God at work in this world through prayer

The Statue of Liberty is one of those objects that has significance beyond its copper and stone reality. This is from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a government body:

The Statue of Liberty stands in Upper New York Bay, a universal symbol of freedom. Originally conceived as an emblem of the friendship between the people of France and the U.S. and a sign of their mutual desire for liberty, it was also meant to celebrate the abolition of slavery following the U.S. Civil War. 

Last year I watched as boat after boat took hundreds of people to the island on which the statue stands. On that hot September afternoon, they were prepared to wait in the sun in order to achieve their goal of reaching what was perhaps a place of significance to themselves as new migrants, or to their forbears among the millions who had entered their new homeland through New York harbour, or to just try to tap the deep sentiment felt by so many others.

Amalie Henden writes about the figure of the Black Nazarene:

For more than four centuries a statue of Jesus carrying his cross has become an important part of faith for Filipino Catholics. The life-size statue of Christ is located in  Manila, the capital of the Philippines. On January 9 every year, millions of people turn out on the streets to get a glimpse of the historic statue of Jesus of Nazareth. 

The Black Nazarene is the focus of mass piety in Manila

In no way do those Filipinos massed around the carved wooden figure of Christ believe that the figure itself is the source of healing or relief from worldly difficulties they seek by touching the figure. Instead their hearts and minds are raised to the God who loves them and has not left them as orphans but offers them simple ways to reach him. The statue of Mary in their car, or the picture of a saint on their wall, brings for the ordinary person God's reach into this world. God continues to pitch his tent among us. 

 John Piper, the prominent American pastor and scholar, approaches the question of idols this way:

... We should probably define an idol (and I think this is a biblical definition) as anything that we come to rely on for some blessing, or help, or guidance in the place of a wholehearted reliance on the true and living God. That’s my working definition of idol. So you can see that would cover, for example, a rabbit’s foot in your pocket, or a picture of a saint hanging on your wall, or a relic from some sacred shrine sitting on your mantle, or the more forthright images taken from Hindu or Buddhist temples, or the golden calf that Aaron made while Moses was on the mountain.

In his consideration, Piper expresses the typical Protestant view in condemning just about everything that has a religious import, though I join him in listing reliance on a rabbit's foot or similar token as a sign of a superstitious mindset, that is, one that tacitly presumes there is some force other than God in control of our lives.

The distinction I would make with Piper, however, coming from the Christian tradition of employing images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd or healing the paralytic and the adoration of the Magi and so on  is that such image-making has been examined by the Church several times over the centuries and has been found to be in accord with scripture and the practice from the beginning. Image-making of Christian themes was well established by the time of the iconoclastic outburst around Spain's Synod of Elvira (AD 305–306). 

Among its array of housekeeping admonitions, the synod produced Canon 36, which states, "It has seemed good that images should not be in churches so that what is venerated and worshiped not be painted on the walls." Scholars within and outside the Church sees this stance as finely nuanced:

Canon 36 was a compromise solution in its silence on the subject of private Christian art. Never adopted outside of Spain (although many other canons of the Synod of Elvira were), Canon 36 is tacit evidence of a significant point of transition in the development of a distinctly Christian artistic culture, one that was leaving the venerable Judaic precedent of the Second Commandment behind as the Church cautiously accepted its increasingly mainstream status and the powerful socio-political dynamic that was a part of this. (Source: here and here)

Protestant angst over the use of Christian imagery expresses apprehension that tends toward aggression because of a deeper anxiety over being in a generally heretical state vis a vis the historic, that is, the apostolic Church. 

Ignorance is rife among Protestants because of lack of knowledge of Church history, about what the historic Church taught before Luther concerning the use of symbols, including images and statues, in cultivating one's relationship with God. However, in practice, there is a similarity of language as to how Protestants describe persons of holy importance ‒ for Catholics, read saints ‒ and in describing actions of holy service or objects used in that service.

