Asking the Saints to pray for us

On earth the prayers of holy people, who live close to God, are more effective than the prayers of other people because holy people know him and what he wants so much better.  As St James tells us in the New Testament, “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (NRSV, James 5:16).  That is why, if we were in some trouble, we would rather have a holy person to pray for us than someone who had little to do with God.  Now, the most holy of all are the Saints in Heaven, and so their prayers are the most effective.  They know God better than anyone here on earth, because they see him face to face and live with him all the time.  There is no risk that they will ask for wrong things because God and themselves are of one mind.

The early Christians

The early Christians began to pray to the Saints during the persecutions of the 3rd century.  It was then that so many of them showed their love for Jesus by joyfully suffering and dying as martyrs for his sake.  And the Christians had no doubt at all that, when their martyrdom was over, these heroic and saintly souls had gone at once to live with Jesus in Heaven.  And they also had no doubt that the martyrs prayed in Heaven for those whom they had left behind on earth to carry on the struggle (cf 2 Maccabees 15:12-16, written in the 2nd century BC).  So the Christians turned to them with confidence and asked them for their prayers.  When the persecutions were over in the 4th century, they prayed to other saints besides the martyrs.  Thus by prayer the Church on earth was kept in close fellowship with the Church in Heaven.