We know not only from the character and nature of our All Holy God, and from what He has chosen to reveal to us through the prophets and Apostles, the martyrs of the Church, the holy saints, the appearances of The Blessed Virgin Mary, and the words of our Lord Jesus The Christ, that we truly live forever in the presence of the Holy Trinity if we are gifted that grace upon death by God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
This article is not about soteriology, and the ins and outs of how we are saved, justified, sanctified, etc. (although I may touch on those subjects in the future.) This article is covering the fact that Scripture does teach we truly live forever in God’s glory, and are present and able to interact with the creation on earth, specifically the people who ask our intercession, that the saints in heaven pray for us, and truly care for each and every one of us, that the prophets did ask the intercession of the saints in the Bible, that Jesus did teach the communion of saints, in a future article stay tuned because God willing I will go over the fact that it is completely biblical and honest to history to pay veneration and honor to images, icons, statues of the holy saints, angels, martyrs, and most of all to the crucifix of our Lord.
But just keep in mind throughout this article, many of the objections to the communion of the saints presuppose the idea that every single doctrine the Christian faithful must follow has to be found in the Bible. I would ask them in response, where is that clause found in the Bible? And where does the Bible say explicitly that every single teaching of the Apostles was written down? In fact, St. John the Apostle says something to the opposite effect:
John 21:25 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written.
That is why as Catholics, we hold to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition together. They are inseparable because each are guided by The Holy Spirit.
“It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.” — CCC 95
I am going to start with a text that is not usually cited in the discussions about whether Scripture teaches the communion of the saints, but I think it is a very obvious doctrine within the Old and New Testament that any reader who is genuinely open to asking the Spirit to guide them, and not already hostile to the idea that the saints are alive in heaven and encouraging us to finish the race, can exegete from the text.
1 Kings 18:36-38 English Standard Version
And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
The plain reading of the passage above is usually just Elijah the prophet praying, God answering, prophets of Baal being put to shame by our God — and yes, that is happening — but there is more to be drawn from this passage than meets the eye. Notice how in the first verse Elijah invokes the names of “Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.” Now why didn’t he just say Jacob? If the Old Testament prophets invoking the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and other patriarchs, along with the name of The Holy Trinity when sealing oaths, making covenants, and asking The LORD to forgive us our sins, is arbitrary, then why didn’t Elijah just mindlessly say Jacob? He consciously switched out the name Jacob with the name Israel to invoke the covenant and the promises made to the tribe of Israel and to Jacob on the day he wrestled with God at Peniel (“Face of God”).
Genesis 32:27-30 English Standard Version
And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
Genesis 35:11-12 English Standard Version
And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”
These are the promises the prophet Elijah knows that our God does not go back on, because the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Israel, the God of Moses, the God of Sarah, the God of Elizabeth, and of all the holy angels in heaven, does not go back on His promises.
Micah 7:20 English Standard Version
You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
This can only make sense if there is an active covenant that was sworn to Jacob and Abraham that the prophet Micah is prayerfully invoking in this passage. He is conversing with God talking about a coming Redeemer, presupposing that Abraham and Jacob are alive at peace in Abraham’s bosom awaiting the steadfast love and mercy sworn to them, and praying that Christ will fulfill the prophecy of The Harrowing of Hades, which was fully fulfilled, because our God keeps His promises.
Ephesians 4:8-10 English Standard Version
Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
Deuteronomy 9:26-27 English Standard Version
And I prayed to the LORD, ‘O LORD God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin.
St. Moses is specifically calling on the piety of the previous patriarchs who have already passed away, and are in the presence of God, to reflect on the Israelites positively, so that God will take mercy on them after they have sinned against the LORD by committing idolatry. I have heard people compare appealing to the saints in heaven for intercessory prayers as similar to a form of idolatry, but how is that so if St. Moses is appealing to the already perfected patriarchs for intercession while asking God to forgive Israel for the sin of idolatry? that wouldn’t make much sense if Moses thought communion of saints was idolatrous.
