What an excellent point!
When God works a miracle through the intercessionary prayers of a recently pass-away saintly person, that is the signal that God is telling His Church that "the prayers of a righteous man are powerful".
Who decides who gets to heaven, purgatory or where ever, God? the Pope? the Church? a lottery? or the person them self?
God, which is why we don't presume to claim we are on the "elect" list. Those who claim to be already going to heaven are presumptuous and taking away from God's freedom.
If God decides, then how does any one know if Mary or the saint or the dead person they are praying to for intercession actually made it to heaven to pass the request on?
Scripture and Apostolic Tradition tells us that the saints in heaven continue to intercede for those who continue the fight. The saints are perfect in love. The definition of love is to wish the best for another person for their own sake. This is best acted upon by the saints in heaven through their prayers to the Almighty for our sake.
Seems to me, one would pray to the One you know with certainty is able to do something about the prayer rather than just playing the odds and hoping the intercessor made it.
God enjoys answering the prayers of His beloved creation, especially the ones who have given everything He has given them back to God. I picture God as a loving Father and a little boy together in the garage, the little boy "changing the oil" in the car while the Father looks on, relishing the presence of His beloved. This is how Catholics look upon "Abba".
Regards
Well, it you were to take it as a gambling game, I think St. Mary would be a pretty safe bet. If you were a real cautious bettor, you could stick with her. Some may feel the Apostles are a good risk. But pretty soon the gambling metaphor becomes a bit.. odd?
I believe the Church's position is that a great many more Saints exist in Heaven than are recognized by the Church - a great great many more.
As far as those closer to us personally, family and friends, I can only speak for myself as I did above.
thanks for your post..
Who decides who gets to heaven, purgatory or where ever, God? the Pope? the Church? a lottery? or the person them self?
Jo gave you an answer as well, so I'll try to elaborate in another direction.
We only know in the case of canonized saints because the Church, after rigorous examination of the record of their lives and the miracles they performed after death, guided by the Holy Ghost, reveals their status to us. About others, we are asked to hope and pray. It is, of course, Christ who decides in His sovereign particular judgement.
The Church teaches that one can pray for the soul of anyone dead, but the prayer is efficacious only is the person is in purgatory, where our prayer works to speed (*) his release. If he is is hell, our prayer cannot remove him, and if he is in heaven, there is nothing better for him that our prayers could add. Likewise, one can pray for the intercession of anyone, but the prayer is only efficacious if the person whose intercession is asked is in heaven, and we only know with certainty that the saints are in heaven.
Connected to this is the issue of the theological virtue of hope (1 Corinthians 13:13, 1 Thesssalonians 5:8, Ephesians 1:18). On the two sides of hope are the sin of presumption of one's eventual salvation (Luke 18:10-14) and the sin of despair of it (Matthew 27:3-5). It is not a healthy preoccupation to seek a sense of certainty about the condition of the soul of most departed, and the Church canonizes saints not in order to keep inventory of the saved souls, but to nurture hope.
(*) "Speed" is merely a figure of speech here, as following death the soul exits the temporal realm and so the measure of time cannot be meaningfully applied to the process of purification.