Prayer difference between angels and saints

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Is there any difference in directing a petitionary prayer to a saint or an angel? Do they both simply direct your request to God or do they have power to act unilaterally intervening in the physical world?
 
In general, they will direct most requests to God in the same way as a saint does.

However, we pray to certain angels for protection. We routinely pray to our Guardian Angel to watch over us and protect us, because God has tasked that angel to do this for us, so we are just asking the angel to do what God has already assigned them to do. We also pray to St. Michael the Archangel to “defend us in battle” against the Devil, because again this is what God has tasked St. Michael to do, be the chief defender against Satan.

We do not pray to angels to intervene in other ways, and there has been in past centuries some concern by the Church that people were getting too into “angel worship” which caused the Magisterium to occasionally prohibit or limit some of the prayer practices concerning angels. It’s important to realize, as with the saints, that any power the angels have is coming from God and He is who gets worshipped. Angels don’t have powers on their own and they should never be worshipped.
 
Thanks for you reply. There seems to be something contradictory. You say God has tasked angels to protect us and later you say angels don’t have power on their own. If they have no power on their own how do they protect us? In other words, if they cannot act unilaterally are they merely supplicants on our behalf to God?
 
I’m thinking that both direct your request to God, but saints, unlike Angels have a different sort of “connection” to your request. Saints were humans once … Angels never were. Particularly if you are asking for intercession before God from a patron saint … for an illness, or disease or difficulty they themselves experienced or suffered with during their own life on earth … a saint’s “connection” upon hearing your request would be different than an Angel … who has never been human (has no body).
 
When God tasks somebody to do something, He gives them the resources, through Himself, to accomplish their mission. God enables them to do what they do. He may give them certain powers to fight or protect but He gives them the power and He could take it away.

If an angel starts trying to use his power on his own without God, then he’s basically Satan. It is also my understanding that angels make a choice to go the good way or the evil way and then are bound to that choice, so once an angel has joined Team God, it will always be doing God’s work with its God-given abilities.
 
Saints and angels have the power to do that which God allows them to do.
 
From your statement it would follow saints and angels have no free will since they cannot do other than “that which God allows them to do”. If that is the case, how did Satan (an angel) have free will to rebel against God?
 
Saints, angels, humans, and demons all have free will and all are limited by what God allows. Basically, God allows what is natural for their state.
 
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