"I was firmly opposed to the idea of addressing prayers to saints, as I believed the dead had better things to do than pray for the living, and I particularly resented the standard, seemingly preprogrammed line that my Catholic friends gave me about it: "Think of it as though you were asking a friend to pray for you...."
I say to anyone who has a problem with the way Catholics deal with the Communion of Saints: read this post by Dawn Eden. She still struggles with the question a bit, but what she writes will help anyone—Catholic or not—better understand how important the Communion of Saints is.
