Please read the prayer again. We are asking St. Paul to pray for us. (intercede for us )(intercession)
Read the introductions to his Letters. In almost everyone of them he prays for them....and then again at the end of the letter.
Please reread what I said. When Paul said he was praying for them, both parties were still on this mortal coil and Paul was praying to God, not to his readers. Do you have evidence that after Paul's earthly death he was going to continue to pray for them? Of course not, Paul was very definitive about the destination (if you will) for prayer. He never claimed the special intercessory power given to him by Catholics. He made the claim that there was ONE intercessor between God and man. Jesus. If the Catholic claim be true, why didn't Paul lay out the process for such effectual prayer? Because prayer (to give glory, to ask for intercession, to ask for forgiveness of sin) rightly belongs to God. This must be another place where what the author has written is ignored for the tradition of the church.
He's dead. Not gonna be praying for ANYONE!