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C. Whether, Knowing our Prayers, the Blessed Pray for us
176. About the third article [n.168] I say it seems doubtful, because if it is revealed to them that such and such a person is seeking salvation through them, or anything pertaining to salvation, then either they see that God wills such a person to be saved or wills against it or non-wills;24 if God wills it, then they know such a one will be saved, so they pray in vain; if God wills against it, they won’t pray for anything willed against by God; if God non-wills, they know it would not happen, so they would pray in vain.
I reply: the statement ‘the blessed pray for someone’ can be understood either of habitual prayer or of actual prayer (and we are speaking here only of mental prayer, which is desire offered to God with the intention that it be held as accepted by him). If of habitual prayer, this is perpetual and general for all the elect (but about this there is no difficulty); if of actual prayer, some saint has this prayer specifically when it is revealed to him that someone is invoking him, because it is reasonable that he should want his merits to avail the latter for salvation when he specifically invokes God to help this latter through his merits.
177. Now this prayer is not repugnant to beatitude, because someone who has attained supreme perfection can very well wish that, through his own merits whereby he has attained that perfection, another should attain it by his prayer, so that his merits should be proper not only to himself alone but should, by the benevolence of God’s acceptance, avail for another. Just like someone who has attained by his services the supreme degree in friendship of a king could want to pray for others, not so that through that prayer he may attain a greater degree of friendship [sc. for himself], but so that the merits by which he attains such degree may be of aid to others, who have recourse to those merits - and this, on the supposition of his liberality, namely the king’s, in accepting them, not only for him but (by the king’s liberality) for others, whereby for a lesser good he returns not only a greater good but also more goods, provided however that, by a new act of will, many apply this good to themselves and, as it were, make it their own.
178. When therefore you argue “the blessed see that God either wills or non-wills or wills against” [n.176], I reply: it is not necessary to grant any of these options - not, surely, as to the final salvation of him who prays, but not even as to the hearing of the prayer that he now prays. For this does not follow: God reveals to Peter that John is now asking for a through the merits of Peter, therefore it is revealed to Peter that John is to be saved or not to be saved; nor does this follow: therefore it is revealed that John is to be heard or not to be heard in this petition. However let it be that it were revealed to him that this person is to be heard or not heard in this petition; it does not follow that therefore he prays in vain, because just as God wants to save him, or hear him, so he wants to achieve this through determinate means (namely through the prayer of such a blessed). But if it be revealed to Peter determinately that God wills against hearing this prayer, Peter would not be a mediator for John in praying; but if it not be revealed to Peter that God wills nor revealed that he wills against, Peter prays expecting that a determinate revelation of his being heard would follow his prayer, or at least a determinate effect of his being heard as to his own asking.