The words of the Council of Trent are, as we have already
observed, very comprehensive on this subject. They not only declare it
to be a good and useful thing supplicantly to invoke the saints reigning
with Christ: but also for the obtaining of benefits from God, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour, to fly to
their prayers, HELP, and ASSISTANCE. Whether these last words can be
interpreted as merely words of surplusage, or whether they must be
understood to mean that the faithful must have recourse to some help and
assistance of the saints beyond their intercession, is a question to
which we need not again revert. If it had been intended to embrace other
kinds of beneficial succour, and other help and assistance, perhaps it
would be difficult to find words more expressive of such general aid and
support as a human being might hope to derive, in answer to prayer from
the Giver of all good. And certainly they are words employed by the
Church, when addressing prayers directly to God. Be this as it may, the
public service-books of the Church of Rome unquestionably, by no means
adhere exclusively to such addresses to the saints, as supplicate them
to pray for the faithful on earth. Many a prayer is couched in language
which can be interpreted only as conveying a petition to them
immediately for their assistance, temporal and spiritual.
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