m, as man, to pray. Yet we never ask Christ to pray for us.
Hence it is superfluous to make the Saints our intercessors with God.

But prayer is an act. And acts belong to individual beings.
Consequently, if we were to say, _Christ, pray for us_, we
should appear, unless we added something, to be referring this
to Christ's Person, and thus we might seem to fall into the
error of Nestorius who regarded the Person of the Son of Man as
distinct in Christ from the Person of the Son of God; or
perhaps, too, into the error of Arius who regarded the Person of
the Son as less than the Father. In order, then, to avoid these
errors, the Church does not say, _Christ, pray for us_, but
_Christ, hear us_, or _Christ, have mercy on us_.

4. Once more, when one is asked to intercede for another, he presents
the latter's prayers to him with whom he has to intercede. But it is
superfluous to present anything to Him to Whom all things are present.
Hence it is superfluous to make the Saints our intercessors with God.

But the Saints are not said to present our prayers to God as
though they were manifesting to Him something which He did not
know, but in the sense that they ask that these prayers may be
heard by God, or that they consult the Divine Truth concerning
them, so as to know what, according to His providence, ought to
be done.

5. Lastly, that must be held superfluous which is done for the sake of
something which, whether the former were done or not, would yet take
place--or not take place--all the same. But similarly, the Saints would
pray for us or not pray for us whether we asked them to do so or not.
For if we deserve that they should pray for us, they would pray for us,
even though we did not ask them to do so; if, on the other hand, we are
not deserving that they should pray for us, then they do not pray for
us--even though we ask them to do so. Hence to ask them to pray for us
seems altogether superfluous.

But a man becomes deserving that some Saint should pray for him
from the very fact that with pure-hearted devotion he has
recourse to him in his needs. Hence it is not superfluous to
pray to the Saints.

III

Are the Saints' Prayers to God for us always heard?

In 2 Maccabees xv. 14 it is said: _This is he that prayeth much for the
people, and for all the Holy City, Jeremias the prophet of God_; and
that his prayer was heard is ev