Praying Means beseeching. One means to God . The other is asking or beseeching a person( a king, Queen or person).
When Catholics say pray to a saint it is a beseeching. Asking for pray. St Jude pray for us.
First a definition: "To pray," as a verb, has two very distinct meanings:
1 : to make a request in a humble manner
2 : to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving
It is only in this first sense that Catholics "pray" to saints. "To pray" is simply to ask, and it is a common English word as these examples will show: "Comes now Petitioner and, having filed his Motion in Limine, prays this Honorable Court to grant..." or "I pray thee, sir, might I borrow your book?". In the first instance, the Petitioner is not worshipping the Court. In the second, the potentia book-borrower is not worshipping the book owner.
http://www.fisheaters.com/saints.html
Here is what is so aggravating about your response. I have ASKED many Catholics about this - point blank - and they never uttered one word of this. In fact, when my beloved mother-in-law was alive, we had lost our camera. She told me in NO uncertain terms that she was going to pray TO St. Anthony to find our camera. I was adamant that she just go right to the Lord. Finally, I posed the following to her:
I said that I knew God was omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent and, therefore, could hear the prayers of the entire world and be right with each individual as they prayed. I also said that I didn’t believe St. Anthony was ANY of those things, so I asked when all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people all over who decide to pray to St. Anthony at the same time, how on Earth did he HEAR those? Her response to me: “Oh, you’re too practical!” LOL. She was hilarious. Boy do I miss her lots.
I’m not saying you are wrong at all. I’m just saying that you are completely naive if you think that people even know the word beseech, much less that when they tell me they are praying TO someone, that this is what they mean. It doesn’t and I have had them argue with me about it.
Meanwhile, I appreciate you telling me all of this.