[visually_augmented]

Mad: “With respect to asking for intercession, whether the person asked is on earth or in heaven is not to the point.”

I must disagree with your contention. The primary point I am making is not whether we should ask for intercession, but to whom we ask. That seems to me the fundamental question we must resolve. The point of WHETHER we should ask for intercessory prayer seems to be universally accepted.

The bigger question is to whom we should ask for intercession. If I were to ask a known satan worshipper to pray for me, I would get a significantly different outcome than asking my pastor to pray for me.

I disagree with most of the posts here that claim “prayers” to saints are not really “prayers” but requests for intercession (its all very semantical and twisted). Paul was not asking the risen saints for prayer in the referenced passage, he was asking for prayers from fellow soujourners in faith - those whose faith could be built up by prayer.

When you truly begin to understand the purpose for prayer, the idea of praying to the saints becomes non-sensical. Prayer is not a means of notifyig God about a problem that needs resolution - do you think God is not aware of your needs or troubles? Prayer is not a conjuring nor tour de force. We are not changing God’s mind when we pray nor are we breaking any news to Him. Prayer is our means for developing a closer relationship to the One we pray. It is also a special means by which God sanctifies us and takes our focus away from ourselves (which we so rarely do otherwise).

[Mad Dawg]

But the answer you quoted to make your contention was given in answer to a question of why ask the saints to pray since one has direct access to God. Since one has direct access to God, why ask anyone to pray for one. The NEXT question(s) could be the one(s) you pose, but they do not address the question to which what you quoted was an answer.

I disagree with most of the posts here that claim “prayers” to saints are not really “prayers” but requests for intercession (its all very semantical and twisted). Paul was not asking the risen saints for prayer in the referenced passage, he was asking for prayers from fellow soujourners in faith - those whose faith could be built up by prayer.I say to you,"Please pray for me." I say to Dominic,"Please pray for me." Both of those are requests for intercession, as far as I can tell. What is it about my addressing the exact same words to Dominic as those I addressed to you that makes them NOT a request for intercession? I get that Dominic has died and you haven't, but I don't see how that changes the content behind the words.

When you truly begin to understand the purpose for prayer, the idea of praying to the saints becomes non-sensical.

Oh. I don't truly understand the purpose of prayer? Interesting. You base this conclusion on my having the effrontery to have an opinion different from yours?

Prayer is not a means of notifying God about a problem that needs resolution - do you think God is not aware of your needs or troubles?
Excuse me, but Duh.

Prayer is not a conjuring nor tour de force.
God forbid! Of course not.

We are not changing God’s mind when we pray nor are we breaking any news to Him.
Duh again.

Prayer is our means for developing a closer relationship to the One we pray. It is also a special means by which God sanctifies us and takes our focus away from ourselves (which we so rarely do otherwise).
AND, drum roll please, one last Duh.

Sorry for the "Duhs," but it's, well, strange to be told by someone I don't know that I when I understand I will agree with him and stop the foolishness I have believed for decades and the Fathers and the Church have believed for centuries, and which such luminaries of Piety as Francis and Dominic taught. And then the person telling me this unleashes some very good but scarcely new statements about Christian prayer as though they were brand new ideas - or ideas that MUST be new at least to me.