True Saints

Why do Christians with the knowledge of Christ still have mortal diseases?

Why don’t they naturally seek healing from those with the gifts of healing?

There seem to be Christian Saints of the past, especially Catholics, who are prayed to for healing and are looked on as “Saints”. Actually they were just as human as we are. So where are these “Saints” today?

And how can we know them?

We hear of cures and healings by the Holy Spirit in the scriptures but they all sound like they’re in the past.

Yet sometimes we hear of similar things today, in some places, done by the Saints.

So wait a second! Are these Saints the saints we pray to, the same ones we hear about today?

Where are they today?

Why don’t we meet them? Today’s saints? They sound nice don’t they?

Are we dying, crying? So why don’t we seek them for comfort and solace?

Who are they today?

Aren’t these saints actually the true ministries, churches and the like?

We like to say we love them, to say we listen to them and that they have wisdom and love, but in truth they could look at us, and our situations of today, in our little safety-zones, and say the elect, wherever they may be, haven’t reached me.

The old Saints may be just us, and we haven’t reached ourselves.

I believe St. Therese of Lisieux once wrote: “Suffering is the very best gift He (God) has to give us. He gives it only to his closest friends.” And all I get from this is that I wish I could witness alive who lives, sees and communicates these virtues in the truth of suffering.

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9 Comments

  1. Don’t know where to start so this may be a little disjointed.

    First Good topic Saints –
    I thought we are all saints there are places where saints is used in my bible to mean Christians. Ephesians is one. (At the beginning)

    As for people with ‘saintly gifts’ I too would like to hear from these people more. I have seen a few in church where miracles have happened through a visiting preacher (although I did not know the people who were healed) and met some people who have had miracles happen to them but I was not with them at the time. So it does happen but not in the same way as going to the doctors.
    Why is linked heavily with faith. By that I mean people’s personal faith not how ‘good’ their faith is.

    As for the whole saint thing in terms of the saints you pray to – I have never done that since they must talk to Jesus in order to get to God so why use a middle man?
    If you do pray to saints I’m interested in how and why you do. Not in a nasty way but I have not met people who do and I’m interested.

    finally

    The old Saints may be just us, and we haven’t reached ourselves.

    Can you explain further this bit please?

    ~

  2. hey wave,

    The end comment quoted about us possibly being the saints of today just as the” typical saints” of the old days is only noting that those true saints didn’t see themselves as the IT in their lifetime. It is only afterwards when Christian history starts to say they saved their generation or were a Godsend for that age.

    Thanks for your comments

    Is it possible that the reverence we give these heroes some how even just a little make us feel that we don’t have to do as much as they did?

  3. I hear what your saying about reputation getting exponentially bigger as time goes by, I only have to remember some good times I have had which have almost become legendary with some of my friends to know how that works.

    As for making us heroes I have to think that when looking to be a hero for God (Which is good and right to do so)but I have to think that you will get a strange reward. A lot of God heroes ended up dead (I know we all die) before their natural end shall we say! This does not readily appeal to me.

    Having said that their are so many ways to be a hero which are not noted by others and it is in these that I think God sees the hero aswell. When we do that little something which was not required or just being there when no-one else was. To praise God even when your sick or feeling rubbish. All these things and many more are the heroic deeds we can perform each day.
    The trick is seeing them and acting. Again the reward is what exactly?

    These are often inspired by other hero’s, to me these are mainly my friends. This is not to take away from the things that all the saints have done in the past, which are also inspirational.

    What do you think?

  4. It appears Christians too have a fascination with pondering the days of old, and what made it so. Simple things like how the sun set over a school brick wall a long time ago and how it made one feel then, yet the same heart very changed now, but the sun still the same and so is God, the same.

    Yes one never knows how a servant of God ends up. Some alone and mocked, others praised by thousands. It kind of makes one question “who really was with God?” After all the world counts God riches as nothing. I imagine an aspiring missionary or someone about to take Christianity sincerely would find this bit a bit uncomforting like a long dark road image. I guess that’s when counting the cost comes in, when we have even counted no definable or noticeable reward from the godly acts we do. Ive never really considered not knowing what the reward is as a missing factor in my relationship with God, but I guess it keeps me wanting to know God more.

    I believe in the everyday heroic acts. I think something of this spirit was meant in the passage the “spirit from the father” and us to be “perfected into one,” into our lives as we live everyday. I think you may find others agreeing with you that if you can find hope for heroism from those you know who live that it is just as solid or even more so than what you may have heard or read of some man or woman of fame in Christ deeds and love.

    Yet with all the access to this ministry of healing and that ministry of gifts something in me knows that out there, there is someone in the spirit of Bernard or Theresa or Assisi working silently, and getting the job done.

    Did God put in some of us Christians of today an insatiable (not altogether unhealthy) urge that keeps us from putting a foot too far until that typical Christian Saint is beheld, and blesses us?

    Author of thread, hey…

  5. I have not found it common practice when ill or some relative when ill to immediately give themselves over to a church that heals in Christ name for healing prayer or to the healers there. Perhaps not even has the first thought. Sometimes I find the most trusting thought to be pleading for a cure directly from God when afflicted. There are too many risks when you ask someone with healing authority to pray for you. God may or may not have different plans for you. You may get embarrassed at saying you felt well if it really was just the relief of having someone say they will healingly pray on your behalf.
    Or you may just want to save that person from embarrassment if you lack faith in their healing claim and say to them i am better when you aren’t.

    I think advertisements and literature even cable has given us the knowledge that there are churches that claim healing is their speciality, and boldly charges us with the question “what we are going to do about it”?

    I hope this person with a loss understands God now more than they would before.

  6. My landlady said to me that Catholics are criticised for talking about saints when they should focus on God instead, but that this was misplaced, as their ‘saints’ are people whose lives are particularly holy and inspiring examples for us to think about and follow. Much like Protestants do with their ‘heroes’. (She didn’t mention praying to them tho, which is the main dividing issue, I think.)

    And a Catholic friend of mine heard a sermon about saints from his bishop last Sunday, which said we should all be contributing ‘saintliness’ to the world.

    These sound like a very positive and Biblical view to me. “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” (Heb 13:7)

  7. The fact that God doesnt want to heal people?

    God can’t be all about us having a sound body can he?

    I suppose its the same with the question of why does God not divinely intervene when his servants are about to be killed.

    Maybe the fact is that we should die with the “mind of Christ” as Paul says either by illness or sword.

    Maybe thats how God wants to heal people. Maybe.

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