Have you stopped defending prayer?

The Catholic understanding of Sainthood is very different to Paul’s. Paul refers to all believers as saints. e.g Romans 1:7 the letter is addressed to ‘the saints’, and Eph 1:18 speaks of the inheritance of the saints, which the addressees have been qualified for. Catholic ‘sainthood’ requires the proving of two (?) miracles, and a whole lot of red tape. I think it’s reasonably clear this is not what Paul has in mind.

Is praying only talking? Seriously? I don’t know Greek but are ‘pray’ and ‘speak’ interchangeable?

Even if you want to dispute prayer ‘to’ the saints, I would still posit that the Catholic veneration of saints is idolatrous and unbiblical.

Paul insists there is only one mediator between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He also encourages the Colossians to pray ‘for’ him. I am just thinking out loud here – I think there is a difference between saying “pray for me” and “I pray, dear Haysey, that you would pray for me”. In fact, that seems a ludicrous thing to pray, as though Andrew is omnipresent and could hear me? Can the saints even hear prayers? Hmmm … questions, questions.

Do you get where I’m going? My problem isn’t “St Jude pray for me” (though I take exception to the ‘St.’ title), but can St Jude hear me? If he can, then why pray particularly to ‘recognised saints’, why not ‘pray’ that our dead friends, relatives etc, would pray for us? Thus, if it has something to do with a special ‘in’ with God that the ‘recognised saints’ have, then we have moved out of the realm of asking a friend to pray ‘for’ us, and into thinking the ‘Saints’ have a special mediatory place that The Bible teaches belongas only to the Lord Jesus.

Sorry, convoluted and confusing?

If there is no official teaching on medals (*if*), then you’re right. I can’t criticise doctrine. I’ll criticise practice.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re driving at with your talk of temporality. Perhaps you could explain a little more? And I’ll just observe that this phrase somewhat assumes your conclusion: “I’d point out that since the saints are no longer living inside of time and space as we understand it” – who says they’re living anywhere? Perhaps they aren’t living anywhere, until they are raised…
But again, I know nothing of these matters.

Finally, you would say that “unless these are the only words you ever use in prayer, then you’re doing precisely what you criticise Catholics of.”
Unless, perhaps, one could find other examples of prayers in Scripture which follow the model of this prayer but use different words. Jesus’ own prayer springs to mind.

Let’s see… He addresses it to the Father, tick; request that His name would be glorified, tick; etc…

When Jesus says “this is how you are to pray”, is he giving the exact words, or the correct manner? Which is the more important change: from ‘our Father in heaven’ to ‘dear heavenly Father’, or from ‘our Father in heaven’ to ‘dear St. Jude’?

Is He more concerned that you say the words in order, or that you pray to God, for His glory and His kingdom and His will and His providence and His forgiveness and His deliverance.
I humbly submit that Christ, our example, was giving us a model on which to base our prayers, not the only permissable words. It is fallicious to say we need to take either the words exactly or not at all.

I’d also ask where you can point to medallions in the Catechism. If it’s not an official teaching of the Church, you don’t have any grounds upon which to criticise Catholic doctrine at this point.
You say the saints are alive in Christ. I say, yes, we are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). But Paul says they are dead in Christ, and will (future tense) be raised.

I could be wrong in my understanding of temporal existence, but we’re reading this passage after Paul wrote it, aren’t we? Additionally, I’d point out that since the saints are no longer living inside of time and space as we understand it, talk of temporality seems rather silly.

What do you make of Jesus’ instruction: “Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven…”?

I would say that unless these are the only words you ever use in prayer, then you’re doing precisely what you criticise Catholics of.