The 3 Biggest Mistakes Made in Our Devotion to Catholic Saints

Mistake #1: Not enlisting specific Catholic saints to pray for you

The first mistake we can make in our relationship with the saints is to keep our focus on the saints in general. We fail to enlist the help of specific saints. Consider how most Catholics pray to the saints. Most of us have a very general appreciation of the saints. We’re aware of their importance. We’re aware that there are hundreds of saints canonized by the Church. And most of us include a few prayers to the saints in our spiritual life. I love the litanies to the saints. But my invocation of the saints usually follows the pattern of the litanies, “Saint Thomas, pray for us . . .”

This style of prayer is definitely part of Catholic spirituality. But it’s not enough to build an intimate, meaningful relationship with a saint.

The other day I had a conversation with my 7th-grade son about how he’s doing in the new school. I asked him, “So tell me about your friends.” He replied, “Well, I’m kinda just friends with everyone in the class.” I asked him if he had any friendships developing with particular classmates. My son didn’t understand why I was pushing this issue. Isn’t it good to be well-liked by everyone in the class? Sure, it’s good to be friendly and to be on good terms with your classmates. But if you want to develop true, lasting friendships that give you support, that keep you accountable and challenge you to become the best person you can be, who can be trusted and who want what’s best for you, you need to pick specific people to build the relationship with.

Building a relationship with a saint is the same as building any other friendship. It requires intimacy – getting to know the person – and trust. These things only happen in a one-on-one relationship that is nurtured over time.

So in addition to your general devotion to “the saints,” choose 3-5 individual Catholic saints to foster a devotion to one at a time. Dig deeply into their lives and focus on asking for their prayers. You can keep a general devotion as well. I still pray the litanies and enjoy reading the short biographies of many saints. But don’t let your devotion stay general.

Form real relationships with specific saints.

Mistake #2: Falling into superstition and magical thinking

The next common mistake Catholics make when they turn to the saints is to fall into superstition and magical thinking. What do we mean? Superstition is the unfounded connection between cause and effect. We think, “If I A happens then B will happen.” Think about our culture’s most common superstitions. If a black cat crosses my path, then something bad will happen to me. If I break a mirror, then I will have seven years of bad luck. Likewise, magical thinking is the belief that we can control an outcome that would otherwise be outside of our control by performing certain acts. If I sleep with a spoon under my pillow, then the school day will be canceled tomorrow because of a snow storm.

We can fall into this kind of erroneous thinking in our own spiritual life, especially in our devotion to the saints. A good example is the prayers that are supposed to take X number of years off of our time in Purgatory. This practice is actually a superstitious perversion of an ancient penitential practice. Penances used to be much more serious than they are today. For mortal sins such as adultery or murder, you might get a penance that lasted for years. As an act of mercy, the Church came up with penitential prayers that could ease the burden of penance. So making the effort to recite a specific prayer under specific circumstances every day for a week could remove 30 days from your 5-year penance. Through the years, this morphed into the belief that these prayers could take a specific amount of time off of Purgatory. OK, long explanation to illustrate the point. This is actually an error and an example of magical thinking.

The challenge for us is that God really does answer prayers and honor faithfulness. Miracles do happen. The Church does offer acts of indulgence with the power to reduce or remove our time in Purgatory. Novenas and the Rosary really are powerful forms of prayer.

So what’s the difference between superstition or magical thinking and supernatural trust that God can and does answer our prayers and the prayers of the saints? Here are some differences for you to meditate on:

• God’s promises to us usually include a level of ambiguity. God wants to build our trust in Him. Superstitious and magical thinking is actually the opposite of trust because they include the certainty of specificity (or at least the appearance of specificity). We want to know what the exact effects will be if we do this action.
• Praying for the fulfillment of God’s promises has at its heart “Thy will be done.” Superstition and magical thinking have at their heart the pagan idea that we can control God. We should always examine our mindset when we pray to God for favors. Are we appealing as children to our Heavenly Father to give us what is best for us, or are we treating God like a vending machine, saying, “My will be done”?
• True prayer allows God to speak to our hearts first. The physical blessing of prayer is actually secondary. When we pray for the healing of a loved one, our prayer should speak to our own hearts of trust in God, the desire to cooperate in His goodness for the sake of our loved one, and the acceptance that suffering and mortality may be God’s will. There may be a level of trust in God with superstitions and magical thinking, but the physical effect of the prayer request is at the forefront rather than the transformation of our own hearts.

One thing that can help us to avoid superstition or magical thinking is moving beyond the formula prayers for the saints. These prayers can be a helpful starting point in our prayer life. But they are too often used as a magical spell. If we just keep saying the prayer, our wish will be answered. Add to your prayer a more intimate connection as you get to know the saint. Another thing you can do to avoid this mistake is to make your first request to the saint to pray for your conversion and holiness. Then you can move on to other concerns of your heart. The saints’ number one concern is your salvation and holiness – because this is God’s number one concern for you.

Mistake #3: Not making your requests personal to the saints

Are you with me so far? Let’s take a look at one more. A final mistake that we often make is to keep our requests to the saints pragmatic and impersonal. Oh, the thing that we request may be very personal to us. The mistake is that we don’t connect our prayer personally to the saint. Remember that the saints are members of God’s family. The reason we ask the Catholic saints for their prayers is that God has saved us not only from sin but into His Family. So our prayer to a saint should not just be an impersonal request, as if we were placing an order. It should be an opportunity to increase our intimacy with the saint.

Instead of making impersonal requests, try using what you learn about the saint in your prayer. Of course, that first means that you are going to research the saint’s life and get to know him or her. Then, talk to that saint from the saint’s own life. The prayer looks something like this:

Saint _______, you [insert here something the saint did or struggled with or triumphed over]. Please pray that (make your prayer request relate to the saint’s experience).

This method is not for the sake of the saint. We don’t have to worry about making the saint feel loved or honored. He or she is in Heaven. We can’t add anything to that. This formula is for us. It reminds us that we’re addressing a member of our Family who is really present in the Body of Christ, supporting us and cheering us on as we strive for Heaven just as they did.