Continued from XXI. Miracles.

Note:The Catholic Church claims they do not worship saints. One website says, “Catholics do not worship saints. Instead, they venerate saints, which means they honor them for their achievements and examples of living a life like Christ.” As a former Catholic, I can tell you they are in denial of the facts! Calling on a saint to perform a miracle is an act of worship. Worship defined: To regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion. That’s exactly what I used to do when I was a Catholic and prayed to saints.

The worship of saints forms an important part of the religion of Rome. Saints have days set apart specially for them. Some departed worthies are the guardians of particular countries; and others preside over special blessings, or situations of peculiar misfortune. A proper conception of the idolatrous customs of saint and angel worship can only be obtained by examining some facts. The following are all selected from Catholic works.

When Guthlac located on Croyland, (Note: Croyland is the old spelling of Crowland) in A.D. 714, he built a cell and planned a convent. This very much annoyed the wicked one, who, during a dark night, while the holy man was praying, filled his room with foul spirits. These bound him and cast him into the muddy water of the swamp; afterwards they dragged him over rough ground till nearly all his joints were dislocated; then they scourged him with whips “made as it were of iron;” when this torture was over, they carried him into the air, then they brought him to the gates of hell, and threatened to hurl him into its flaming fires. At last St. Bartholomew, whom Guthlac specially worshipped, burst among the demons “with immense brightness,” and tore Guthlac from their grasp, and sent him to his cell on Croyland.

The monastery which he established was threatened by its neighbors during the blindness of the Abbot Thomas, A.D. 1415, At this period the aid of mighty Guthlac was invoked in the following prayer: “How long, O Lord, how long will the sinners exult? How long too wilt thou, holy father Guthlac, who didst formerly, in thy might, render demons subject to thy rule, allow malignant people to invade thy possessions, and to plunder what is thine?”

In A.D. 1469, an army threatened the treasures and the existence of the convent, “But,” says the monkish Chronicler of St. Guthlac’s; “Blessed be God! who did not give us a prey unto their teeth! For through the merits of the most holy father Guthlac, at whose tomb, each night, in psalms and in prayers we offered up holocausts of devout supplication, the divine mercy dealt graciously with us.”

No bread is left in the Abbey of Croyland, and there is no corn in the granary; and there are no human means of obtaining supplies. Then the monks “putting their trust in the Lord and in the most holy father Guthlac,” gave themselves to prayer before the tomb of their saint, and cried devoutly all night for his intercession with God. These requests, with sobs and tears, were repeated over and over again in the ears of the most pious saint, and the whole night spent in watching at his tomb; when morning dawned, as the brethren were performing their devotions in the church, a voice like an angel’s thundered through the sacred edifice crying: “Receive victuals for the brethren.” On looking around, four sacks of the largest size were found, two filled with corn, and two with flour; and no man was to be seen. After that favor, St. Guthlac drove away want till it was easy to secure supplies without a miracle. Is it any wonder that when the five new bells were to be hung in Croyland, and were to receive their names, that Guthlac should give his to the first, and that it should appear in such good company? The bells were called: Guthlac, Bartholomew, Michael, Mary, and Trinity. The most important, in the estimation of those who gave the names, coming first. The equal honors of Guthlac and the Trinity recall a prayer quoted by Seymour:

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph have mercy on us,
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph receive my last breath.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph receive me now and in the hour of
death.”

Innocent IV., an imperious pontiff, is said to have been greatly alarmed lest St. Edmund should take vengeance on him for not conferring saintship upon him; and suffering great pain from the stone one day, he retired to his oratory, where on bended knees, with bursting tears and clasped hands, he prayed, saying: “O most holy Lord and confessor of Christ, O blessed Edmund, be not very angry, because, being moved by the calumnies of envious men, I have very foolishly put off the honor of your canonization, to which you are entitled. For that which is not yet fulfilled, I do, without hesitation, now vow and promise you, shall be fulfilled in a magnificent manner, if my life is spared. Show me then this mercy, you who assist so many that are sick, to relieve me from my present sufferings, or at least to mitigate this terrible anguish.” Soon after Innocent issued a bull carrying out his vow, in which he says: “For the Lord would not that the sanctity of so eminent a man should be lost to the world, but rather that as he had been notorious for a number of good actions, so too he should become celebrated for a diversity of miracles, that so he who had worshipped him with entire devotion should now reign with him and be himself worshipped.”

In A. D. 1247 the remains of St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, were removed to Pontigny in France, where he was interred with great pomp, in the presence of Louis, King of France, his mother, and many of his nobles. Blanche, filled with veneration for the saint, kept vigils near his remains, and addressed him in the following prayer: “O lord and most holy father and confessor, Edmund, you, who at my supplication blessed me and my sons, when you, living in exile by my assistance, though I was all unworthy of your favor, passed through France: I entreat you confirm that which you mercifully wrought in us, and establish the kingdom of France in peaceful and triumphal solidity.” Edmund is not asked by Blanche to intercede, but to perform the work himself as if he were a Deity.