St. Moses could have skipped verse 27 entirely and just prayed directly to God without asking the intercession of the patriarchs at all, but he didn’t. He valued and honored the past servants of The LORD, just as we do, even going as far as to beg the LORD: please don’t count it against them, LORD — remember your servants — we strive to be as holy as them.
Matthew 22:31-32 English Standard Version
And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.
Luke 20:34-38 English Standard Version
And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”
The Sadducees, who did not believe we would be resurrected bodily to live forever with The LORD, came to Jesus trying to test Him and use the Law of Moses against Him. Jesus, who has all knowledge and is not bound by the constraints of time in His essence since He is eternal God, was easily able to refute this argument by showing them from Scripture that Moses referred to The Lord in the Bush — who was the pre-Incarnate Christ (see my article “The Angel of The LORD is The Divine Son of God”) — as The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This presupposes that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are at peace in the perfected beauty of God’s presence, since He is not the God of the dead but the God of the living. So Jesus Himself knows the saints are alive in heaven and have an effect on us, and He explicitly taught it.
Jesus also explained how in heaven we have no longer any need to procreate since we no longer die. We no longer have a need to multiply. We are like the holy angels, and we are now perfected in the family of God, with our wills permanently ordered towards Him.
James 5:16 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much.
1 Peter 3:7 Revised Standard Version
Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered.
If we are encouraged by Saint James to pray for each other, and if a sin against our loved ones — such as mistreating our wives — can hinder our prayers, then it only logically follows that those who are truly alive and perfected in heaven, without any sin in the presence of God, have prayers that are much more effective and righteous than ours.
Revelation 6:9-10 English Standard Version
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
Here we see something beautiful: the holy martyrs in heaven crying out and praying to the Sovereign Lord, holy and true, for justice for all the martyrs who have died in the name of The LORD. They are described as under the altar, which the Fathers saw as theologically significant, because in the Levitical sacrificial system the blood of the animal being sacrificed was poured out at the base of the altar (Leviticus 4:7), and the same word in the Greek for “slain” (esphagmenon) is used in Revelation 5:6 for The Lamb having been “slain,” linking the sacrifice of the holy martyrs to the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Genesis 4:10 English Standard Version
And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”
Hebrews 12:22-24 English Standard Version
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
The Lord Jesus Christ fulfills all prophecy (Revelation 19:10). As you can see, the blood of the martyrs cries out for justice, cries out for us to be our brother’s keeper (Genesis 4:9), and for us to love our neighbor (Leviticus 19:18), and pray for our enemy.
Matthew 5:44-45 English Standard Version
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
The saints in heaven are perfectly in union with The Holy Trinity through grace, in a manner that the human mind — which has not yet been blessed to enter within that union — cannot fully comprehend. Knowing this, since the Lamb desires the salvation of all men (1 Timothy 2:3-4), would not the saints be praying for the salvation of all mankind as well, since they are all holy and we are sinners?
Revelation 14:4 English Standard Version
It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb.
“Although it is written concerning them, Revelation 14:4, ‘They follow the Lamb, wherever he goes.’ If the Lamb is present everywhere, the same must be believed respecting those who are with the Lamb. And while the devil and the demons wander through the whole world, and with only too great speed present themselves everywhere; are martyrs, after the shedding of their blood, to be kept out of sight shut up in a coffin, from whence they cannot escape? You say, in your pamphlet, that so long as we are alive we can pray for one another; but once we die, the prayer of no person for another can be heard, and all the more because the martyrs, though they cry for the avenging of their blood (Revelation 6:10), have never been able to obtain their request. If Apostles and martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, when they ought still to be anxious for themselves, how much more must they do so when once they have won their crowns, overcome, and triumphed? A single man, Moses, oft wins pardon from God for six hundred thousand armed men; and Stephen, the follower of his Lord and the first Christian martyr, entreats pardon for his persecutors (Acts 7:59-60); and when once they have entered on their life with Christ, shall they have less power than before? The Apostle Paul says that two hundred and seventy-six souls were given to him in the ship (Acts 27:37); and when, after his dissolution, he has begun to be with Christ, must he shut his mouth, and be unable to say a word for those who throughout the whole world have believed in his Gospel?” — St. Jerome, Against Vigilantius, Section 6.
