At my parish and on TV Mass the priests always encourage to follow the "saints" who have gone on before us. I found this to be entirely unbiblical. Here's why:

Ephesians 5:1-9

"Here, then: 'Be imitators of God as beloved children.' Oh! Paul does not say to you, 'Imitate this or that saint!' He tells you, 'Imitate God in his perfections'. To imitate God! To make a continuous effort, therefore, to reach perfection. And to do so with charity, but also with humility; with faith, but also with humility; with hope, but also with humility.

"All of you know that notwithstanding every heroic effort You will always be incapable of possessing the Perfection of God. But do not get discouraged! The Most Holy Father knows, because He is perfect, that the creature cannot be like the Creator, and to comfort you, to justify your relative measure, proclaiming it with justice to be 'perfect for the creature,' He has set a limit for this measure: yours. He has said, 'with your whole selves.' 'With all your heart, with all your soul, with all
your strength,' states the immutable command until the end of the ages; and heretical and accursed is one who changes or alters it or replaces it with a human command for other forms of worship of ideas which are not of God, but are a mixture of hellish smoke and nellish venom with the smoke and venom of a wicked creature.

"When one loves with all one's heart, soul, and strength, one has, for oneself, loved perfectly. One has, therefore, imitated God, who is perfect in Good.

"Paul's second precept: 'Live in love as Christ has loved us and has given Himself to God for us in a holocaust as asweetsmelling host.'

"Perfect love! The love of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Our Lord. Love which arrives at sacrifice. Love for one's neighbor which arrives at immolating oneself for one's neighbor. Love for God to the point of becoming the Immolated One on the altar of Reparation.

"Another precept: 'May they not only not be in you, but not even be mentioned among you'-among you, who must recall only the gifts, perfections, and teachings of God. Fornications, impurity of any kind, avarice.'

You are no longer men. You are 'voices.' John the Baptist "A voice in the wilderness" John the baptist stayed his ground never raised a fist, always out of love(shouting for deaf ears to hear) reproached the "sins" of man for love of man. The Voice of God Himself. For what is love if it does not correct? If it does not bend over and help a poor distressed soul?
Or if it sits in a corner? It is dead. Nevertheless we sacrifice for others as Christ sacrificed for us "the Victim". We exort, we teach, we reproach kindly but we never picket in front of the White House or other government facilities. We pray to the ALmighty Who is the Strongest.

Peace

we learn from them what they learned. but we never Follow Man. Because Man Sins. He is a sinner from Birth.

Mreiner well said,

yet the highest calling is to Follow Me - Jesus. To Imitate the Master.
Are we in need of a master? Anyone who does not think they need one is indeed not a child. God calls us His children, a child needs always a Master. Master and his disciples. I truly understood what the priests and such are saying here in the U.S.A, because they them very selves are at a loss of what to preach in these harycary times.

I say Follow Jesus and Imitate everything of His Good Will. What He did except for putting the Pharisees' in their place, this is Gods job. We are to only be His disciples and bring the Good News to those poor lost souls.

God calls us to become angels why?

9 Choirs of angels or positions; we are to join one of these choirs in the Hereafter. Did you merit the position of a Seraph? or Cherub? or the lowest of angels? Nevertheless he who is greatest must become like a child.

There is great danger in following a saints example because he/she was declared a saint after the fact. God is constant He does not change.

The Eternal Spirit of God inspires us we are to Listen to the Voice of the Eternal Spirit of God, for he who does not have the Holy Spirit does not belong to God, therefore we pray for them to become light come to the Light.

Why do we not follow and imitate a saint? Because they are not God.
Because your angel tells you to follow Christ.

Peace

Mreiner,

As far as angels: When God created all His creatures, He created them Free. Another words with His likeness that is Free. God is Love, love is Free from what binds it. It cannot be overcome unless you freely choose not to be free by succumbing to sin which is slavery. WHic is what Adam and Evd did. THey chose to become slaves to sin by sinning they disobeyed Gods directive of do not Follow Lucifer.

God created man "naked" in Paradise on Earth. Genesis 1 - 3.
When God put earthly clothes on man he clothed there sinfulness.
Angels are clothed with white robes. Revelations
All the saints are clothed in white robes. Revelations.

God is order. God has a hierarchy in Heaven.

Jesus even says to be the greatest; so He tells us right here there is a hierarchy and order for which man can merit a position in Heaven.

We found out through the some of the past Believers that there are 9 choirs of Angels or Hierarchy of Angels. As we gain more merit we gain one of these positions and their attributes. We can gain the highest merit
and obtain the rank of Seraph.

Jesus also shows us in the Gospels about the Roman Centurion who was under rule or authority, how he had more faith than any one in Israel! What a shock! Obedience is what this says. Obedience to Gods Divine Laws.

What is the US ARMY ranking system? Anyone who was in the service can give credence to the Ranking system.

For those who have ears to hear.

Peace

Not withstanding, we have what God calls the Communion of Saints.
Who also follow God who help us on our way as Heavenly bodies to imitate
God. Because God gave His breath to us. Genesis 1 and God breathed into his nostrils (into mud) to become a living soul. What is a soul? It is a spirit. What comes directly from God is always spirit. God created the body from mud. Never get these two screwed up.

Man was created to imitate the Creator. This is what Angels do all day long they imitate God.

Why were Adam and Eve created "naked"? to obtain a white robe after a good life in God. The Reward for being good is a white robe, and to be in His presence Eternally. This sounds cheap but there's much more than that.
Your soul/spirit becomes incredibly active in love and is overwhelmed by love continous along with light, Wisdom, beauty, true Beauty. To experience Heaven means to live there. So we are not there yet.

