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I have never in my life prayed for the Mother Of God, nor the saints and to be honest I seriously doubt that Latin rite Catholics do. As a boy I was given a piece of sacred art depicting the crowning of the blessed Virgin as queen of heaven. Why would a western christian pray for her then? I am shocked to learn that some eastern Catholics pray for her, surely commemoration during the liturgy is not the same as praying for her.

Roman Catholics do not pray for Our Lady or the Saints. We venerate them and ask for their intercession.

What, then, would you call it? I suggest going to the liturgical texts and reading them closely.

A quick summary so far...

On the Nay side:

Roman Catholics do not pray FOR Mary

Malankarese Catholics do not pray FOR Mary

Melkite Catholics do not pray FOR Mary

Eastern Orthodox do not pray FOR Mary.


On the Yea side:

Ukrainian Greek Catholics DO pray FOR Mary.

THe Latins most certainly do make a general prayer for all the dead...


EP II, however, is different at that spot, and makes it clear that Mary, the Apostles, and Saints have already obtained eternal life... But did not the Apostles go to their rest in hope of rising again?

There is a clear distinction between the Saints, whom we Latins celebrate on 1 November, and the faithful departed, whom we, following St. Odilo of Cluny, commemorate on 2 November

Also, on 15 August, we do not celebrate a Requiem Mass for Our Lady, but we celebrate her Dormition and Assumption into heaven.

The Saints do not need our prayers, but we do need theirs.

We do not make that distinction, because we are the saints.

First, who are "we"?

Secondly, there is a distinction, otherwise the Catholic Church would not make the distinction between "All Saints" and "All Souls."

Your argument is fatuous at best.

Just a note to all who seem to have missed the point: when someone is commemorated--or as some would put it, "recalled to mind"--in the Liturgy, it is not we who are doing the remembering. Rather, we are calling upon God to keep those faithful in his mind, and that he keep their memory eternal so that they will not be snuffed out of existence.

Of course, God does not need us to remind him not to forget us, so our supplication is one way of confessing to God our own powerlessness and total reliance upon his grace and mercy; it is also a way in which we praise God for that mercy and offer thanksgiving to him that He continues to remember us. Because, of course, He doesn't have to do so.

This is all very true, but is not very relevant to our discussion.

Your argument is fatuous at best.

Not at all. The Churches of the East simply do not make the distinction that the Latin Churches does, and commemorates the souls of the departed through a different liturgical cycle. The Eastern Churches have always taught that the Laos tou Theo are indeed the saints (2 Peter 1:3-4), as the Apostles addressed all those who followed Christ. This is the Apostolic teaching, that we are a priestly people, a chosen nation set aside for God. And what is that which is set aside for God? "Sanctified"--holy. And what are the saints? Those who have been sanctified, those who are holy. Through our baptism, we have become that which is set aside for God, so we are, as the Apostles addressed us, the saints. And as such, we are surrounded by clouds of witnesses, which is the communion of saints, of which we are a part.

Or do you think the communion of saints concerns only those whose names are found on some liturgical calendar, to the exclusion of grubby worms like you and me?

No, it is essential to our discussion. When we commemorate Mary and the saints in the Divine Liturgy, explicitly praying for, rather than to them, we are doing for them what we do for all the other departed--praying that God constantly keep them in his mind, so that their memory, hence existence, will be eternal. And we do it for the reasons I outlined above.

Obivously not. That is why we celebrate All Saints on 1 November, not just the ones mentioned in the Calendar or the Martyrology, but All Saints.

In a certain sence, I too, despite all my faults, am one of the Saints of Jesus Christ. But the normal and ordinary meaning of "saint" is something different, isn't it?

I don't think there is any danger of God forgetting about Our Lady. Don't be silly!

The prayer "Communicantes" [en.wikipedia.org] of the Roman Canon could not be more clear.