I have a question for Catholics.?

Question

Why do Catholics worship the saints when they have Jesus? Is Jesus not enough to put the their whole faith into?
I love the saints. I respect their teachings, and what they did for their people, and what they did for us, but I don't believe they wanted us to worship them, or pray to them like we would to Jesus.
I was raised a Catholic, and I never got the whole concept on why do we whorship saints when we have Jesus.

Answer 1

Catholics do not worship the Saints. We ask them to pray for us.

Catholics and many other Christians believe in the Communion of Saints where all saints are intimately related in the Body of Christ, a family. When you die and go to heaven, you do not leave this family.

Everyone in heaven or on their way to heaven are saints. You, me, my deceased grandmother, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mother Teresa.

As part of this family, you may ask your family and friends here on earth to pray for you. Or you may also ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew, or your deceased grandmother in heaven to pray for you.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

I find it sad that religious people really have no answers to these questions. Okay I was raised Catholic as well and had many of these questions, too many if you asked the nuns when I was young. Now I don't believe in God, but that was only after I found the real answers to these questions.

The reason why the Catholic religion worships the saints is because the religion was formed from many different religions that were around before Jesus. After Jesus died, the Romans (who killed him) got all the religious leaders from all the religions in their areas together and said we need to form one religion for all people. So they took all these writings and formed the Catholic religion. But they left in it some of the Gods from other religions and made them saints, cause they felt there could be only one God. This is why Christianity was formed, cause people did not feel that they should also worship these saints. That is why there are no saints in Christianity.

Answer 3

Consider it like automatic phone calling.

The concept of patriant Saints is that these are Saints that were associated with a given hardship, so; it considered a good idea to ask that saint to intercede on your behalf. This is not to say that you shouldn't pray to Jesus for the same thing, you probably should, or just pray to God, but; the concept is that God hears all prayers regardlesss of who you pray to and so long as they are in His name, God will act on them. Read these prayers to these patriant saints and you will find that they reference the saints's relationship to God and devotion to God in the prayers themselves.

The only rule the Catholic church has is towards Icons. You are allowed to pray to saints at a statue or likeness of a saint but you are not allowed to pray to a statue or likeness like it is an icon. That is tant amount to idol worshipping. That may be what you are thinking. This is not a case of taking false Gods before God.
It is simply a case of chosing a champion to speak on your behalf. Icons are often thought to be devine hence people are actually praying to the icon themselves. That is wrong from a catholic perspective.

I guess you can say alot of this started with the indulgence period of the Roman Catholic Church, the idea of praying to saint, that is. That is when the concept of medals for saints originated, and patriant saints and so on. It is also why churches are named after saints. It is more of a custom than anything else. But is not without respects for Catholic history. Take Our Lady of Fatima, that is a case of children praying to the Virgin Mother and not Jesus. That is I beleieve the first such happening. However, the church deemed that what the children were doing was in context praying to God through the Virgin Mary, though technically the children did not call Our Lady of Fatima the Virgin Mary. At any rate, you should see the church can move from the concept of miracles and visions to the concept of praying to saints for their assistance.

Answer 4

How could you be raised a Catholic and really believe we worship saints? I mean really?

I don't get this at all. In the liturgy of the Mass, saints are hardly mentioned at all - they have like three words in the creed, and a word or two in the collect maybe, depending on whose feast day it is.

Saints are a part of catholic life in that we frequently ask them in private prayer to intercede for us - we believe they are living members of our church who have moved closer to God.

But worship them? I can't believe you could experience years of catholicism and conclude that this "saint worship" ever happens. How else do you explain the wording of the litany of the saints?

St. Joseph... pray for us
St. Peter and St. Paul... pray for us
St. Augustine... pray for us
St. Monica... pray for us
St. Francis Xavier... pray for us

etc. etc. Starting to see a pattern here?

Are you sure you were really Catholic?

Answer 5

We do not worship the Saints ,we pray to all the Saints for Intercession. And please really you should not say anything if you are not sure of the truth, Its really sad how we Catholics are missed understood, you know you can go to ewtn.com and ask question and get the answer from real theologians who studied and have most of the answers and Please read the ff: Rom 15:30 join me by your prayers to God on my behalf, Col 4:3;1, Thess5:25 pray for us, 2Th 1:1 we always pray for you, 2Th 3:1 finally, Brothers pray for us,
Eph 6:18-19 making supplication for all the saints & for me, Tob 12:12 angel presents Tobit and Sarah's prayer to God, Rev 5:8 angel offers prayers of the holy ones to God. For more specific answer please visit ewtn.com

Answer 6

Catholics don't worship saints at all and you been a Catholic and asking that that\s shocking...where did you get this from

Answer 7

I'm not catholic , but I am a christian w/ catholic
in laws. This all started from paganism, many
religions have a bit of paganism in them.
The catholics, from what my husband tells me,
pray to the saints because they think God is mad &
that they have to pray to Mary so that she can intercede
& calm down God & then she can tell God their prayers.
It's what they have been taught for MANY years so that's
what they do.

Answer 8

you're not even a true catholic when you posted this Q. a true catholic knows what the truth behind issues like saints, virgin Mary, statues etc.

a so so catholic just follows what his/her parents told them which was told only by your grandparents too and so on and so on. they didn't even bother to read the bible and contemplate on its real meaning. they just go to church just to say they are church goer.
they didn't even bother to understand what was said at the homily.

i don't mean to rude but i think
you fall on that category.

try to join a bible study group or a renewal group in your local church so as to find the truth about these issues.

Answer 9

Well the bible itself tells us to only pray to God, so I don't get that either. And the whole mary thing. she was only mentioned, at least by name less then a handful of times. Yet there entire religion is almost based around praying to her.

Answer 10

It's like someone asking from you Why do you worship Jesus ?

It's their belief