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Asking the Saints for Help? The Bible and Sound Theology Say Yes

When conversations come up about the intercession and invocation of the saints, Catholics often find themselves mostly playing defense, meeting various challenges to the belief and practice.

And defend we must.

But today, I want to do something a bit different.

Instead of merely defending the Catholic practice of invoking the saints against challenges, I want to make a positive case for it.

Why should Christians invoke the saints?

Why is it good and useful to ask for their prayers?

Can we build a biblical and theological argument in favor of the practice?

I think we can.

And that’s what we’re going to do today.

So stick around.

What Does the Church Teach About Invoking the Saints?

All right. Here’s the plan for this episode.

First, I’d like to briefly review the Church’s teaching on the invocation of the saints.

Second, we’ll examine several biblical arguments in favor of it.

And finally, I’ll conclude with a theological argument rooted in God’s wisdom and providence.

So let’s dive in.

The invocation of the saints refers to the practice of asking the saints in heaven to intercede for us before God.

This teaching was affirmed by the Council of Trent in its twenty-fifth session.

The Council taught:

“It is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to have recourse to their prayers, aid, and help for obtaining benefits from God, through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Now notice something important.

The Church distinguishes between two claims.

First, the saints in fact intercede for us.

And second, it is good and useful for us to invoke their intercession.

Those are related claims, but they’re not identical.

Some Christians are willing to grant the first point.

They may acknowledge that the saints in heaven pray for the Church on earth.

But they stop short of the second point.

They argue that even if the saints pray for us, it doesn’t follow that we should ask them to do so.

Today’s goal is to try and bridge that gap.

Why should we move from affirming the saints’ intercession to actually invoking their prayers?

Let’s start with some biblical arguments.

1. Christians Ask Other Christians to Pray for Them

The first argument begins with a practice that virtually all Christians accept: asking fellow Christians to pray for us.

The Bible clearly teaches this is a good thing.

Consider Romans 15:30–32.

St. Paul writes:

“I appeal to you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf.”

Notice what Paul is doing.

He’s requesting the intercession of other Christians, and he’s asking for specific benefits.

He wants deliverance from his enemies.

He wants success in his ministry.

He wants God’s blessing upon his mission.

Paul clearly believes that it’s good and beneficial to ask fellow believers to pray for him.

Now here’s the key point:

The saints in heaven are Christians.

In fact, they’re the most perfected Christians, since they’re perfected in charity and have completed the race.

They see God face-to-face in the Beatific Vision.

Moreover, death has not severed them from Christ’s body.

As Paul teaches in Romans 8:35 and 39, death cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, the saints in heaven remain members of Christ’s Mystical Body and thus are still Christians.

So when we invoke the saints’ intercession, in principle, we’re doing nothing different from what Paul did when he invoked the Christians in Rome.

One Christian is asking another Christian to pray for him.

If the principle is good in one case, then it’s difficult to see why it suddenly becomes bad in the other.

Now, for some Christians, this difference is significant because they have doubts about whether the saints in heaven would actually be able to intercede for us.

Would they know of the requests that we make of them, given that they’re in a separated state apart from their bodies in heaven?

We’re going to deal with that in future episodes.

But in the meantime, check out my book The Saints Pray for You.

2. The Prayer of a Righteous Person Is Powerful

The second argument comes from a biblical principle found in James 5:16, where James writes:

“The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.”

Now think about the saints in heaven.

Hebrews 12:23 describes them as:

“The spirits of just men made perfect.”

Perfected in what?

Perfected in righteousness, or holiness.

Perfected in charity.

That means our invocation of the saints’ intercessory prayers is a request for the prayers of a righteous person.

Now, if James teaches that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful, then surely the prayers of perfectly righteous persons are powerful.

And if it’s good to ask righteous Christians on earth to pray for us, then it must also be good to ask the perfectly righteous in heaven to pray for us.

The logic is straightforward.

The saints are precisely the kind of people James has in mind.

Therefore, invoking their prayers fits perfectly within the biblical principle that righteous intercessors are especially effective.

3. We Need the Other Members of Christ’s Body

The third argument comes from St. Paul’s teaching on the Mystical Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12.

Paul compares the Church to a human body.

Just as a body has many parts—eyes, hands, feet, ears—so too the Church has many members.

Each member contributes something unique.

Each member helps the others.

And within that context, Paul says:

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’”

Now think about the implications.

Paul is teaching that Christians need one another.

The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation.

We depend upon one another.

We help one another.

We pray for one another.

We support one another.

No member of Christ’s body can rightly say, “I don’t need your help. I don’t need the help of the other members.”

Now consider what happens if someone rejects the invocation of the saints.

At least in principle, he’s saying that requesting help from those members of Christ’s Mystical Body is inappropriate.

But Paul explicitly teaches that we cannot say to another member:

“I have no need of you.”

So unless a Christian is willing to go against Paul, he shouldn’t object to the invocation of the saints.

The saints are still members of Christ’s Mystical Body.

Indeed, they are among its most glorious members.

Therefore, it is entirely fitting to seek their assistance through intercessory prayer.

Far from violating Paul’s teaching, the invocation of the saints embodies it.

It acknowledges our dependence upon every member of Christ’s body and our need for their help—a dependency that Christ himself established.

It’s a divine order that he made to be.

