Prayer to Mary and the Saints

Catholics pray "to" Mary and the saints only in the same sense that we would ask a friend or family member to prayer for us or with us about any matter. Catholics believe in the "communion of saints." That is we believe that God is the God of the living (Matt 22:32), and that all those who are in Christ are alive in him even after physical death. In a sense after they die they are with Him in an even more real and intimate sense than we are here on earth. But still Jesus, the Everliving Man, is the vine and we are all the branches on earth and those in heaven that trust in Him and obey (John 15:1-10).

St. Paul in his epistles often asks for the prayers of his congregations and assures them of his prayers for them. He also speaks of being physically absent from them but with them in the spirit (1 Cor. 5:3, Col. 2:5). Although he was alive on the earth at the time he wrote, the same principle applies after death if God is the God of the living, not of the dead. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are dead in the physical sense, but counted among the living by Jesus in Matt 22:32. And so to live in Christ is to transcend the separation of death by faith hope and charity (1 Cor. 13:13).

In the Book of Revelation we see the Church in heaven praising God (Revelation chapters 4 through 8) and praying before God for the Church on earth. See especially Rev. 5: 8 and 8: 3-4.

See also Hebrews 11 especially 11:40 through 12-4 that speaks of how those who have gone before us are bound together with us in salvation and are a great cloud of witnesses as we continue in our struggle against sin. So we ask them to pray with us and for us before the throne of God, starting with Mary, God's own chosen vessel, and all the saints throughout the ages as well as those struggling here with us.

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