The Real Reason We Venerate Saints
"The souls of the pious dead are never separated from the Church, which even now is the Kingdom of Christ." - St. Augustine
Colossians 1:24 says “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”
Protestants struggle with this verse, as it clearly states something is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of the Church. This is arguably the hardest verse for Protestants to exegete, even more difficult than the 2nd chapter of the Epistle of James, 1 Timothy 3:15 or 1 John 5. But it was explained simply and elegantly by Catholic and Orthodox Christians for centuries, and is behind the full reason why we venerate saints and pray to them for their intercession.
As Colin MacIver once said, “God invites us to participate in the salvific action of Jesus through our own suffering. Jesus forever transformed the meaning of suffering through His passion. No longer is suffering meaningless pain, but it can be offered up and joined to the work of Christ to intercede for the good of others. This is why we can rejoice in our sufferings.” These can be mental, spiritual and physical sufferings. Fasting and denying temptation, as well as selfless acts of service, produce an intercessory effect that merits, through Christ, graces for the Body.
Catholics offer up their suffering to Christ, and unite their suffering to the cross with His, giving meaning to all suffering. The suffering of the innocent, such as children and the mentally underdeveloped, not only goes noticed by God, but merits through the sacrifice of Calvary graces for us all. All suffering has meaning through the cross, and the devil can only lose, just as he lost when Christ suffered and died. The problem of evil and suffering is turned on its head in the Catholic faith, as suffering of the innocent is transformed by Jesus into grace for the Bride and the whole world, and those who suffer are greatly honored in heaven, making it all worth it.
2 Timothy 2:12 says “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.”
By suffering with and for Christ, and by serving Him, we become worthy of honor, and our ability to do these things is enabled by Christ, who also bestows the honor. Christ shares His suffering with us, and shares His honor with us (which is infinite, so He loses nothing by sharing), if we persevere in carrying our crosses. When the world persecutes us, they win us crowns in heaven, whether it’s literal martyrdom, oppression or even verbal persecution on the Internet.
Matthew 16:24-26 says “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”
Joining the Bride of Christ is an invitation to die with Christ, and to suffer with Him, in order that we shall also reign with Him. Christ promises you only a cross to die on, not worldly riches.
Revelation 3:21 says: “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.”
This is at the heart of why we must honor the Saints. This includes St. Paul and all the rest. Christ Himself bestows the highest honor upon them - to sit with Him on His throne. Imagine that. To reign with God on His throne. How undeserved are we! Yet Christ died to not only rescue us from hell, but to enable us reign with Him.
The Saints merit through their suffering rewards for the entire Body of Christ, as Christ Himself did, thanks to Christ’s sacrifice which opened the way for this. They participated in the salvific action of Christ. They are honored in a far lesser way than Christ, but nonetheless greatly honored. And the Saints who sacrificed the most merited the most. They are the “least in the Kingdom,” yet the greatest in heaven. The least in the Kingdom was St. Mary, whose entire life was of dedicated service to God from a young age. First, in the Temple in Jerusalem, then by serving Christ throughout His entire life. She saw His first breath and His last at the cross, in addition to His ascension. She was even at Pentecost. Because of her incredible service to our Lord, she is Queen of Heaven not only due to her relationship to Him, but fittingly due to her unmatched service to Him as well. She is Queen of Heaven not only due to her physical relation to Jesus Christ (in the Davidic Kingdom, the Queen is the King’s Mother, as shown since King Solomon and Queen Bathsheba), but due to her service rendered to Him, which is unmatched.
When we honor the Saints we honor Jesus Christ, because they sit on His eternal throne. All their merit was enabled by Christ, came through His power, and is ultimately His merit he deigned to share with men. He loved men so much He chose to share the throne with them, despite them not deserving an iota of His redemptive work. All honor shown to Saints is ultimately honor shown to Christ, their author.
