My own personal theory (excuse me while I leap over thousands of years of theology) is that most religious people believe that praying for others will help them somehow. Even if we all can't agree on who or how, we want to help and we want to go to the Biggest Person we can find to get it.
I'm Catholic.
Like all religious (or even spiritual) people, my relationship with the Divine is tangled in what I consider a glorious mess of Tradition and Love and hurt and Culture and history and family and Grace. I love it, my religion. But only because it led me to Jesus. And only because it keeps me near Him.
And all of this is just a silly preface in order for me to explain what Catholics mean when we say, "I'm praying to this Saint (or this person) for my healing..." Because I've been wanting to add some info about my "intercessors in heaven" and I always stop because the info can get caught in the above mentioned "glorious mess." It's so much easier to say, "I feel terrible," than to explain two millennia of history (heretically, most likely). I promise to try and be brief!
The Basics:
1) Catholics believe that only Jesus has the power to work miracles.
2) Still, Catholics ask everyone to pray to Jesus for them (your mom, 16 prayer groups, their aunt Betty from Iowa, your brother's ex-girlfriend who you see at the grocery store)
3) Catholics believe nobody is "dead" (your body dies, your soul hopefully goes to Heaven. The other options are a story for a different day)
4) Catholics do believe that everyone in heaven is a Saint, which is why we have an entire feast day to celebrate the "unnamed Saints" called All Saints' Day (the day after Halloween). But to be recognized by name as a Saint is a big deal to us Catholics. We want proof. There is a lengthy process for the Church to declare a Saint by name (more info here), but what matters for the sake of this blog is that there need to be two miracles that can be traced back to the intercession of a person in heaven in order for that person to be declared (named) a Saint.
5) back to #1. We know it's all about Jesus, but we're still asking the people in closer proximity to Him to pray for us (because #2 and #3)
6) The cool, full-circle thing is that when the miracle comes, we also get to use it to help raise up a brother or sister in heaven. To prove he or she is there to the entire world. I know most people don't care about all of this...but all of us are going somewhere, so we might want to consider at least what we do think.
My family and I have chosen three really specific intercessors. I want to give short backgrounds in case this post has spoken to you and you would ask for their intercession as well (if you're still here - this is a long one):
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (a young athlete who loved the poor born April 6, 1901 d. July 4, 1925 - C's patron Blessed)
Servant of God Julia Greeley (born into slavery, freed during the Civil War, she came to Colorado and worked for the Governor's wife. She had a great love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the poor, children, fire fighters and religious sisters. d 1918.) The town of Greeley is named for her.
Bridget Kelly Sullivan (born Oct 1, 2002. "Bridgey" was born with a very rare condition known as Aicardi. She is the niece of one of my closest friends. Her parents didn't remember that my maiden name was Bridgette Kelly, but I always felt a kinship with Bridge because we shared a name. Bridgey has amazing parents and an adoring older sister. She lived a full, beautiful life surrounded by people who love her. Bridget died on March 10, 2019. It was only a month and a half or so before I found out about my diagnosis and one of the first people who came to mind was Bridge. I immediately asked her to tell Jesus about me and ask Him to let me stay here for just a little while.
Long post. All is well. B
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