You were an Army chaplain? Does one gun's being bigger than another mean it can do anything and everything?
Knowing more than you doesn't mean knowing everything. This is a logical error. That they know they're being prayed to doesn't mean they know everything.
Similarly if A is stronger than B we cannot conclude that A is omnipotent.
Consequently praying to the saints neither implies or requires a belief that they are omnipotent, just that they can do stuff I can't do. And that stuff is a gift from God.
Also, check out Augustine on time and eternity for help on how they "process" a gazillion prayers coming at them at once.
20+ years and a retireee.
It might surprise you that all chaplains are not Roman Catholic.
AND it might surprise you that every chaplain was required to faithfully represent their own denomination, while willingly COORDINATING religious support for those not of their own denomination. (In other words, I'd get with my buddy the priest to handle catholic issues that came up. He'd get with me to handle protestant issues that came up...and especially methodist ones.)
I think your logic is divorced from the reality of what hearing thousands/millions of prayers entails.
If I talk to you, and you’re 2 thousand miles away, and you hear it, then you’ve got some really cool power going on.
And if a million of us talk to you, and you’re dead and gone to your reward, then you’ve got some really god-like power going on.
I have no problem with someone saying, “I pray to the Lord to let my grandpa know I love him, and to ask him to keep praying for me.”
The omniscient one doing the receiving is the Lord, and the distribution of knowledge is from the Lord outward.