Pray Only To Our Lord

Yesterday we visited the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, a major Roman Catholic place of pilgrimage with the only copy of Michelangelo's Pietà (the original is in the Vatican City). The basilica is also known as a place of miracles. One of the builders of the original church, Louis Guimont, helped build the church despite having severe scoliosis and needing the aid of a crutch. When the church was complete, he was able to walk independently. Subsequent visitors to the church who have prayed have left their canes, crutches and walking aides behind as testament to their healing. The main wall when you first walk into the basilica is now completely covered with crutches.

I do not question the many testimonies to healing. Without a doubt, God reaches out with grace and love to all. As our Lord Jesus said, "For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). For this we all owe Him our praise and thanks. 


What troubled me as we walked about this magnificent structure, is the encouragement all around to pray not only to St. Anne, but also to a whole crowd of other 'saints', as if they hear our prayers and have some kind of special influence upon our gracious God. Holy Scripture clearly teaches that our prayers are to be directed to God alone and not to the saints. We are indeed encouraged to pray, but nowhere in all of Scripture are we ever taught to pray to anyone other than to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet here is a building filled with one altar after another and one chapel after another in which believers are urged to pray to Anne and various other saints rather than most directly and frequently to our Lord.

"All our information concerning the names and lives of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, is derived from apocryphal literature, the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Protoevangelium of James. Though the earliest form of the latter, on which directly or indirectly the other two seem to be based, goes back to about A.D. 150, we can hardly accept as beyond doubt its various statements on its sole authority. In the Orient the Protoevangelium had great authority and portions of it were read on the feasts of Mary by the Greeks, Syrians, Copts, and Arabians. In the Occident, however, it was rejected by the Fathers of the Church until its contents were incorporated by Jacobus de Voragine in his "Golden Legend" in the thirteenth century. From that time on the story of St. Anne spread over the West and was amply developed, until St. Anne became one of the most popular saints also of the Latin Church. . . 

"In Canada, where she is the principal patron of the province of Quebec, the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré is well known. St. Anne is patroness of women in labour; she is represented holding the Blessed Virgin Mary in her lap, who again carries on her arm the child Jesus. She is also patroness of miners, Christ being compared to gold, Mary to silver."

Jesus invites us to come to Him in prayer and promises to hear us. "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," Matthew 11:28. That is encouragement enough. We may indeed rejoice that those who have gone before us to heaven do pray for us. We may find encouragement from the study of their lives, but we must also always be guided by the revealed Word of God. Our prayers belong to Him alone.