We may ask living saints to pray for us, but no one would address them as Rome addresses Mary, Benedict or Nicholas
Everyone admits it is lawful to ask holy people living here with us to pray to God for us. Yet no one would be tolerated who said to a holy man on earth what is commonly said to the Virgin Mary: "Take away our ills, bestow heavenly gifts; make us free of our faults, gentle and chaste." Or what is said to Saint Benedict: "You who grant us to climb the narrow road, give us the everlasting kingdom." Or what the hymn to Saint Nicholas says: "Take away the loss that death brings, bestow the helps of life, so that after the exile of the flesh we may be with you in glory."
If anyone had spoken that way to the apostles themselves, they would have stopped such a prayer as impious and told him to ask for those things from the Lord, not from them. Are we to think, then, that what they would have rejected as impious and sacrilegious while they lived on earth can please them now?
Latin
XCIII. Certe Sanctos hic nobiscum viventes omnium confessione rogare licet ut Deum pro nobis orent: Nec tamen ferretur qui viro Sancto in terris versanti diceret, ut Mariae Virgini dici solet, Nostra tolle Incommoda, Dona confer caelestia. Nos culpis solutos, Mites fac & castos. Aut ut dicitur S. Benedicto Angustum per iter scandere largiens Dona regna perennia. Sive ut habet hymnus ad Sanctum Nicolaum Aufer mortis dispendia, Confer vitae subsidia: Ut post carnis exilia, Tecum simus in gloria. Quod si quis Apostolos ipsos ea ratione fuisset allocutus, Orationem ejusmodi ut impiam compescuissent, & jussissent ista non a se, sed a Domino peti. An ergo putabimus jam ipsis gratum esse posse, quod olim dum in terris viverent, ut impium & sacrilegum aversati fuissent?