More clearly, mediator is the “go-between”, and 1 Tim says what has always been believed and is still believed by all of orthodoxy — that all prayers etc. go through Christ alone. Whether those prayers are by you for me, or vice-versa, or the saints, Mary etc. praying to God for us, it all goes through Christ. He is the one-mediator, connector between God and man.
I don’t have a problem with the notion that Christians in Heaven can pray on our behalf. However, I do have a problem with the practice of speaking with Christians in Heaven and requesting them to pray on our behalf.
When a Catholic says that aren’t praying to a departed saint, but are merely asking that saint to pray for them, the Catholic makes an assumption that humans in Heaven aren’t limited as we are here on Earth. It seems like a huge leap to accept that humans in Heaven are able to communicate with every single person on earth, even simultaneously with multiple people on Earth; they would have to be somewhat omniscient.
Heaven is truly a mystery for us, and while I admit I don’t understand all that Heaven will be like, I don’t see why Catholics are convinced that speaking with people in Heaven is fruitful or appropriate.
“… I certainly would not call you heretics, as our sophists do [a.k.a: “elite educated Catholics”], because you do not honor or call upon the mother of God or any of the saints, but cling alone to the only mediator, Jesus Christ, and are satisfied that in heaven as well as on earth each one is obligated to pray for the other. For there is nothing in the Scriptures about the intercession of dead saints, nor about honoring them and praying to them. And no one can deny that hitherto through services for these saints we have gone so far as to make pure idols out of the mother of God and the saints. We have placed more confidence in them, on account of the services and works which we have done for them, than we have placed in Christ himself, with the result that faith in Christ has perished.” http://tquid.sharpens.org/luther_mary2.htm#VII
Now you're saying that nobody prays to Mary and the saints?
Well, one position is being misrepresented. Either Catholics pray to Christ alone for real, or Catholics pray to Mary and saints to get to Christ to get to God.
The minute someone else is added to the mix, the person is not going through Christ ALONE.