is the practice of praying for the dead,
for they are still members of the Church. All the members of the Church,
consisting of the church militant on earth, the church triumphant in
heaven, and the church suffering in purgatory, are one family bound
together by the bond of charity. The members of the Church on earth pray
to those in heaven, who love us and pray for us; and we pray for those
in purgatory. They are God's friends deprived of heaven for a time. As
those in heaven rejoice when one sinner does penance, so those in
purgatory hear us, see us, love us, and are helped by our prayers. We
love them and never cease to pray for them and offer the Holy Sacrifice
for them. Even the unbeliever will stand or kneel by the remains of his
departed friend and offer a prayer for him, thus showing that praying
for the dead is reasonable and the natural dictate of the human heart.

X. Praying to the Saints

"And may the angel that delivereth me from all evils bless these boys"
(_Gen_. xlviii. 16).

"So I say to you there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one
sinner doing penance" (_Luke_ xv. 10).

"For in the resurrection they [the saints] shall be as the angels of God
in heaven" (_Matt_. xxii. 10).

THE saints are friends of God. They are like the angels in heaven. We
honor them, not as we honor God, but on account of the relation they
bear to God. They are creatures of God, the work of His hands. When we
honor them, we honor God; as when we praise a beautiful painting, we
praise the artist.

We do not believe that the saints can help us of themselves. But we ask
them to "pray for us." We believe that everything comes to us "through
Our Lord Jesus Christ." With these words all our prayers end. It is
useful, salutary, and reasonable to pray to the saints and ask them to
pray for us. No doubt all will admit the reasonableness of this practice
if the saints can hear and help us.

That they hear and help us is evident from many passages of Scripture.
The patriarch Jacob would not have prayed to the angel to bless his
grandchildren Manasses and Ephraim (as we learn he did from _Gen_.
xlviii.), unless he knew the angel could do so.

We are informed (_Luke_ xv.) that the angels rejoice when one sinner
does penance. We are also informed (_Matt_ xxii.) that the saints are
like the angels--_i.e._, have the same happiness and knowledge.

Hence the saints, as well as the angels, can hear us, can help us, and
are a