And so it’s fitting for us to live in accord with it.

4. Peter Speaks to the Deceased Tabitha

The fourth biblical argument is more indirect.

It doesn’t prove the invocation of the saints by itself, but it does provide a helpful principle.

The argument comes from Acts 9 and the story of Tabitha.

Luke tells us that Tabitha died.

Peter was summoned.

And when he arrived, he knelt and prayed.

Then he turned toward her body and said:

“Tabitha, rise.”

And she arose from the dead.

Now notice something interesting here.

Peter addresses a deceased Christian.

We know from the context that Tabitha was indeed a Christian.

He directs words toward her.

Of course, he is not asking for her intercession.

But he is speaking to a deceased Christian.

Why is that significant?

Well, although Peter doesn’t technically invoke a deceased Christian for help, he does issue a command to her, which is an invocation of sorts.

And if it’s appropriate for Peter to issue a command to a deceased Christian, then it stands to reason that it would be appropriate for him—and for us—to issue a request.

5. Aquinas and God’s Divine Order

All right. Now let’s move from biblical arguments to a theological one.

This argument comes from St. Thomas Aquinas in the Supplement to the Summa Theologiae, question 72, article 2.

Aquinas observes a basic principle about God’s governance of creation:

“The last should be led to God by those that are midway between.”

This maps nicely onto our Christian experience.

For example, when we first encounter the Lord and enter into a relationship with him, we often seek the counsel of those who are holier than we are to gain insight into how to progress in that relationship.

Whenever we need prayer, we tend to ask those whom we know are farther along on the path of holiness, since we know James’ teaching in James 5:16 that the prayer of a righteous man avails much.

We even follow this order in our everyday lives when God isn’t necessarily the explicit goal we’re trying to achieve.

For example, whenever we want to gain knowledge and learn about a topic, we go to someone who has more knowledge than we do.

Theoretically, God could simply infuse that knowledge into our minds.

But that’s not how he set things up.

Given this divine order of the last being led to God by those who are midway, Aquinas concludes that we should be led to God through the intercession of the saints.

He writes:

“Since the saints who are in heaven are nearest to God, the order of the divine law requires that we, who while we remain in the body are pilgrims from the Lord, should be brought back to God by the saints who are between us and him: and this happens when the divine goodness pours forth its effect into us through them.”

How does this apply to our invocation of the saints?

Well, our invocation of their prayers fits within this divine order.

We, who are farther away from God, request that they, who are closer to God, aid us in our journey back to God.

And any Christian practice that fits within God’s divine order is an appropriate Christian practice.

“But the Bible Never Commands Us to Invoke the Saints”

Now, at this point, someone may object:

“But the Bible never explicitly commands Christians to invoke the saints.”

And that’s true.

The Bible doesn’t contain a verse that says:

“Thou shalt invoke the saints.”

I intend to deal with this objection in a future episode.

But suffice it to say here that none of the arguments we’ve presented depend upon such a command.

Rather, they proceed by biblical principles and necessary implications.

And this is not an unusual way of doing theology.

Many Protestant traditions acknowledge that Christian doctrine may be derived not only from explicit statements of Scripture but also from good and necessary consequences drawn from Scripture.

And that’s exactly what we’re doing here.

We’re taking biblical truths that all Christians affirm and asking what follows from them.

If Christians should ask fellow believers to pray for them,

and if the saints remain fellow believers,

and if the saints are perfected in righteousness,

and if the saints remain members of Christ’s body,

and if God ordinarily works through holy intermediaries,

then invoking the saints emerges as a fitting and reasonable Christian practice.

In other words, the burden isn’t merely on Catholics to show an explicit command.

The burden is on critics to explain why all of these biblical principles suddenly cease to apply once a Christian enters heaven.

Conclusion

So let’s summarize what we’ve seen.

First, Scripture teaches that it is good to ask fellow Christians to pray for us.

Since the saints in heaven remain Christians and members of Christ’s body, invoking their prayers follows naturally from that principle.

Second, James teaches that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful.

The saints in heaven are perfectly righteous, making their intercession especially fitting to seek.

Third, Paul teaches that no member of Christ’s body can say to another member:

“I have no need of you.”

Invoking the saints reflects our dependence on the entire Body of Christ.

Fourth, Peter’s interaction with Tabitha is an invocation of sorts, thereby showing that addressing a departed Christian is not inherently inappropriate.

And fifth, God’s wisdom is manifested in the order of him bringing to himself we who are farther away through those who are closer.

Taken together, these arguments don’t merely defend the invocation of the saints against challenges.

They provide positive reasons to embrace it.

The practice is not a distraction from Christ.

It’s a testimony to Christ’s victory.

The saints have conquered through him.

They live in him.

They reign with him.

And because they remain united to us in the one Mystical Body of Christ, we can confidently ask for their help and ask for their prayers, just as we ask for the prayers of our fellow Christians here on earth.

So the next time someone asks:

“Why do Catholics pray to the saints?”

You can answer:

Because Scripture teaches us to seek the prayers of righteous Christians, because the saints remain members of Christ’s body, and because God’s wisdom has ordained that his children help one another on the journey to him.

And that includes the saints in heaven.

Well, my friends, that’s it for today.

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Friends, thanks for hanging out with me today, and I’ll see you next time.