Do Catholics Pray TO Saints?

Posted by Jo Murphy Nov 22, 2008

When people are having a hard time, they often turn to their friends for compassion and support. At times like this, it is important to choose the right person as a companion. It is important that the person is empathetic and supportive - someone who knows what the sufferer is going through.

Trust, understanding and comfort is always available to us, when we pray to angels and saints who are always close to God. Also important are the other aspects that we always hope a good friend will bring to a relationship; love, respect, admiration and enthusiasm, camaraderie and gratitude. Saints have been so called, because they lived fruitful lives. Because of the way they lived when on earth, we know that they are close to God in heaven. Praying with saints is a cool thing to do because we know we are on the right pathway due to the company we are keeping. People ask particular saints to pray for their cause. They know from the life story of that saint that he or she has a particular interest in that special problem.

When a little primary school at Ekibin in Australia, named their community after St Elizabeth, they were choosing her as a model to follow. They ask God to help them act as she would have acted were she here. On her Feast Day, November 17th 2008, a community celebration was held and the students had fun by concentrating on raising funds for the poor. Well before 17 November, a process was put into motion, to create a sculpture. The students also made plans to create a surrounds for that sculpture, to keep this icon safe. Creating this grotto like environmental piece will keep her image before the school population. This will remind the children about what is important to the community spirit. It will take quite a while longer for teachers and students to complete the project. That is the point – they will be working as a team to build a memento to keep the spirit of their patron alive and thriving amidst them.

If you would like to read about the process as it has developed so far, this article explains how the clay tile was designed. How to Make a Clay Tile Backdrop For a Sculpture: Symmetrical Tiles Adhered in Formation Create a Patterned Background Later, after much refinement, a plaster cast was taken from which the children could cut tiles in the manner of cookie cutting. How to Make a Plaster Cast of a Clay Tile: Casting a Prototype Tile So That it Can Be Replicated keep a watch out for the rest of the series.