The Intercession of the Saints

The intercession of the saints rests on the communion of saints, the union of all the members of the Church in Christ. This trust meets three objections: the prohibition of consulting the dead, idolatry, and an offence against the one mediator. Each dissolves once one sees what is asked of the saints, and what they are.

The living, and not the dead

The saints of heaven are alive. Jesus declares it, speaking of the patriarchs gone for centuries: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Matthew 22:32 Established in God, they are more alive than we are, and seeing him face to face, they know in him what concerns them, down to the prayers addressed to them. This answers the reproach drawn from the prohibition of consulting the dead: “Let no one be found among you who consults the dead.” Deuteronomy 18:11 This prohibition targets necromancy, which seeks to force the dead to wrest from them a hidden knowledge, by magic. The invocation of the saints is of a wholly different order: it addresses living ones established in God, and humbly asks them for a prayer. Scripture moreover shows a dead man interceding for the living: Jeremiah, long dead, appears as “the one who prays much for the people and for the holy city.” 2 Maccabees 15:14

Adoration for God, honour for the saints

Idolatry is also objected: to pray to a saint would be to adore a creature. Idolatry consists in rendering to a creature the worship of adoration due to God alone. Now that worship belongs to him alone: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” Matthew 4:10 To pray to a saint is another gesture: one asks him to pray to God for us, which acknowledges that God alone answers, and that the saint is only an intercessor. The Church thus distinguishes two honours that the objection confuses: adoration, or latria, reserved for God alone; veneration, or dulia, rendered to the saints as friends of God.

The one mediator of redemption

The last reproach invokes the one mediator: “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 2:5 To grasp this uniqueness, one must see how mediation is exercised. The mediator between God and men is the priest, established “to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” Hebrews 5:1 Now Christ is the one and eternal high priest of the new covenant: he offers not the blood of animals, but his own, entering once for all into the sanctuary “by his own blood, having obtained an eternal redemption.” Hebrews 9:12 This is what no one shares: one priest, one sacrifice, one redemption. Intercession is of another order, for it offers no sacrifice: it prays. The Apostle commands it, moreover, in the same chapter, a few lines before affirming the one mediator: “I urge above all that prayers, supplications and intercessions be made for all men.” 1 Timothy 2:1 If he does not contradict himself, it is because asking for a prayer touches the one mediation in no way. It is objected that the word on the one mediator forbids praying to the saints of heaven; but it distinguishes neither the dead nor the living. If it excluded the intercession of the saints, it would equally exclude that of the living whom Paul has just commanded. Christ the high priest intercedes himself, moreover, “always living to intercede” on our behalf Hebrews 7:25 To ask the saints of heaven to pray for us therefore does not touch his one priesthood: they offer no sacrifice, they intercede, and their prayer passes wholly through him.