How does intercession of saints and Exodus 20:3 not clash?
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Catholic understanding of 1st commandment as it relates to that passage:
The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.
From what I can tell that passage from Exodus is not connected to intercessory prayer. As noted elsewhere, there's nothing idolatrous or polytheistic about belief in the Communion of Saints. There is a Church in Heaven since the gates of hell will not prevail against it, therefore, there are folks in Heaven who can intercede on our behalf.
Furthermore, the LORD says He is the God of the living, not of the dead therefore all who die in Christ also live with Him and will not cease to do His will in Heaven.
St. Therese the Little Flower said she wanted to spend her heaven doing good on earth. There's nothing idolatrous about accepting the help of a friend in a high place.
The argument that Tradition corrupts Scripture is simply Protestant nonsense, Scripture is Tradition written down. Just as you can't fault billions of well meaning Christians for being illiterate, you can't fault Christian farmers for thinking St. Isadore might know more about drought than Our Lord. It's untrue, but the argument against it only comes from cultural relativism. (that it is good for them, but not for us since we're so much smarter) If it were really idolatrous, the Church would have done away with it long long ago just as it has done away with all heresies, even ones that are very very popular
Upvote:7
I'm a Methodist now, so praying to Saints in a group setting is not done. I grew up Catholic, so I don't find asking saints to intercede on my or someone else's behalf unusual, for the reasons given on catholic.org. Here is one relevant bit:
Do Catholics pray to saints?
We pray with saints, not to them. Have you ever asked anyone to pray for you when you were having a hard time? Why did you choose to ask that person?You may have chosen someone you could trust, or someone who understood your problem, or someone who was close to God. Those are all reasons we ask saints to pray for us in times of trouble.
Since saints led holy lives and are close to God in heaven, we feel that their prayers are particularly effective. Often we ask particular saints to pray for us if we feel they have a particular interest in our problem. For example, many people ask Saint Monica to pray for them if they have trouble with unanswered prayers, because Monica prayed for twenty years for her son to be converted. Finally her prayers were answered in a way she never dreamed of -- her son, Augustine, became a canonized saint and a Doctor of the Church.
As for Biblical references for this belief, take your pick from this article: Saints and Intercessory Prayer
Edited again: Here's Exodus 20:1-3 (NRSV) to provide some context to verse 3.
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
God is telling Moses that the people should worship God and not anything else, like a golden calf. As the catholic.org reference says, people pray with saints, not to saints. So those people aren't setting another god before God.
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