Thus, venerating Saints never takes away from His glory in any way whatsoever. This is why we do not have to worry about perfectly apportioning our prayers between God and requesting the Saints intercession. We do not have to worry about venerating the Saints and not venerating God directly enough. It’s all one and the same. Christ and His Bride are One.
Every time you bestow honor upon a Saint, it reflects back onto Jesus Christ. The more you venerate the Saints, the higher you raise God in honor, because none can be above Him. This is why venerating Holy Mary and all the others cause you to grow in love and reverence for God that far exceeds what Protestants can typically do. It is why Apostolic Christians of all kinds can reach a level of faith maturity, love and courage rarely seen among Protestants:
If we ignore the Saints, we fail to imitate Christ. He seated them upon His own throne. How can we honor them in a way that’s any higher than this? There is no poem or song we can write for them that is remotely on par with this honor. There is no work of art that can come to within a fraction of the glory of being seated on Christ’s throne with Him. There is no amount of beautiful prayers full of honorific sayings to the Holy Saints that we can pray that can ever get close to what Christ has done for them. If Christ and the Bride are One, when you venerate a member of the Bride on Christ’s throne, Christ gets that veneration all the same. Nothing is lost.
If someone honors or dishonors your spouse, they honor or dishonor you. If someone says something unacceptable to my wife, it is as if they had said it to me myself. In fact, I would consider it even worse. How do you think Christ feels? Additionally, when my wife is honored by another or achieves something great, I am proud of her all the same as if I had achieved it. Since God’s grace enables all the Saints deeds, how much more is He honored when His saints are? Again, all glory shown to the Saints is glory shown to God. Christ and His Bride are truly One, and cannot be separated.
When a member of the Body is hurt, we are all hurt. When a member of the Body is honored, we all are all benefactors. If a Christian sits in heaven on Christ’s throne with Him, part of the collective is sitting on Christ’s throne with Him, and the graces they receive in God’s presence affect us all. Pain and grace is shared among us. Affliction of the Bride merits graces for the entire Body, not only the member afflicted, as St. Paul makes clear in Colossians 1:24.
If you do not venerate or pray to Saints, you are not understanding the Body of Christ correctly. You are seeing trees and not the forest. You are seeing the individuals and not the whole. You are assuming these individuals are separate from Christ, instead of on the same throne as Him. Jesus shares His glory. We don’t deserve it, but He loves us and includes us.
Another reason it is a sin not to venerate the saints, and reason why it’s actually sinful not to pray to them for their intercession ever, is because it ignores a command from the Holy Bible. The following verse confirms what I have shared thus far:
1 Corinthians 12:14-27
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
The Saints in heaven are still members of the Body of Christ. Nothing can separate us from it that is external to us, including an earthly death, as Romans 8:38-39 confirms. Luke 20:38 also concerns this. Thus, if we ignore the intercession of the Saints we are ignoring other members of the Body. We are saying to St. Mary, St. Paul and St. John “I have no need of you.” Protestants are saying “I have no need of you, I only need Christ.” This would be an obnoxious thing to say to a Christian living on earth, let alone to a Christian on the Throne. God works through members of the Body. If you say you have no need of someone, only Christ, you reject both them and Christ.
Your theology of Christ and the Bride has to see treating the Bride as treating Christ Himself. If a Saint is venerated, Christ is venerated. If we ask a Saint for prayers, they pray to us to God, and thus God is prayed to. Serving the poor and afflicted is serving Christ, especially poor Christians. Serving the mentally ill, mentally underdeveloped and children, and saving babies from abortions and untimely deaths due to sickness is serving and saving Christ. Your theology of the Body of Christ needs to be complete.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? ’“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Let us be zealous to serve the members of Christ as we serve ourselves. Let us be zealous to serve the afflicted and the innocent who suffer. Let us also be zealous to venerate the members of the Body who are venerated by the Lord Jesus in heaven with the highest form of veneration possible - being seated on His throne. And let us be zealous to ask them for their prayers and to obtain assistance for us through God’s power. Now you understand truly why we pray to Saints for their intercession, and venerate them.