On intercessory prayers

A friend messaged to ask me how I am. I responded by replying about the health issues that have been troubling in life, such as the tension headache, and the panic attacks. I wished that I could say something else more interesting about my life, but I figured I would just be genuine about what bothers me most. It occurred to my mind that she was a catholic, so I asked her whether she could pray for me. I even asked her to obtain intercessions from the saints from her faith to get God to heal me. I told her that my Christian friends have been praying for me but to no avail, and perhaps, a prayer from a catholic friend would be good. She told me to ask St Anne to pray for me, and that there is a St Anne church in Singapore. However, as someone brought up in the protestant faith, I am reluctant on taking up the practice of resorting to the saints for intercession. But I just feel that perhaps, the Catholics might have something there about appealing to the saints for intercessory prayers.

I don’t quite get the idea behind intercessory prayers though. Even protestants practice it to some extent, asking for people perceived to be of good standing with God to pray for them in the belief that “God listens to a righteous person”. The underlying thought is that their prayers might not have gone answered because they were sinful or not righteous enough.

I really don’t know how God works, and who is right on their characterization of God. I suppose some Christians would argue that the notion of requiring intercessory prayers limits the understanding of the way God works, that he acts for our good will whatever faults we may have. Other Christians out there have the understanding that God would not answer prayers if the individual sins, or that he prefers to listen to the prayers of those he consider righteous, or closer to him.

While I prefer the former understanding of how God works, I still have an innate mentality of the latter. But all said and done, I am quite the pragmatist. Whatever floats God’s boat. If he wants a righteous person, and I am not a righteous person, get me a righteous person to say a prayer for me. For now, it seems quite a cultural maladjustment to call upon Catholic saints, although I have the belief that there is possibly a good argument from the Catholics on why they call upon the saints. I don’t think it is an idolatorous practice to call upon such figures for intercession.

Sunday Service – Catholic Mass about the keeping of protective artifacts

I went to a Catholic church for its mass service yesterday on Sunday. There were quite a lot of Filipinos at the service. They were going there in families, both men and women, with their children. I don’t see that many of them in other aspects of societal life in Singapore. I suppose the catholic mass is a rally for catholic-believing Fillipinos to gather.

There was an interesting room at an area in the church with the label ‘adoration room’ on the entrance door. In that room, there is a rather strange looking golden artifact encased in a glass panel and buried into the wall at the front of the room. There are two pews at the back of the room. I suppose Catholics may go to that room to pray. I am wondering what that artifact holds in significance for the Catholics.

The sermon given by the Catholic priest for the mass was an exhortation to the congregants to discard artifacts of other religions (especially those Taoist kinds) like amulets and good-luck charms. He was talking about how he was advising a congregant who keep such stuff to discard these things which he warns are artifacts with evil supernatural sources. However, the man was hesitant of throwing away these artifacts because he was afraid that he might not be protected against evil supernatural forces without them. The priest said he chided the man, telling him that his true protection comes from the Christian God. I was slightly amused when the priest said that in place of those amulets and charms, the man should keep Catholic artifacts like the rosary, picture of the saints, the crucifix etc. I am not sure whether that is any less superstitious with what the man began with.

This is probably the most charismatic sounding message that I have come across in a Catholic mass, with all these reference to the protective powers of various artifacts against supernatural evil forces. I have visited other Catholic Mass before, but the message was more mundane and simple, about things like how to live one’s life in a Christian like manner.  I suppose I can understand why the layman who the priest was talking about was hesitant on throwing away his Taoist artifacts. He probably believes that they had been effective in staving off evil spirits in his life, and he is unsure about whether Catholic artifacts would have similar efficacy. I am wondering though whether Christian doctrine supports this notion of carrying around Christian artifacts for protection against evil spirits. It’s not something that I hear in my own church, which is traditional Lutheran. At least from what I remember from a previous sermon by my church pastor, he advocates Christian artifacts, such as Christian entrance wall signs, to serve as a marker of identity for one’s Christian’s faith to visitors, and as reminders for one’s own Christian identity. I think the sermon message was regarding the Deuteronomy 6:8 verse which features the advice to have symbols of reminders in one’s Christian life.

It reminds me of a joke though that I once read about. In that joke, one guy was asking the other why he kept some weird amulet with him. The other guy replied that it helped keep the wild elephants away. The first guy remarked that he didn’t see any wild elephants around, to which the other guy quite smartingly replied that it shows that the amulet works. The point of that joke is that one cannot just prove causation from correlation. The fact that no wild elephants were around does not necessarily mean that the amulet was effective. It could simply be the case that there were no wild elephants to begin with. And I am sure that a skeptic, or an atheist, would remark the same about amulets or Christian artifacts in protecting against evil spirits. They don’t believe evil spirits exist in the first place.

I am also reminded of a scene I once came across when I watched the movie The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser. In that movie, there was this minor character who came face to face with the resurrected Mummy. As the Mummy was approaching him in a threatening manner, that character was comically taking out his religious artifacts one by one in his desperate bid to find the right one that would work against the Mummy. I don’t think the Christian cross worked on the Mummy!

I suppose I don’t rule out the existence of supernatural beings, even though I may have doubts about them. And since I have chosen to believe in the Christian God, I think it is subsidiary to this belief that I must believe that evil supernatural beings exists as well. But I am apprehensive of becoming superstitious about such things, to the extent of attributing almost everything to supernatural forces.