Leaning on the Saints

I have to travel to the mid West tomorrow to lend a hand with my family. I will be calling on St. Joseph to lend a hand with my travels, as he is a good patron saint of travel having managed to get the Holy Family safely to Egypt...on a donkey, no less. Although I wonder if they actually had a donkey. They may have just walked the whole way. No one was around with a camcorder to record the trek.

Anyhow, I won't be calling on St. Joseph out loud, unless there is a lot of turbulence, which brings me to today's question:
An anonomous person asked this: Can saints hear my prayers if I pray silently? I know God can, but can the saints? I was wondering about it too. I am leaning toward yes but I am not completely sure about that. What do you think? If you can get around to answering the question.

That person was not anonymous to the saints, ironically.

Lean all the way over to yes. I'll give you a shove if need be. If you pray silently for the saints intercession, the saints hear you.

We don't know how it works, but we know it does work. For one thing, praying for the intercession of a saint is how a person becomes a saint in the first place. I'm sure all the people who prayed for the intercession of Mother Teresa didn't stand on the corner hollering up to her. But prayers were indeed heard, as Mother Teresa is now "Blessed Mother Teresa."

Think of it this way. Mother Teresa has no ears. She left her ears here when she died. She'll get them back eventually, but she doesn't need them now. She won't need them later either, she'll just have them anyhow. So you wouldn't need to talk out loud to a person who didn't have any eardrums for the sound to bounce off.

And yet somehow, Mother Teresa "heard" the prayers of a woman who needed to be cured (I think she had a tumor or something) and Mother Teresa asked Jesus if He could help out and Jesus said, "Mother Teresa, you were so fantastic down there yourself, in the face of tremendous sorrow and suffering and despite all the nasty things Christopher Hitchens said about you. I'd be happy to do just about anything you ask me to do."

Blammo! Tumor gone. (A miracle has to be instantaneous.)

Perhaps you've heard of Danny Thomas? You wouldn't have if St. Jude wasn't able to hear him. Mr. Thomas was a struggling comedian with a family. He was just about to give up his dream of a life in showbiz when he stumbled into to St. Jude's Church and asked St. Jude to help him decide what was the right path. Mr. Thomas was ready to go sell shoes based on St. Jude's answer. The next time Mr. Thomas went onto the stage he was a huge hit and the rest is history. That's why Mr. Thomas started his giant children's hospital: to say thank you to St. Jude.

I have to believe that Danny Thomas didn't stand in the middle of St. Jude's Church and pray out loud to be a successful stand up comedian and start a television empire. What dirty looks the old ladies would have shot him if they had gotten wind of that! But we can tell that St. Jude, who has no ears, either, heard Danny Thomas.

So there you go. As I said, we don't know how it works. We Catholics have a saying for these kind of questions: "It's a Sacred Mystery." "Sacred Mystery" is "Catholic" for "let it go."