I'm willing to bet that a fair majority of you are at least familiar with the 10 Commandments- the set of "laws" given to Moses from God for people to live by. I know they're followed by Christians as well as Jewish people, I'm not certain of what other religions use them as guidelines for everyday living, but they seem to be well known. In case you aren't familiar with them here is a quick refresher:
I'd like to focus on #2- thou shall not make any graven image and not bow down to them, nor serve them. Thousands of years ago people would make statues of their gods, bow down to them, worship them, but God didn't want us to do that. We're to worship him and only him and my understanding of the 2nd commandment is that we're not to worship statues or other man made idols.
So why is it that when you go into a Catholic church there are statues of Mary, Joseph, and any number of saints, with candles and prayer stalls set up before them? Why do we pray to certain saints for certain issues? For example, my nonnie (mother's mother) had me pray to St. Anthony every time I lost something as a child.
Isn't this worshiping false idols? Isn't this directly going against the 2nd commandment? My mother's explanation is that these are God's helpers and we pray to them so that they'll talk to Him for us. Ha! I'm not buying it! I believe we should put away the pictures and statues and focus on the One True God- pray to Him and only Him in our time of need. He doesn't need "helpers."
What are your thoughts?
Do you believe in praying to saints? If so, why?
This is actually one of the issues that caused some of the schisms throughout the years. Most protestant religions don't do saints for that reason. In Catholicism we ask the saints to intercede on our behalf. To be sure, you're right: this is a fine line...
ReplyDeleteIt's such a fine line and it's one reason why I feel more Christian than Catholic- which drives my mother crazy! She still insists I don't pray to the same God as her, drives me nuts!
DeleteHi Jessica! I just found your blog, and this is the first post that popped up. I look at it a little differently, and might be able to add to the conversation. Praying and worshipping aren't the same. We don't worship saints, we worship God. We pray to saints, to ask their help or thank them. It's the same as asking a friend to pray for you, or thanking them for their prayers. It probably has a lot to do with semantics, too...trying to pick the right word through several translations. That's just my perspective, though. Thank you for giving me something to think about! ��
ReplyDeleteHey Angel! Thanks for your comment, it makes a lot more sense when you put it that way! Thanks for giving me something to think about, too! :-)
DeleteHi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI'm your anonymous secret santa. I wanted to let you know your package may be slightly late. There was a delay in shipping for a few of the items. I hope this is okay with you!
Hey! No problem! Thank you for letting me know, Rachel actually reached out to me earlier this week. Thank you so much! Hope you have a "happy holiday!"
DeleteIt's Santa again. I'm sorry. I didn't forget you. I can't believe it's taking so long to ship. I just wanted you to know I'm still working on it!
ReplyDeleteNo problem!
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