Do do not misrepresent what I said, for those passages do not confirm your point. How can you ask the dead in Christ to pray for you? Do you see them in person, or call them on the phone/text/email?
The texts say to pray for, not pray to. While those in Heaven are present with the Lord, they are absent from their earthly bodies. Can they hear you with out you praying to them?
Why pray to Mary, a created being, for her help, when you can pray directly to the Father? Is your faith so weak that you do not believe that God will hear you if you don’t ask Mary first? We need only one Intercessor and one Advocate to God, which is Jesus Christ, our Lord. Or do you believe that Christ is so distant that you need a patron to pray for you to get His attention? Is that distant God we serve? Or is Jesus omnipresent?
Do you see Paul, or Peter, or any of the other NT writers asking the dead in Christ to pray for them? No, you see only them ask only those who were living? Do you see them telling people to pray to the dead in Christ to aid their prayers? No.
In fact, talking to the dead was a violation of the OT law. When the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:3–25) conjured up Samuel, was he dead, or living? Do you think that Samuel was not one of God’s elect? And was it not considered wrong for Saul to consult Samuel in this matter?
Again forgot to include you. Sorry again.
Hint: We’re under the New Covenant.
What means “dead”?
Were Moses and Elijah “dead” when they appeared with Christ in front of Peter?
Those passages very much confirm my point.