Centuri0n,
Not liking to reinvent the wheel, I hope you will not be offended if I use posts I made a few years ago in response to a similar question on the StudyBibleForum, a Protestant site of the publishers of the NASB, even though they do address the specific verse you mention.
You ask: “am I wrong in thinking that you pray to Mary …?”
Catholics pray “to” Mary and the saints only in the same sense that we would ask a friend or family member to pray for us or with us about any matter. Catholics believe in the “communion of saints.” That is we believe that God is the God of the living (Matt 22:32), and that all those who are in Christ are alive in him even after physical death. In a sense after they die they are with Him in an even deeper and intimate sense than we are here on earth. But still Jesus, is the vine and we are all the branches on earth heaven that trust in Him and obey (John 15:1-10).
St. Paul in his epistles often asks for the prayers of his congregations and assures them of his prayers for them. He also speaks of being physically absent from them but with them in the spirit (1 Cor. 5:3, Col. 2:5). Although he was alive on the earth at the time he wrote, the same principle applies after death if God is the God of the living, not of the dead. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are dead in the physical sense, but counted among the living by Jesus in Matt 22:32. And so to live in Christ is to transcend the separation of death by faith, hope and charity (1 Cor. 13:13).
In the Book of Revelation we see the Church in heaven praising God (Rev 4) and praying before God for the Church on earth (Rev 6:9-11 and 7:9-8:5).
See also Hebrews 11 especially 11:40 through 12-4 that speaks of how those who have gone before us are bound together with us in salvation and are a great cloud of witnesses as we continue in our struggle against sin. So we ask them to pray with us and for us before the throne of God, starting with Mary, God’s own chosen vessel, and all the saints throughout the ages as well as those struggling here with us.
So the answer depends on what you mean when you say pray “to” Mary. It is more like asking Mary or the saints to pray with me in Jesus. We are united in Him as the body of Christ whether in the flesh or in the spirit. “What can separate from the love of God…” Romans 5:35
We do pray “to” Mary in the old sense of the word in this case. Such as Elizabethean english, i.e. “I pray you Sir, hear me out and join me in prayer to the Lord on this matter.” It is a pleading to the person of dignity being addressed. In the case of the Hail Mary the prayer says “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus! Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” You see that we are first “praying the scriptures” Luke 1:28, 42, 48, 43, and then we are asking Mary to pray for us to the Lord even as I might ask you to do the same. For “the prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James 5:16. I might add that Catholics are not required to pray to Mary. But then we are not required to ask anyone else to pray with or for us either. It is simply the natural and scriptural thing to do. Family members and friend pray with and for one another. We are the family of God.
