Praying to the Saints? A Catholic and a Protestant Talk (Fourth of Five Conversations)

Dr. Jeremy Holmes and I talk about Mary, the Catholic doctrine of the saints, and what Catholics believe about prayer to or with them.

This is PART FOUR of a FIVE PART series of conversations
Here are links to all five parts of this series:

[flamesfan]

Petition for the last instalment of this series just to be them eating.

[stephanelarochelle]

Good to see Catholics and protestants having a nice sincere exchange rather than simply trying to show each other's errors ....

[dreimaldie]

Dr. Holmes is caught off guard, pauses for a moment, has a good long think about it and can therefore give a reasonable answer. Allowing for that makes for a great discussion. I love it

[caseybechard]

How long have those chicken wings been there?! Do you ever eat any of them?

[randumgaming]

Funny, when I started this series I was watching you Matt because I wanted to reinforce my beliefs as a Protestant, but since then, my faith has blossomed and I've become a Catholic, and now I watch because I love your heart (did before too of course) and passion for Christ, and really hope to see where your faith leads you in the future. God bless you, brother.

[justinhayes]

Roman Catholic here and I love your channel! Keep up the great work and God bless you!

[m.a.bushling]

Those must be McDonald's chicken wings (edit: or tenders?). They've been on that table for a year and half and haven't begun to decay 🤣

[James]

Scriptural Support for praying to Saints and Angels. The verses below show that Saints and Angels can hear us, they are alive, they are aware of us, they care about us, and they intercede and mediate for us.

Praying to Saints and Angels is like asking a fellow Christian to pray for you.


Luke 15:7
Rev 5:8
2 Maccabees 15:8-16

Praying to Angels

Luke 15:7
Rev 8:3
Tobit 12:15

[matthewweston]

In a prayer attributed to St. Francis. It
"Lord let me not so much seek to be understood as to understand. To be loved as to love"

Matt, seems like you exemplify this.

I think conversation between brothers in Christ is far more illuminating than 'I win you lose" style debate.

[ohmightywez]

It’s like reading a favorite book series and not wanting it to end!

As a devout Catholic with many Protestant and atheist friends, I’ve loved this conversation! We need to better catechize our people. In the past 50 years the level of understanding of the Church, Her role and Her mechanisms has almost disappeared. I teach 5th grade catechism and they come to me in some cases with no understanding at all and I’m starting from the basics. But they get so fascinated they don’t want to stop asking questions. I’ve had to put a 15 minute question and answer period at the end of each class because they’re on fire to learn.

[ninpodarren]

You guys need to pray to whoever the patron saint of reheating food is lol

[brittanywhite]

I appreciate this conversation. I have been raised Protestant, and I had a hard time justifying Catholic views. With this conversation and after watching your visit to the Catholic Church in Salt Lake, I can now comprehend better where their coming from and their views more even if I don’t necessarily agree with it all.

[trentcrawford]

I've really enjoyed listening to these talks. I'm a catholic convert raised methodist and experience a great deal of hate for my walk in faith. Seeing this level of respect you have for each other is amazing!

[bonniejohnstone]

Well there is obvious interaction with Moses and Elijah on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration of Christ. They are there and not ‘ghosts’.
Also, how can the Church (The Body of Christ) be disconnected?
The teaching of a disconnected…disjointed…or unrelated Church temporal and triumphant is heresy.
Christ (the Church) cannot be divided by our time (Chronos) or by death. He (and this is the Church) is outside our time in Kairos.
(In the Orthodox Liturgy when the Deacon says “It is time” to the Priest… the Priest says “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and the Son and of the Holy Spirit now and ever and to the ages amen.”
At this proclamation… we have entered Kairos! We on earth join in the worship (as St. John saw in Revelation) that is already taking place before the throne of God.
When you walk in the Church, there’s the altar, incense, cloud of witnesses etc. The Church isn’t divided.

[HadToTakeOver]

I propose that this series be put into a playlist. please.

[andrewmedina]

One of my favorite things about being Catholic is the worldview that through Christ we can ask the Saints and those hope for saints (departed loved ones) to pray for us. And that one day, I too, if I finish the race well (pray for me), I’ll be part of that Communion of Saints. Of course, I’m shooting for a feast day and cool Saint Card.

[DrBob-grru]

You guys need to get together post-Covid and do another talk.

[maaaaaakguyver]

Matt, this is a phenomenal series! You and Dr. Holmes do such a great job of articulating your points without the discussion devolving into petty gotchas and jabs that are all too common in modern discourse. The goodwill on display here is super refreshing, and you guys both clearly show the love of Jesus. Well done.

[eversosleight]

Super thoughtful and respectful interview with a side of confrontation. I wish we could all have discussions like this.
Home run Matt!

[abyssimus]

I'm Baptist but during the lockdown (while on the other side of the planet from my home church), I started "praying to" the saints, following the reasoning that since it's OK to ask fellow any Christian to pray for me and John 3:16 would mean that Christians in heaven aren't really dead, it's fair to ask the saints to pray for me. Since I'm working at a preschool, I regularly ask St Benedict and Fred Rogers to pray for my students (while still praying to God to help me help them). I don't want to be overly skeptical or credulous, but there does seem to be a difference. Course, I've also started saying the Hesychast Jesus prayer on a Catholic rosary so maybe I should finally start identifying as an ecumenical mutt.