Prayer to a saint is a prayer to God. It is true that if one says "Nah, I will not pray to God either directly or through Mary today; I'll pray to Mary as Mary instead", then he sins. But if one chooses to pray to Mary (or a saint) because he is specifically moved to do so, and asks for their intercession, nothing is taken away from God by that. There are verses that seem to suggest that a prayer of a saint is more efficacious than a prayer of a sinful man ("the continual prayer of a just man availeth much", James 5:16). At any rate, intercessory prayer is just another form of worshiping God, by Whose sovereign grace the saints were elected, and for Whose sovereign grace we plea.
A good example of intercessory prayer is the miracle at Cana where the servant addresses Mary and she intercedes for him with Christ. Another is when the centurion intercedes for his sick daughter. It is possible to interpret either so that to point out differences between them and intercessory prayers to saints, but that would be one interpretation among many.
In 2 Corinthians St. Paul says that we are in the body and away from the Lord, and that we'd rather be out of the body and in the Lord. Nowhere in the passage is an intermediary state excluded.
Are you familiar with the parable of an unmerciful debtor? His debts are forgiven because of his plea for mercy and he is released from slavery. That is salvation by faith granted by Christ. Next, through his own lack of mercy he is condemned again. But the second time he is condemned till his debt is paid in full. His family is not condemned the second time (naturally, they took advantage of the loan but did not participate in the harsh treatment of the secodnary debtor). Thus, the second condemnation is temporary and does not negate the absolute pardon received initially. The second condemnation is to prison, which suggests lack of will, i.e. death. This parable described the intermediate state of payment of debt, or purification, which the Catholics (but not the Orthodox) call purgatory.
The orthodox beliefs differ somewhat, but East and West agree that the beatific vision of the justified may not be immediately available to those who die in faith yet not sactified in the course of their lives.
OK, this is a new idea for me. First, I am never one to throw cold water on being "moved to do" something, it happens to all of us, all the time. Whenever I think of "moved to do", I think of moved by God. If I was only moved by my free will personal choice, independent of God, then it certainly would be subject to being sin, yes? Does God move people to pray to not Him, but rather to a dead person for intercession between the one who is praying and God? I can't get passed this. Why would God reroute a prayer He deserves? We both know He can handle the volume. :)
At any rate, intercessory prayer is just another form of worshiping God, by Whose sovereign grace the saints were elected, and for Whose sovereign grace we plea.
A good example of intercessory prayer is the miracle at Cana where the servant addresses Mary and she intercedes for him with Christ.
I see these two ideas as potentially conflicting with one another. When I think of a "prayer", I generally think of two kinds. One is a worship-type prayer, with worship, praise, confession, supplication, etc. The other is a type of prayer one might hear in a courtroom: "I pray the court will take judicial notice of such and such". The latter is simply a fancy way of making a request.
Your first example is identified as being an intercessory worshiping prayer. However, the second does not appear to be so both because it is not even clear that Mary fully knew the divinity of Jesus at that time because of her language, and also that it may not have been an intercession by Mary at all.
The only knowledge I have of the miracle at Cana is found in John 2. Here it is:
John 2:1-9a : "1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." 4 "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied, "My time has not yet come." 5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew...."
From my NIV, we see no evidence that anyone approached Mary about the wine problem and that she interceded. Further, Mary only says: "They have no more wine.". Nothing else to Jesus. Is this an intercessory prayer?
Back to Mary's state of mind, since this was the first miracle of Jesus, did Mary really think Jesus was going to snap His fingers and magically produce more wine? Or, did Mary perhaps believe that in all His wisdom, Jesus could procure more wine through conventional means? As far as we know for sure, Mary had never seen Jesus perform a miracle along the lines of altering matter. It seems an odd place to expect to see it for the first time.
Maybe I could understand better if I knew what a typical intercessory prayer looked like. Of keen interest to me is how it ends. My prayers always end along the lines of "...and in Jesus' name I pray, Amen". Is there a Church-decreed structural difference along this line in how you pray to a saint and how you pray to God directly?
Are you familiar with the parable of an unmerciful debtor? His debts are forgiven because of his plea for mercy and he is released from slavery. That is salvation by faith granted by Christ. Next, through his own lack of mercy he is condemned again. But the second time he is condemned till his debt is paid in full. ... Thus, the second condemnation is temporary and does not negate the absolute pardon received initially. The second condemnation is to prison, which suggests lack of will, i.e. death. This parable described the intermediate state of payment of debt, or purification, which the Catholics (but not the Orthodox) call purgatory.
I am familiar with it, but until you brought it up I never would have thought this was a basis for the idea of purgatory. (All that means is that I don't know much about purgatory :) Sorry for the length, but here is the passage:
Matt. 18:23-35 : 23 "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 "The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27 The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. 29 "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' 30 "But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
I read this as God imposing upon us the importance of our forgiving the sins of others against us. Everything in the Lord's prayer is actually very important, etc. The whole thing was Jesus' answer to Peter's question of how often should he forgive. I don't see how a purgatory extension is reasonably drawn here.
To address your analysis, how do you get salvation from a guy begging for the lives of himself and his family to avoid all of them being sold into (further?) slavery? All he said was "please, give me a break." He didn't show any sort of faith, how is this salvation?
The other thing is, why do you think the second condemnation was only temporary? He was thrown in prison to be tortured until his debts were paid, right? How many debts is he going to be able to pay while being tortured in prison? It seems to me like this was more of a permanent condemnation, and that this guy was never getting out. Jesus says this is the fate of anyone who does not forgive his brother. All the better to make the point to us, etc.