In A.D. 1179 Louis, King of France, came to Canterbury to worship St. Thomas A’Becket, and after paying his vows to as arrogant a saint as a man worshipper ever reverenced, he thought of crossing the sea to reach his home. But the sea between France and England seemed very wide to Louis and exceedingly stormy; he was frightened and despairing, and he prayed to mighty A’Becket, who was no coward whatever else he may have been, to grant that no one crossing that passage might suffer shipwreck from that time forth. And “it was believed that St. Thomas, assuming the mastership of the storms had granted his request.”

In A.D. 1256 the King of England went to St. Albans, at which place, “according to his usual custom, he prayed to God and to St. Alban.” The monkish writer places God and the saint on the same footing.

Omitting the portion about the Deity and the Virgin we begin with:

“St, Michael, pray for us.
St. Gabriel, pray for us.
St. Raphael, pray for us.
All ye holy Angels and Archangels, pray for us.
All ye holy Orders of blessed spirits, pray for us.
St. John the Baptist, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
All ye holy Patriarchs and Prophets, pray for us.
St. Peter, pray for us.
St. Paul, pray for us.
St. Andrew, pray for us.
St. John, pray for us.
St. Thomas, pray for us.
St. James, pray for us.
St. Philip, pray for us.
St. Bartholomew, pray for us.
St. Matthew, pray for us.
St. Simon, pray for us.
St. Thaddeus, pray for us.
St. Matthias, pray for us.
St. Barnaby, pray for us.
St. Luke, pray for us.
St. Mark, pray for us.
All ye holy Apostles and Evangelists, pray for us.
All ye holy Disciples of our Lord, pray for us.
All ye holy Innocents, pray for us.
St. Stephen, pray for us.
St. Lawrence, pray for us.
St. Vincent, pray for us.
SS. Fabian and Sebastian, pray for us.
SS. John and Paul, pray for us.
SS. Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.
SS. Gervasius and Protasius, pray for us.
All ye holy Martyrs, pray for us.
St. Sylvester, pray for us.
St. Gregory, pray for us.
St. Ambrose, pray for us.
St. Augustine, pray for us.
St. Jerome, pray for us.
St. Martin, pray for us.
St. Nicholas, pray for us.
All ye holy Bishops and Confessors. pray for us.
All ye holy Doctors, pray for us.
St. Benedict, pray for us.
St. Anthony, pray for us.
St. Bernard, pray for us.
St. Dominic (Founder of the Inquisition), pray for us.
St. Francis, pray for us.
All ye holy Priests and Levites, pray for us.
All ye holy Monks and Hermits, pray for us.
St. Mary Magdalen, pray for us.
St. Lucy, pray for us.
St. Agnes, pray for us.
St. Cecily, pray for us.
St. Agatha, pray for us.
St. Catharine, pray for us.
St. Anastasia, pray for us.
All ye holy Virgins and Widows, pray for us.
All ye Men and Women Saints of God, make intercession
for us.”

All these are invited to be pleaders or mediators with God while he says: “There is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus ” (Catholic Bible, Vulgate).

Gives its lofty sanctions to the bestowment of Christ’s honor and office upon others. One of its decrees says:

“The holy synod enjoins on all bishops, and others sustaining the office and charge of teaching, that according to the usage of the Catholic and apostolic Church, received from the primitive times of the Christian religion, and according to the consent of the holy fathers, and to the decrees of sacred councils, they in the first place diligently instruct the faithful in regard to the invocation and intercession of saints, the honor of relics, the proper use of images, teaching them that the saints reigning with Christ offer prayers to God for men, that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to resort to their prayers, aid, and help for obtaining benefits from God through this son Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is our Redeemer and Saviour, but that they think impiously who deny that the saints who enjoy eternal happiness in heaven are to be invoked, or who assert either that they do not pray for men; or that the invocation of them to pray for each of us even in particular, is idolatry, or that it is repugnant to the word of God.”

And yet the whole system is hateful to God himself and contrary to the teachings of his blessed word. When the angel showed John the new Jerusalem, and the river and tree of life, John says, according to the Vulgate:

“I fell down that I might worship before the feet of the angel who showed these things to me; and he said to me: See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brothers the prophets, and of them who keep the words of the prophecy of this book: worship God.”

John might have said that he was only going to worship God at the feet of this wonderful angel, whose glories and love he displayed to him; but the angel forbids all worship to himself, and by implication to any one who was only a fellow-servant of John, and orders John to worship God. John the apostle was a great favorite with Jesus; he leaned upon his bosom; among the apostles he was known as, “That disciple in whom Jesus delighted.” In compliance with the Saviour’s request he became the adopted son of his mother; and after Christ’s crucifixion he took her to his own home.

In the book of Revelation he describes more extensive visions of the future than those with which any of his apostolic brethren or prophetic predecessors had been favored. The angel calls himself his “fellow-servant ” and forbids all worship to persons like John and himself, to prophets, apostles, angels, great favorites, to the most glorious and godly in the throngs of angels or in the armies of Saints. Throughout every page of revelation, and every region of justice and common sense, the words of John’s angel ring forth, saying about all creature adoration; SEE THOU DO IT NOT: WORSHIP GOD.

Continued in XXIII. The Worship of the Virgin Mary

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart

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