So we can see that St. Jerome is implying that in Revelation 14:4, since the saints “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” — not from their own divine power, and not becoming divine by nature, but by participating in the divine life of Christ through grace (2 Peter 1:4, 1 John 3:2) — they are always able to hear our prayers through the grace and omniscience of God.
“The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom, especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were ‘put in charge of many things.’ Their intercession is their most exalted service to God’s plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.” — CCC 2683
St. Jerome also makes a good point that St. Paul was a holy martyr for the very Gospel he fiercely defended throughout his ministry, and ultimately ended up dying for. And Vigilantius — who St. Jerome was writing to at the time — and other modern sects who deny the communion of the saints, while simultaneously believing in the Bible, have the nerve to tell St. Paul (who is now sinless in heaven) he has to shut his mouth and not pray for those most in need of Christ’s mercy? God forbid!
Luke 15:7 English Standard Version
Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
Hebrews 12:1 Revised Standard Version
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.
I am extremely comforted knowing that The Holy Spirit is uniting The Church on earth with The Church in heaven. The thought of the Blessed Theotokos, The Mother of God, praying for me day and night — for my conversion to Catholicism, to finding Christ Jesus my Lord, to giving up a life of sin and constant rejection of godly endeavors — and when I finally chose to submit to God and live a life of perpetual repentance, I close my eyes and imagine the “joy in heaven” among the “cloud of witnesses.” Glory be to The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Revelation 8:3-5 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
And another angel came, and stood before the altar, having a golden censer; and 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. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it on the earth, and there were thunders and voices and lightnings, and a great earthquake.
Revelation 5:8 English Standard Version
And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
Here we clearly see, as explicit as it gets, the prayers of the saints being brought before the Lamb, who is the only one worthy to take the scroll from Him who sits on the Throne, The Father Almighty, and they all fell down and worshipped. The prayers of the saints ascend to God through the intercession of the holy angels (within the context of this verse).
Tobit 12:12-15 New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition
So now, when you and Sarah prayed, it was I who brought and read the record of your prayer before the glory of the Lord, and likewise whenever you buried the dead. And that time when you did not hesitate to get up and leave your dinner to go and bury the dead, I was sent to you to test you. And at the same time God sent me to heal you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord.
Our Lord Jesus hears our prayers because He is omniscient God in His essence and not bound by any constraints of creation. His mediation of the covenant and our prayers is essential for any other participation or communion to exist at all. Our prayers and petitions are only efficacious through faithfulness and union in Christ Jesus — without Him we are nothing.
Psalm 139:4 Legacy Standard Bible
Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Yahweh, You know it all.
Psalm 141:2 English Standard Version
Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!
Revelation 4:8 English Standard Version
And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
The LORD knows what we will ask before we ask it, but He delights when we ask it anyway. The saints delight when we ask for their prayers as well, because they are holy and desire our salvation. The four living creatures represent the four Gospels of The Lord, or in some traditions, the four covenants given to man (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, New Covenant Gospel), and they have many other interpretations that I won’t go into in this post.
The nations and all creation praise the LORD unceasingly, repeatedly, over and over again, day and night, singing “Holy, holy, holy.” So know that when we sing the Sanctus in the Mass — “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.” — the Blessed Mother of God, the holy martyrs, and all the holy angels and saints in heaven are singing along with us praises to “the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” Blessed is He who comes in the name of The Lord, Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna Son of David! (Matthew 21:9).
“Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life.” — CCC 494
“I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth.” — CCC 495
“It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened. Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace, and the life of the People of God itself.” — CCC 957
“Intercession is a prayer of petition which leads us to pray as Jesus did. He is the one intercessor with the Father on behalf of all men, especially sinners. He is ‘able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.’ The Holy Spirit ‘himself intercedes for us… and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.’” — CCC 2634
We love you Jesus.
Leave a Reply