These are specific passages in the Bible that support the Catholic practice of honoring the saints in Heaven.
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These are specific passages in the Bible that support the Catholic practice of honoring the saints in Heaven.
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James 5:10-11
"we consider blessed those who have persevered."
He specifically mentions Job and the prophets in this regard.
2 Chronicles 32:
33 And Hezeki'ah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the ascent of the tombs of the sons of David; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death.
Sirach 44:
1 Let us now praise famous men, / and our fathers in their generations.
2 The Lord apportioned to them great glory, / his majesty from the beginning.
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Argument:
It does not seem to me that Protestants disagree at this level. A man's glory, it seems, only proves the great riches of God's grace which produced in him whatever he has received, so a Protestant could directly attribute a man's praise to God's grace, and that would be sufficient for them.
Our difference is not there. However, the idea of honoring ties to more things than grace. We can honor someone not only by due praise, but by constructing memorials for them, doing devoted actions in their honor, offering tokens to them, and expressing our appreciation to them. In these expressions of honor, say Protestants, Catholics have gone too far concerning the Saints. I remember that a pope once offered a golden rose at an altar in honor of Mary. This was not as a sacrifice, but as one might offer a gilded token to any noble man or woman. It is in such matters as these that I wish to show how Catholic devotion to the Saints has its parallels in Scripture.
Of the passages here presented, I never hear Protestant sermons. Protestants, then, may see in their Bibles the things I will show here, but not know their significance. Therefore, O Protestant, what you see as unknown, I will reveal to you, and endeavor to show what meaning it has to honor the Saints as we do.
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These are specific passages in the Bible that support the Catholic practice of honoring the saints in Heaven.
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Genesis 35:
19 So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem),
20 and Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day.
Exodus 28:
9 And you shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel,
10 six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth.
11 As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel; you shall enclose them in settings of gold filigree.
12 And you shall set the two stones upon the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel; and Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD upon his two shoulders for remembrance.
2nd Samuel 18:
17 And they took Absalom, and threw him into a great pit in the forest, and raised over him a very great heap of stones; and all Israel fled every one to his own home.
18 Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself the pillar which is in the King's Valley, for he said, "I have no son to keep my name in remembrance"; he called the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom's monument to this day.
Joshua 24:
32 The bones of Joseph which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried at Shechem, in the portion of ground which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money; it became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.
2nd Chronicles 21:
19 In course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels [Jehoram's bowels] came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his fathers.
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Argument:
In all these places, the dead are memorialized by some construction or deed of the Israelites. Now it seems to me that a token of jewelry, forged in remembrance of the dead, is a kind of honor that Protestants might say goes too far for our Saints; but our holy medals have here their parallel in the holy engraved gemstones of the ephod in Exodus 28:12.
Further, our practice of making pilgrimages to the graves of our saints seems corroborated by the words about Joseph's grave being inherited. On its face, this tells us little, but consider: what does one do with an inheritance? That is not passed on which is not valued and visited by posterity; as one might pass on an urn only if it was kept near at hand to the owner, so also they show that they knew Joseph's grave as something close to their hearts and visitations, since they valued it enough to pass it down as an inheritance. If his grave was a devotion, it should have been pious to betake there for prayer. This idea of making an heirloom of a grave implies not so much that the location was passed down as devotion to it. That concept is very Catholic.
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These are specific passages in the Bible that support the Catholic practice of honoring the saints in Heaven.
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Ruth 4:
11 Then all the people who were at the gate, and the elders, said, "We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you prosper in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem;
12 and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the children that the LORD will give you by this young woman."
Psalm 99:
5 Extol the LORD our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the LORD, and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept his testimonies, and the statutes that he gave them.
8 O LORD our God, thou didst answer them; thou wast a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
9 Extol the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy!
Isaiah 51:
2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him and made him many.
3 For the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
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Argument:
Here is the same thing, primitively, of which we speak in honoring certain saints as patrons of certain causes; Rachel and Leah and Perez might be patrons for fecundity, with Moses and Aaron as patrons for fidelity, and Abraham and Sarah as patrons for faith. For the comfort given to Abraham, the piety granted to Moses and others, and the fruitfulness allotted to Rachel, Leah, and Perez, is beseeched for others besides them. Their memory is recalled and, in considering what they received, they are placed as an example for our imitation, and such gifts as were showered on them are asked upon on our own.
This is a very Catholic way of appreciating their lives. One would expect a Catholic to speak of saints gone by and ask for like blessings as they had been given for the completion of their notable services; but concerning Protestants, I do not imagine that they speak much in favor of such blessings as these which invoke, like good Catholics, the memory of the saints.
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These are specific passages in the Bible that support the Catholic practice of honoring the saints in Heaven.
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2nd Samuel 2:
5 David sent messengers to the men of Jabeshgilead, and said to them, "May you be blessed by the LORD, because you showed this loyalty to Saul your lord, and buried him!
6 Now may the LORD show steadfast love and faithfulness to you! And I will do good to you because you have done this thing.
Ruth 1:8 and 2:20 and 4:10:
1:8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me." ...
2:20 And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "Blessed be he by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!" ...
4:10 [And Boaz said,] "Also Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from the gate of his native place; you are witnesses this day."
Psalms 35:
13 But I, when they were sick -- I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting. I prayed with head bowed on my bosom,
14 as though I grieved for my friend or my brother; I went about as one who laments his mother, bowed down and in mourning.
Jeremiah 34:
5 You shall die in peace. And as spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so men shall burn spices for you and lament for you, saying, "Alas, lord!" For I have spoken the word, says the LORD.
Matthew 26:
13 Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.
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Argument:
Here are so many actions done out of love for the dead that it must be hard for the Protestants to oppose Catholics who make pious actions in their regard. I do not hear from many Protestant ministers that their funerals and other solemn actions can be meant "in loyalty" or as "a kindness" to the dead, as they are spoken of here. They do grieve and lament, but they do not offer prayers and penances for them. Here they do, and show that Catholic ways of honoring and respecting the faithful departed are not without basis in Scripture.
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What honoring the saints means for you and for all Christianity
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The presence of such devotion to the Saints expresses our union in the Body of Christ. Scripture says that the one vine of Christ has branches not cut off in the hereafter (John 15:6-7), that the Kingdom united under Christ's headship has heavenly citizens too. (Col. 1:12-14) Scripture states that God's fore-ordained plan was to unite all things in heaven and on earth (Eph. 1:10), so it should not surprise us that these things are so. However, if we are united to them, and we are members of one another, the saints on both sides of death, then certain things follow.
First, they may pray for us. What kind of union would they have if they cared not for our benefit? Second, we may ask them for their prayers. What kind of disinterested citizens would we be, if we did not unite with others when asking the King for His blessings? Now these two things are already implied in the patronage spoken of earlier on this page; when we invoke the memory of the saints to acquire blessings like theirs, we are already in a sense praying to them. When, further, these blessings are granted, it is because of our prayer, which was made in their memory. So they had something to do with our securing blessedness.
The third thing that follows is that we also may pray for the dead. Although the ones in heaven need no prayers, and they cannot avail those in hell, we know that there is a purgatory where any dead man might be aided by prayer. That this is so is already implied in some of our expressions of devotion to the dead. For in some cases, we do not withhold kindness nor prayer from them, which is proof that such prayers avail God's help to men who in some state after this life are needful of it.
So all our expressions of honoring the dead are tied to our doctrines concerning the Communion of Saints. It must not be denied by the Protestants any longer, since these things have been shown from the Scriptures. Rather, they, if they wish to follow the Scriptural example, should join us in homage to the saints of the Church, by prayers and by tokens of love for our departed.
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