I don’t think intercession is, strictly speaking, a necessity. It is, really, the same kind of thing as asking a friend or someone whom respect as a very “spiritual” person to pray for you. I thought of it that way LONG before I became a Catholic and before I ever asked Mary or any other saint to pray for me. In fact I could venture to guess the year. I’d say the fall of 1966.
~”I don’t think intercession is, strictly speaking, a necessity.”~
I think I’m beginning to understand; it just seems foreign to me that a person would feel a desire to approach God through another.
~”It is, really, the same kind of thing as asking a friend or someone whom respect as a very “spiritual” person to pray for you.”~
I see your analogy; but where I find it lacking is that, if I were to ask a friend to pray for me, you’d better bet that I’d be praying for myself too. I would not replace my own prayers to God with my requests to the friend. My understanding, however, is that many Catholics do use this approach. Is my understanding flawed? If not, I suppose it’s just a quirk of Catholicism to be accepted at face value.