What is Prayer?
Prayer is a call for a response from someone else. It's not just talking to God - it's a communication, normally involving a request, with someone else.
The colloquial usage of the word makes it a religious expression, but that's common usage and not necessarily the best way to think of prayer.
Music, for example, is a call for response. Some forms of music are more clear about this than others; dance music is meant to evoke a response of, well, dancing, I suppose. Reggae has an explicit call and response, as do the traditional blues songs.
Writing is a call for response, whether to yield entertainment (positive feelings toward the story or author) or education.
These are all forms of prayer through an expression of life. It's not limited to any particular religious movement or sect, although I identify most closely with the early Hasidic movement, which saw religious expression in everything - ecstatic worship, enjoyment of the sight of a mountain, strong drink, dance, everything.
To Whom is Prayer Directed?
This is where religious expression takes place - while prayer is not necessarily directed at God, it's often considered to be. (My sons don't consider it prayer when asking me for Chick-Fil-A.)
Religious prayer, though, is meant to be directed to one and only one identity: God. I understand that many feel unworthy of speaking directly to Him, and therefore offer supplication to others (i.e., Mary, or some saint) and I can't judge anyone for those things, although I think that underestimates the glory and power of God, and minimizes the believer more than God would.
Consider: Jesus - God made man, equal and identical to "God the Father" - died for us. Through this we are justified wholly in Him. We are children of the Most High, adopted in His will and made holy through his sacrifice for us.
We are valued by Him.
To demand an intercessor is to say that His valuation of us is not valid, that the purification isn't enough to make us each priests for Him, that we are unworthy to enter the presence of the Most Holy One.
Yet He said we were purified, that we were made worthy - not in and of ourselves, of course, but made holy through His blood.
An intercessor is not required. We should be bold before the throne, and our boldness is a sign to others that we are bold, that we have Him working in our lives. An intercessor makes us worms in His eyes, and God has said that's an incorrect understanding.
So we should pray to God - and if it makes you comfortable to think of speaking to Mary, that's fine, I suppose; I think through conversations with my own grandparents, may they rest in Him forever. But that's not supplicating them for anything, and Mary is no more special than they are in the eyes of God.
Why do we pray?
Prayer is a call and response - it's connection. Going back to the reggae reference earlier, there's a call and response that indicates presence on the part of both the musician and the audience; prayer to God is no different.
We pray to God for a number of reasons, mostly in relation to that connection: we want to offer something to God (thanksgiving, or repentance, or contrition), or to ask something of God (which we are commanded to do), or simply to reinforce that sense of connection.
That connection is incredibly important. We're supposed to live in accordance to God's will; how can we do that if we're not trying to determine what that will intends for us? God certainly can speak through other means, but we usually find those mechanisms either abstract, or unpleasant, or both.
Sometimes the unpleasantness is intentional, too - either we're too hard-headed to listen to God, or He wants to show us (or someone else) something that can be instructive in bringing Him pleasure.
When do we pray?
Without ceasing!(1 Thess 5:17, for example.) Prayer is connection to God; if we stop praying, we let that connection wither, which is not what God desires. The real question here centers around how we pray without ceasing, and this is why of what prayer consists is so important.
How do we pray without ceasing?
This is a hard question to answer, for a few reasons.
One reason it's hard to answer is that the definition and concept of prayer is unclear; if prayer is on bended knee, hands folded together, head down and eyes closed, then when we pray, we're not useful in other ways. (Pigeons might appreciate that, though.) If prayer, however, is thought of as simple communication and connection (and consecration) then we are able to pray in more "real" ways - and we're able to pray through living.
This is how I think of prayer without ceasing; all that we do, we do for God, in an attempt to be in accord with His inestimable Will; we fail, certainly, but the attempt is a worthy sacrifice to him (Hosea and Amos both indicated the religious cult was of less importance than the heart's repentance.)
Did I say cult? Yes, actually, I did. A cult is a system of religious worship; the formalized priesthood was a cult, even though when we think of cults we usually think of religions that center on a warped gospel.
So the key to prayer without ceasing is less a matter of action and more a matter of the attitude of the heart.
If we desire a connection and communion with God at all times, and we act in ways that glorify Him, we are praying without ceasing.
God has promised to reward that. (The nature of that reward is a subject for a different post, I think.)
Shalom.
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