(Work in Progress)

Short Answer:

God desires all men and women to be saved, and the saints’ wills are perfectly united with God’s in heaven, ergo, they desire all men to be saved. They help accomplish this by bringing our petitions to God the same way as if you asked a friend or family member to bring your petitions to God.

Long Answer:

Catholics are well known for praying to saints. So much so, in fact, that I would say (besides the Papacy) it’s probably one of the most notable differences between the majority of Protestants and Catholics today. Catholics name cities, churches, and even themselves (in the sacrament of Confirmation) after saints, and profess to have a “relationship” with saints that they are particularly drawn to, but why? Us Catholics have been accused of idolatry time and time again since the Reformation because of this practice, so I want to offer the reason why it’s actually biblical to pray to the saints, but also why it’s logical and beneficial to do so as well.

To begin, I want to underscore the fact that almost no Christian anywhere would object to asking someone else to pray for them to God. If I’m going through a rough patch in life, and I ask my friend Sam to pray for me, no Christian would point a finger and yell, “idolater!” Why? Because it’s biblical. James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, writes to Christians, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (Jas. 5:16). James exhorts Christians to pray for each other and tells that the prayer of a righteous person has great power to channel, in a way, God’s grace! Christians from biblical times up until now have always trusted that their friend’s prayers will have a real effect on their lives (if it be in accord with God’s will). Why is this? It comes down to the specification James makes about a just person. A just person participates in the justice of God, in the will of God. One of the greatest models of this is St. Joseph, who is called a “just man” in Scripture (Matt. 1:19). Joseph was called so because of his obedience to God; Joseph didn’t hesitated to unquestioningly do God’s will, and is therefore deemed “just” by the Biblical writers. His will was one with God’s. In the same way, the prayers of a just person are efficacious in our lives because their will is closely united with God’s, and the just person “seeks first the kingdom of God” (Matt. 6:33). It seems then that nearness and likeness to God is what gives a person’s prayer its power, in that if the person’s will is conformed to God’s will, their prayer will thus be in accord with God’s will.

One could only struggle with the idea of asking for the saints’ intercession then if the saints are somehow not united to God or to us. Either they don’t see us or they don’t see God, making them a sort of dead-end. As to whether or not the saints are united to God, Jesus has actually responded to this question in His own words in Matthew’s Gospel. The Sadducees, a sect of Jews who don’t believe in the Resurrection, try to corner Jesus in His preaching on the Resurrection to which Jesus tells them:

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. (Matt. 22:31-32)

Despite Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob being dead for hundreds of years by the time Jesus became man, Jesus asserts that they are living. He doesn’t say, “they will live,” or “will live at the end of time,” or “when God was telling Abraham to circumcise himself, they were living, but not anymore;” Jesus is asserting that even though those patriarchs died and their souls were separated from their earthly bodies, they were alive in spirit when Moses was addressed by God and are still living while Jesus addresses the Sadducees! Those who are “alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5) are, even more alive than we are, as they share to their full capacity in God’s divine life. Again, Jesus illustrates this in His own words (some of His last words, actually) when He tells the ‘Good Thief’ on the cross, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise,” (Luke 23:43). Paul echoes this understanding that those who die in a state of grace will be united to God when he says “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better,” (Phil. 1:23). It is clear that both Old Testament and New Testament saints are united alive with God, as will we be when, God willing, we depart from this life. I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that somehow saints aren’t right now and forever enjoying perfect communion with God.

As to the issue of whether saints are aware of us, though, I would say that the Biblical evidence is also very clear on this, as well. As the apostle John tells us in his mystical vision of heaven: “…the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which were the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8). Again, three chapters later he says again, 

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much intense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. (Rev. 8:3-4)

Here, we see both the twenty-four elders and the angels handling the incense that are “the prayers of the saints.” Another place this imagery is found in Scripture is in the Psalms, when David extolls God, “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you…” (Psalm 141:2). David helps us realize that the imagery of prayer as incense can be representative of the saints on earth, even if we don’t often use the word this way today. This is an important reference text because it’s possible for someone without this prior biblical context to read “saints” (also translated as “holy ones”) as referring to the saints already in heaven, who are offering the prayers… but frankly that would be retrofitting a more modern usage of the term to the biblical one. Even more clearly, Saint Paul commonly uses the term to refer to members of the Church on earth (c.f. Rom. 15:25, 2 Cor. 1:1, Eph. 3:8, etc.). Even if the biblical evidence was not as strong as it is, it’s important to ask: would those already in heaven need to offer prayers? They already have the “fulfillment of all desire,” what could be left for them to pray for? Nothing. In that case, it can’t be prayers for themselves that they are offering. Understanding that it isn’t the saints in heaven who need prayers, we can see that it is the prayers of the earthly saints that are the incense described in Psalm 141 and Revelation, while it is being offered by… who else but the elders and the angels! Although it is not clear who the elders are (though I’m sure some educated guesses could be and have been made), it is obvious that they are not angels (since that is already referring to someone else), and it should be even more obvious that they are not any sort of enemy of God (demons or human souls in Hell) since they are enjoying the presence of God; this leaves us with only the possibility that they are those who are “alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). Further, it’s also scripturally apparent that the saints are aware of what happens on earth, even without our prayers. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus illustrates what happens in heaven at the repentance of a sinner:

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance… Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. (Luke 15:7, 10)

If the biblical evidence weren’t clear enough, we can turn to the first Christians to see how they understood prayer to the saints and whether or not they participated in it.

Not only this, but if the saints in heaven are “refined, purified, made white,” because “nothing unclean will ever enter it,” and the prayers from righteous people have “great power,” how much more powerful will those prayers be that the saints in heaven assist us with because of their pureness of soul (Dan. 11:35; Rev. 21:27; Jas. 5:16)!