The Intercession of the Saints and Angels

See first: The Communion of Saints.

The intercession of the saints and angels prolongs the communion of saints, the union of all the members of the Church in Christ. To ask a saint or an angel to pray for us is to address a living member of this communion, that he may join his prayer to ours. Three objections stand against it: the prohibition of consulting the dead, idolatry, and an offence against the one mediator. Each dissolves as soon as one sees what is asked, and of whom.

The prohibition of consulting the dead

It is objected that Scripture forbids consulting the dead. “any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the dead.” Deuteronomy 18:11 This prohibition targets necromancy, which seeks to force the dead by magic to wrest from them a hidden knowledge. The invocation of the saints is of a wholly other order: it addresses the living established in God, and humbly asks them for a prayer. Scripture shows, moreover, a dead man praying 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

It is objected next that this is idolatry, which renders to a creature the worship of adoration owed to God alone. This worship belongs to him only. “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve.” Matthew 4:10 To pray to a saint or an angel is another gesture: one asks him to pray to God for us, which recognises that God alone answers, and that the saint or the angel is only an intercessor. The Church thus distinguishes two honours that the objection confuses: adoration, which the Greek names latreia (λατρεία), reserved to God alone; and veneration, douleia (δουλεία), rendered to the saints and the angels as friends and servants of God.

An angel himself draws this limit. When John falls down to adore the one who showed him the revelation, the angel stops him at once. “See thou do it not. I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Adore God.” Revelation 19:10 He refuses adoration, which belongs to God alone, without ceasing to be venerable. It is this false worship, the adoration of angels turned away from Christ, that Paul condemns. “Let no man seduce you, willing in humility and religion of angels.” Colossians 2:18 To ask the saints and the angels for their prayer is the exact opposite: far from turning away from Christ, it leads to him.

The one mediator of redemption

It is objected at last that there is one mediator. “For there is one God: and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 2:5 To grasp this oneness, one must see how mediation is exercised. The mediator between God and men is the priest, appointed “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. “With his own blood, having obtained an eternal redemption.” Hebrews 9:12 This is what none shares: one priest, one sacrifice, one redemption.

Intercession is of another order, for it offers no sacrifice: it prays. Scripture commands it, moreover, in the same chapter, a few lines before affirming the one mediator. “I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men.” 1 Timothy 2:1 To ask for a prayer therefore touches in no way the one mediation. The word on the one mediator distinguishes neither the dead nor the living: if it excluded the intercession of the saints, it would equally exclude that of the living which Scripture has just commanded. The high priest Christ himself, moreover, intercedes. “always living to make intercession for us.” Hebrews 7:25 To ask the saints and the angels to pray for us does not touch his one priesthood: they do not sacrifice, they intercede, and their prayer passes wholly through him.

Heaven presents our prayers

Scripture does not merely permit intercession: it shows heaven at work presenting the prayers of men. In the vision of the Apocalypse, the twenty-four ancients, who figure the Church in glory, stand before the Lamb, a vial in hand: “having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.” Revelation 5:8 The blessed do not keep their eyes shut upon the earth: they carry before God, like incense, the prayers of those who are still praying. A little further on, an angel does the same: “there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints, upon the golden altar which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel.” Revelation 8:3-4 The prayers of men rise to God by the hand of the angels and the saints: this is intercession itself, given to be seen more than deduced. Far from drawing away from God, it is the service heaven renders to earth.

How the saints hear us

One more concrete objection remains: how could a saint hear the prayers addressed to him, at the same instant, by thousands of people scattered over the whole earth? No creature has this power of itself. But the saint does not hear by his own strength: he hears in God, whom he sees face to face. The blessed one enjoys the vision of God, in which is reflected all that God wills to show him: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner: but then face to face. Now I know in part: but then I shall know even as I am known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12 Whoever sees God sees in him what concerns him, and God presents to him the prayers entrusted to him, as a mirror returns what is set before it. It is therefore not the saints who are everywhere: it is God, present to all, who discloses to them what he wills. Their knowledge does not rival his, it depends wholly upon it.