When talking about the Catholic practice of asking the saints to pray for us, a question arises from both Catholics and Protestants: “Why seek the help of saints when we can go straight to Jesus?” Protestants often pose this question as an objection. For Catholics, it’s a question of curiosity.
There are two ways to answer. The first is to address the problematic assumptions, which we would direct primarily at our Protestant friends who ask this question as an objection. The second, which can be directed at both Protestants and Catholics, is to give positive reasons for the practice.
Let’s look at the assumptions first.
Consider that many who ask this question assume that the Catholic practice of asking the saints to pray for us implies that we can’t go straight to Jesus. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The Catholic Church affirms wholeheartedly that we can go straight to Jesus in prayer. The Catechism teaches in paragraph 2665,
The prayer of the Church, nourished by the word of God and the celebration of the liturgy, teaches us to pray to the Lord Jesus. Even though its prayer is addressed above all to the Father, it includes in all the liturgical traditions forms of prayer addressed to Christ.
Notice that the Church doesn’t say we must invoke the saints to pray for us before we can go straight to Jesus. The Church affirms that Christians have a straight path to Jesus.
A second, common assumption is that we should not seek the saints’ help because Jesus’ intercession is sufficient. Now, it’s true that Jesus’ intercession is sufficient, as the Catholic Church affirms in paragraph 662 of the Catechism. The Church teaches that Christ, in the heavenly sanctuary, “permanently exercises his priesthood, for he ‘always lives to make intercession’ for ‘those who draw near to God through him,’” quoting Hebrews 7:25.
But this shouldn’t be the reason why our Protestant friends reject seeking the saints’ prayers. If Jesus’ sufficiency as our intercessor precluded our asking the saints in heaven to pray for us, then there’d be no reason to ask the “saints” on earth (born-again Christians) to pray for us, either. The same question could be asked: “Why seek the help of Christians on earth when we can go straight to Jesus?”
No Christian wants to say we shouldn’t pray for one another. Therefore, the sufficiency of Jesus’ unique intercession doesn’t serve as an obstacle to the invocation of the saints’ intercession.
Now let’s look at some positive reasons why we should seek help from the saints.
First, it’s God’s will, and it has positive consequences. God has determined that he will answer some requests when multiple people are praying, which he might not answer if fewer people were to pray.
Second, since it’s God’s will for the saints to pray for us, our asking their intercession gives glory to God. And it gives glory to God not just because it’s his will. Our request for the saints’ intercession gives God glory because, as we mentioned in a previous chapter and above in this chapter, it highlights his goodness and wisdom in willing to use the saints to help us.
A third positive reason for the practice of the invocation of the saints is that St. Paul instructs us not to refuse help from other members of the mystical body of Christ. We’ve covered 1 Corinthians 12:20-21 a couple of times already, and it bears repeating again here: “There are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’”
Now, the saints in heaven are still members of the body of Christ. Paul teaches us in Romans 8:35 and 38 that death doesn’t separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Since Christ has willed that we not reject the help of other members of the body of Christ, and the saints in heaven are members of the body of Christ, it follows that we shouldn’t deny their help that’s offered through their intercessory prayer. We should employ it, since we need all the help we can get.
Given that the saints are fellow Christians, invoking their intercession is in principle not at all different from Paul in Romans 15:30 asking the Christians in Rome to pray for him: “Strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints.” Why should where Christians exist (earth or heaven) be an obstacle to requesting their prayers, especially when such prayers are empowered by Jesus’ unique mediation, no matter where they’re offered?
A fourth reason, and the final one we’ll consider here, is that the saints’ prayers bear much fruit, as St. James makes clear in James 5:16 when he writes about the prayers of a righteous man. We know that the saints in heaven are perfectly just. The author of Hebrews, in 12:22-23, writes, “You have come to . . . the heavenly Jerusalem . . . to the spirits of just men made perfect.” Therefore, the prayers of the saints in heaven have great power in their effects.
Going straight to Jesus for help is essential to the Christian life. But going to other members of his mystical body for help, including those perfected members in heaven, is not to be disregarded. It’s the Christian way.
For more information on how to defend our invocation of the saints, see Karlo’s latest book, The Saints Pray for You: How the Christians in Heaven Help Us Here on Earth.