I'm Southern Baptist..here's my take... [snip] The Saints who have passed aren't dead. [snip] Scripture is very supportive of enlisting others to prayer. "where two or more are gathered.." And that's what I understand Roman Catholic theology is basically advocating. [snip] Or to enlist the help of living saints, rather than enlist the help of past saints which may or may not be able to hear or which might be inundated.
Apologies for the snipping but I wanted to trim down your comment. To answer your question, I am going to refer to a fairly recent event (2001-2006) that occurred with a Baptist man, like yourself. This is from the mainstream media, link posted below for the full text:
Phil McCord was not a religious man.
So it was strange when the Baptist caretaker who called himself a “man of science” entered an empty Catholic church one fateful January day in 2001 and offered up an urgent prayer.
“God, you’ve probably heard about my eye problems,” McCord began. His cornea was dying in his right eye, leaving him legally blind. He faced a risky and possibly disfiguring surgery. He had nowhere else to turn. And that’s when he mentioned her — the pilgrim who had established the church where he worked. The nun who had been dead for over a hundred years. And the woman who was in the early stages of canonization.
“Well, Mother Theodore, this is your house. And I am your servant,” he said. “If you have God’s ear. I would appreciate it.”
When he awoke the next morning, he found that the redness in his right eyelid had all but disappeared. His eye no longer drooped. He could see. “Is this real?” he asked himself. After 83 days of nonstop misery, he was finally feeling better.
It was miraculous, McCord thought — and the Vatican agreed, pinning Mother Theodore’s bid for sainthood on this “miracle,” thereby making her only the eighth American to become a Roman Catholic saint. FULL TEXT
BTW, Phil McCord was present at the canonization of Mother Theodore at the Vatican. He has remained Baptist and his story has since been written in a book:
, available through Amazon.com.
So, Danny, you have understood how "prayer" works, albeit when we call upon our friends who are already in the presence of God.