John Piper abhors, for example, turning to a picture of a saint "for some special protection, or blessing, or guidance..." but the controlling component of his denunciation undermines the Protestant je ne servirai pas at the Christian tradition when he concludes his definition by stating "... that we don’t think we could get by just looking to God". For Catholics, I repeat, the holy picture or statue points to God, is a reminder of God in our midst, that by God's grace we can live as the saints did before us, and that the mystical body of Christ is as real as anything in the material world around us. The statue or picture or crucifix is a visual stepping stone to a closer reliance on God's power and it's a portal in his love. In the same way, Christians generally delight in having around their home scripture verses or or post uplifting graphics on Facebook, such as this one:

But there lies the Protestant confusion: They turn to writers, to preachers, to pastoral leaders for protection, blessing, guidance and help, but they won't let Catholics do the same just because the persons the Catholic appeals to is dead, where a devotional picture or statue is the stand-in for the admired saint. Protestants spread prayer requests to all and sundry as a way to appeal to God for help for a particular need. But they don't respect the Catholic practice of asking saints who are face-to-face with God to intercede in like manner. Key to the Protestant confusion is their rejection of the constant Christian practice of asking the dead to intercede before God : 

With the exception of a few early Protestant churches, most modern Protestant churches strongly reject the intercession of the dead for the living. (Source) 

This is in the face of the Church's tradition, based on its teaching authority in interpreting scripture :

The intercession of the saints: "Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness. . . . They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus . . . . So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped." (Catechism of the Catholic Church #956)

An additional comment might be relevant here:

In ecumenical conversations agreement has been reached that "asking the saints to intercede for us expresses the solidarity of the church wherein all are meant to be of mutual support to one another. Analogous to what is done among living persons, the request directed toward a saint to pray for us is a precise expression of solidarity in Jesus Christ, through the ages and across various modes of human existence." (Fiorenza)

Of note is how similar is the language that both Protestants and Catholics use in describing the work of certain individuals in Christian service. One hears of the living and the dead that such and such a person is powerful in prayer, that they have the gift of healing, that they can help in untying any knot in life. For a Catholic the tradition has meant some of the language is abbreviated because of a common understanding of what is being spoken of. It is simply understood that the saints help us by God's power. Miracles still happen.

For example, St Anthony of Padua is the one to go to if something has been lost,  St Joseph of Cupertino is the patron saint of taking tests and of students, and St Teresa of Avila is patron saint of those who suffer headaches and migraines. In this note that in calling on Teresa in the midst of a migraine attack, for example, the sufferer is calling on Teresa to pray to Jesus whose divine power is being invoked.

A student of the Bible will read such statements as: "Elisha promised [the kind woman of Shumen] that she would hold her own son within a year...". When the woman's son died - "Elisha sent [his servant] on a nonstop journey to Shumen with instructions to lay his staff across the boy's face", suggesting an expectation that his staff would serve as an instrument of God's power in reviving the boy. Later, the same text reports: "Elisha enjoyed friendship with the Shummanite woman whose son he had raised from the dead". This is normal, everyday language for a believer who knows that behind the agency of the human actor in God's service is the divine power of  Father, Son and Spirit. And so, in typical Sunday School parlance, "Elisha" is the answer to the question of who healed Naaman.

Elisha also provides an example, along with his staff, of God using secondary causes in achieving outcomes divinely willed. Take this instance, and note the language: "Elisha died and was buried. A man's body that was thrown [by panicked pall-bearers] into Elisha's tomb touched his bones and miraculously sprang to life. In life and death, God's power actively flowed through Elisha." This is from Bible Study Fellowship material.

Briefly, the matter of Catholics giving credence to the use of relics of saints to effect healing of a spiritual or physical nature, or the use of water from a pilgrimage site such as Lourdes, hinges once again on God's respect for the material. So in Acts 19:11-12 we have it that: 

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

As for Peter and the Apostles:

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. [...] Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord—crowds of both men and women. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed. (Acts 5: 12-16)

I hope these thoughts support a greater understanding of God's way of leading us to himself through the agency of those he calls for special service, both living and dead.

Ω For a fuller exposition on this subject, especially about how Catholics are not afraid to participate within the material world that Jesus was willing to be born into, go to this resource.

Ω See this account of a miracle arising from the intercession of St John Henry Newman.

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