You’re right, I don’t [ask others to pray for me].
I’ll grant you that the
why of why we should ask others to pray for us is a bit tricky. But the
that is pretty well documented in scripture (see, for example, the page I linked on page 1). That is to say, even if we don’t quiet understand how it’s helpful, it’s clear that it is - which is not to say that we shouldn’t ask why, just that not all answers are immediately clear.
I have three thoughts that may be helpful on the ‘why’ side however.
First, look at things from the perspective of the saint. The saints are in heaven, they are united with God. They understand Him and know Him and understand and know how to pray. It would not be much of a stretch to say that many of our prayers compare to the prayers of the saints in the same way a three year old’s mumbled only half understood prayer does to ours. That is, the saints are better at it than we are. You pray that things will go well for your three year old, the saints pray that things will go well for us.
Second, consider a friend or family member you know who has somewhat fallen away from Christianity and is only hanging on by a thread. He prays occasionally, but doesn’t really think anything could ever come of it and only gives it half of his attention while he does so. It would make sense for you to pray for him - not only that his faith will grow, but also that anything else he may need will happen. Once again, the relationship between you and the friend is more or less the same as the relationship between the saints and us - we all have our moments of doubt, we all fall occasionally, but the saints are looking at the face of God - their faith is rock solid.
And finally, I remember a homily where the priest said as kind of an off hand comment that during a certain time period Mary interceded and prayed for our healing because we would not make those prayers ourselves. I might be too embarrassed, too stupid, or too stubborn to ask God for what I need to ask Him for, but the saints don’t have that problem. So the saints will simply say prayers that we don’t because, once again, they’re better at it than we are and know what should be prayed for.
Now, you could respond by saying that God could just circumvent all those issues and give us what we need or should be praying for anyway. This is true. He could do that. But He has ordained not to (this is demonstrated by the fact that Scripture tells us that asking others to pray for us is good). You could then ask why He does things this way. But you could also ask why He wants us to pray at all for that matter, since He knows what we need or want anyway and doesn’t need us to tell Him to decide whether to act on these needs and wants.
I hesitate to claim to know God’s reasons, but if I were to theorize (which is a slightly oblique way of saying that I theorize all the time and just don’t want to imply that my theories are necessarily right despite the fact that I tend to think they probably are) I think the answer would be much the same in both cases: prayer keeps us focused on God and reminds us of His love for us as well as of His Goodness, hence God makes it useful and ordains that certain things will occur as responses to our prayers (since we are more likely to do that which we can see as having or potentially having immediate(ish) and visible(ish) good effects). Likewise, the saints are good examples and knowing their lives and identifying with them is good, hence God makes the communion of saints more than just a group of dead people we can admire - in making prayer through the saints efficacious, He draws our attention to the saints and hence to good examples of ways in which we can lead good and holy lives. There’s probably more to it than that, but that’s the best I can guess at three in the morning anyway.
