my own. Cleanse me and I will be clean. Take a coal from the brazure and touch my lips that my mouth not sin against thee. Gracious and loving Lord of Hosts, my shield and my friend, have mercy upon me. Cover me with your wings as a mother hen covers her chicks. Grant your servant peace with his brothers and sisters and grant that we all reflect your glory to a dark world. May we be one. Incline our hearts toward you, that we might joyfully unite in worshiping you and put aside that which distracts us from your will. Be glorified in us and may we shine as we do the good works that you set before us, so much that those not of your household will be moved to glorify your name.
In your name Lord Jesus, I pray. Amen.
The prayer is lovely. Now to the rest and I will be brief. The Orthodox and Catholic do worship the Triune God alone. We have explained numerous times the difference between Worship owed to God and the veneration and devotion to the BVM and the Saints.
I won’t address the anathemas from the above post but to say to me it is meant to lay out the truth about the veneration of Icons and pronounces anathema on those who claim the practice is other than what the proclamation states. I’ll let Ad Orientem explain how it relates to modern non Orthodox.
That you or others choose not to venerate Saints does not in my mind make you a non Christian. It does not condemn you to hell. It does not mean you only get the crumbs from the table. Nor does my Church teach that. I am saddened that you believe the practice is idolotry when such claims have been defended against over and over. More importantly though you believe doing so would set up a division between you and God. It would therefore place a barrier upon your heart and keep you from worshipping God in all fullness. For how could you if you are doing what you see as undefensible in His eyes. So it would be wrong for you to do so. Because unless what we do draws us closer to God and illuminates are faith it is a vain and at times even dangerous practice. To you these things block your view of God. To me and others they provide a guiding light to Him. I would never, ever claim you must
burden your conscience with something you believe is not only wrong but against what God desires of you.
You are Christian. I would say that to anyone who claimed otherwise. Yes we disagree strongly but I don’t think anything you do or don’t do has placed your soul’s salvation in danger. God be with you.
And also with you. And may we both grow in grace and may I be given a greater measure of tact so that I might not offend.
#50-Well stated, Paula. Thank you for such a kind and thoughtful post.
Bart Hall, I cannot join you in saying that the Oxford Movement and Anglo-Catholics were or are things we could do without. The Church was once one, despite the multitudinous heresies of the early centuries, and surely that union is something to strive towards, even if we are unable to achieve it at this time. Asking the saints who have passed from this world into the presence of God to pray for the living seems not only acceptable but desirable. “Pray for us” is an ancient refrain. We do not need to slavishly do everything exactly as generations before us did, but yet we should be very slow to reject prayer habits and other practices of those who were so much closer to the Lord’s incarnation and to the Apostles than we are.
Perhaps it is my training which makes me feel this way, but I’m not comfortable with assuming that a saint now in the presence of God is endowed with powers to act on the behalf of the living which he or she did not have when living in this world. As they prayed for the Church and for fellow Christians when they were living, so they can pray for us now that they are dead. But can a saint who did not know me receive my particular prayer and intercede in a special and individual way for me with the Father? When did he or she acquire this power, and on what authority to we know it? So I am quite happy in corporate liturgy to ask saints to pray for us, the Church, but in private petition I am more comfortable with asking the Lord to send me the [insert virtue] of Saint [insert name].