What will we be doing there? Ever escalating in pure esctacy unlike any thing on Earth. THe soul has no limits in doing good and ever climbing the steps to becoming a giant size light. For the limitations of man on earth do not exist there.

Lets say that you enter heaven in the lowest eschalons of angel, you work your way to Seraph, you have all eternity to do so!! Praise the Lord!
You are free as in really free without the slavery of sin to be only limited by the measure God gives. Which is we can never be so proud as to saying "I will be like the Most High and take His throne". Book of Isaiah

Alleluia!

Peace

I would like to further your knowledge:

what is a Heavenly Body? it transcends time and space, Your Spirit is a Heavenly Body, because your spirit is the Breath of God created By God, not your Flesh which is created by God from "mud".

Secondly, the Communion of Saints are Saints who have achieved Sainthood.
The Church of Christ is Mystical. His Body which is Mystical.

The Church Militant
The Church paying for their sins(Purgatory)
The Church Glorified: they who made it to Heaven after the first two.

The Church Militant those who are still in the juvenile stage
The Church Purging those who are having their juvenile removed because they failed to have it removed while in the Militant stage.
The Church Glorified those who are adults in Spirits who Love God and Nothing Else.

Does the Pope declare a saint before they pass on? No. It is always after they have examined ones life after death.

Peace

FYI for those who have been wondering and have heard bits and pieces about Purgatory, there have been many who bring word of Purgatory a little bit here and little bit there compling the full picture.

"I have come to clarify the revelation that the Flame of our Mother's Heart, which is Holy Love, can be likened to the flames of Purgatory. In Purgatory the soul sees clearly all that he has done in thought, word and deed which stood between his soul and the Divine Will. He sees what remains to be atoned for and he willingly casts himself into the purifying flames to be purified."

"When, in the world, the soul chooses to live in Holy Love, he is similarly convicted of any obstacle within his heart which stands in the way. He, with great effort of his free will, tries to purify himself of these iniquities and God sends trials which test and assist him in these efforts. So, in many ways, to immerse yourself in the Flame of Holy Love is a taste of the purifying flames of Purgatory. Let me add that there is no other path if the soul desires holiness."

Peace

Maybe you understand what it Means to imitate God? To hear Him through others as well. The saints of yester year who have gone on before
us are enjoying a blissful time in Heaven, but they are along side of us all the way. They repeat Gods Word. We are created by the Word of God, which is from a Thought of God, which is then given a Breath of God.

Those who walk in the Spirit, speak Gods words.

Know ye not ye are the temple of God? The Temple of the Holy Spirit(God the Third Person)
I will not leave you comfortless, but I will send another to comfort you. (the Holy Spirit)

God walks among men because Grace has been restored. Without Grace there can be no salvific work. It will all revert to the time of Abraham where there were very few "minute" I would add "Justified by God" men. Thus
we would end up in being washed by the Great Flood of Noah's Time. Wherein only a few souls were saved by His Grace. These few believed in God even when there were no "10 commandments."

Thus we live in a time where all is harycary. Full of sensuality, pride, greed, all equal the enjoyment of the flesh. None of these care about their souls nor about there plight. Do not be washed alongside them when the flood of God unseen comes. Read Daniel.

Peace

Noel

You speak from Encylopedias. I speak from Above, that's the difference.

TO KNOW.

Peace

This is one of the few posts you sent that I agree with (partially).

I have said before and repeat, you may have gnostic tendencies.

Fishman,

Your recent post was great.

It shows a deep understanding of our faith and is encouraging.

I am reading the Letters of Ignatius at present. He fought the heresy that said Jesus was an angel, that he appeared to be man - docetism.

Bhokuto:

You said:

"At my parish and on TV Mass the priests always encourage to follow the "saints" who have gone on before us. I found this to be entirely unbiblical."

I'm sorry to say that you are wrong on two counts. The first is the simplistic belief that the Catholic Church is a Church of the Bible...it is not. We are a Church of the Word in its entirety, meaning both the Bible and the Church's Tradition as set forth, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, by the magisterium.

See CCC 828:

"By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God's grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors..."

And secondly, the Bible itself is clear about imitation in 1 Cor. 11:1 "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.". So the imitation of saints is not only proper from the Church's perspective but the Bible's as well. By the way...the verse immediately following teaches us to attend to those Traditions laid down by the Church and delivered by Paul.

You would do well to heed your own advice and "further your knowledge."

In Christ,
Michael

Another Example:

So if you follow a man who is not yet a saint but in the future becomes one who just like you and myself, are struggling to find there way to Heaven by keeping the commandments of God, who we sometimes have venial and mortal sins, you follow a "creature" not the Creator. Thus you have become "Idolators". What is the crux of the Old Testament? If you follow sin and Satan, Satan because he is the Beastmaster, and sin because it cuts you off from Grace, and in man is resides "Sin" no matter how good you maybe, any man can fall and resume as a sinner at any given time in his or her life.

If you see man yell at his neighbor do you imitate that? Even he/she was declared a saint? No, God say "Love". You really haven't thougt deeply enough about Purity, Charity, Chastity so that is why You say I can Imitate a Saint. They struggled.

God is perfect, We must imitate Perfection because that's what it takes to enter Heaven.

Thus,

"When one loves with all one's heart, soul, and strength, one has, for oneself, loved perfectly. One has, therefore, imitated God, who is perfect in Good.

Peace

Fishman,

You famous qoutes "Be Perfect as God is Perfect" what is being perfect according to God? The Commamdment From God which helps us become perfect.

Love God above all else with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself, for Love is the Perfection of the Law.

Thus a weak man who we all are, because of Sin, we listen to the Spirit of God Who guides us all.

Peace

Wjew,

I read what the Holy Spirit tells me to read.

So far there are only 5 good books that come from the "Correct" source. All the rest repeat mans ideas.

Peace