At 12:55 PM 6/22/03 -0500, Reggie Bautista wrote:Ronn! wrote:One question which might be asked here is why does anyone need someone else to pray for them? IOW, why is it necessary for a Catholic to pray to Mary and ask her to pray to God for them? Why cannot reason that person pray directly to God?
(Serious question, not meant as any sort of wisecrack.)
I think this has been covered since you asked this, but just in case... A Catholic *can* pray directly to God, but often also takes the time to ask others (including Mary) to pray for them as well.
Okay. It just seems strange to me to pray to anyone other than God.
It might help to remember the etymology of the word prayer. A prayer is a request, a plea. If you accept this definition, then you've prayed someone other than God every time you've asked someone to pray for someone. :-)
In French, we use the word pri�re for very mundane purposes. The translation for "Please do not disturb" is "Pri�re de ne pas d�ranger."
Finally, we all need to remember that we are dealing with loaded words. Words like "god", "soul", "prayer", etc. have as many meanings as there are religions (and probably more.) Each religion has defined these words and has usually done so with the purpose of proving that other religions are wrong.
Jean-Louis
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