Can I pray to myself in Heaven?

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runandsew

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If Heaven is beyond time and space, and the Angels and Saints can hear our prayers as the book of Revelation shows us, are the prayers that the saints hear only the prayers that were made after their death?
If, because Heaven is beyond time and space, I could hear all the prayers that have been prayed from all human history, then it seems to me that if I pray now, die and go to Heaven, I would be able to hear my own prayers that I have prayed before I died.
So if I pray to myself, I would be able to hear that prayer when I am in heaven. :whacky:
 
Keep in mind since we have no way of definitively knowing, your question, and thus any answer, is entirely speculative and based on what little has been revealed to us in Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Thank you. :tiphat:

We don’t actually know the “how” of the saints hearing our prayers – or how anything “works” in heaven. We do know, however, that they do not “hear all the prayers that have been prayed from all human history” because a) they don’t *need *to hear prayers that are not specifically directed at them and b) that would make them omnipotent, which only God is.

What is more likely the case, granting the fact that the saints can hear our prayers to them, is that God has given the saints in heaven a special grace and ability to hear the prayers that are directed to them, and they in turn, lay those at the feet of God (Revelation 5:8).
 
I would say if you can talk to yourself now on Earth (as so many of us do) then quite possibly something similar would be possible in heaven? Who knows. Wouldn’t be particularly useful though.
 
runandsew said:
If Heaven is beyond time and space, and the Angels and Saints can hear our prayers as the book of Revelation shows us, are the prayers that the saints hear only the prayers that were made after their death?
If, because Heaven is beyond time and space, I could hear all the prayers that have been prayed from all human history, then it seems to me that if I pray now, die and go to Heaven, I would be able to hear my own prayers that I have prayed before I died.
So if I pray to myself, I would be able to hear that prayer when I am in heaven. :whacky:
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This so funny! :rotfl: :rotfl:

I take it that you are confident that you will be going to heaven! 😉
 
Interesting since I have thought of this possibility myself. However, even if the idea is possible it presumes that we are going to make it into Heaven. I’m not saying that I think I will end up in Hell but I certainly would rather rely on praying to those I know in Heaven rather than presume I am already there and therefore potentially doing more harm than good.
 
No, you can’t.

Prayers to a person “in heaven in the future” work no better than praying for something to happen in the past that already did happen and then claiming in retrospect that you had a causal role in it. And if you mix the two, it’s entirely loony.

But it’s a question I’m surprised I don’t hear more often given the common description of heaven as “outside of space and time,” which it is, but that sort of cookie-cutter phrasing confuses a lot of people…and this is one of the ways I’d expect more people to be confused in this way.

Humans and angels can never truly become “eternal” in the same sense as God (one, unchanging perspective of “all things happening at once”) because to be part of that…we’d have to have been part of it from the start.

Heaven (at least the disembodied heaven before the last judgement) is said to exist in “aeviternity” (newadvent.org/summa/101005.htm) which has no smoothly flowing “time” as we know it, but still has a logical dependency of “before” and “after”…so there is still an ordering of events. And you have to have died before interceeding in heaven, and once in heaven…will only effect the world post-your-death.
 
Hey, I’ve got an Idea!

Pray to me in heaven, and I’ll tell you if I hear you!
 
I hope I wouldn’t have to listen to my own prayers when I am in Heaven. I would probably “laugh” at some of my silly prayers. 🙂 I wish I would be able to hear all people’s prayers so that I could bring to the Lord.

It is wonderful to be in Heaven! - I keep thinking about it every day.
 
Run and Sew,

Pardon my own presumption, but praying to yourself in Heaven sounds rather presumptuous, assuming as it does that you will indeed wind up in Heaven. That is not guaranteed.
  • Liberian
 
Hey, I wrote the word IF!!!

And batteddy, your reality is ruining my fantasy.
😃

Seriously, I know that we are limited, whereas God is not, but Mary is able to hear millions of prayers, so there has to be some difference we will experience in Heaven as compared to on earth.
 
Heaven is beyond time and place.
Heaven is in Eternity with God.
Therefore, everyone who leaves Time and enters Heaven has always been there, since Heaven began, until this Heaven ends (at the general Resurrection).

If a child dies and goes to Heaven, he is not waiting in Heaven for his parents to join him; they are already there.

If one spouse dies in one year, and the other spouse dies ten years later, the one does not have ten more years in heaven than the other.

Yes, you can pray to persons in Heaven who are not dead yet, if they will ever go to Heaven. But you cannot generally be sure who will go to Heaven.

If you ever will go to heaven, then you are there already, beyond Time. But I don’t think the you in Heaven can help the you on earth get to Heaven, since your merits in Heaven are those you earned on earth. But other persons in Heaven can assist you, even if they are still on earth.

in my opinion

Ron Conte
catholicplanet.com/MHT/time-eternity.htm
 
runandsew said:
Seriously, I know that we are limited, whereas God is not, but Mary is able to hear millions of prayers, so there has to be some difference we will experience in Heaven as compared to on earth.
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As I pointed out above, though we don’t have any way of knowing the HOW:
Granting the fact that the saints can hear our prayers to them, it follows that God has given the saints in heaven a special grace and ability to hear the prayers that are directed to them, and they in turn, lay those at the feet of God (Revelation 5:8).
Click to expand...
 
runandsew said:
So if I pray to myself, I would be able to hear that prayer when I am in heaven. :whacky:
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Yeah, and if you are in heaven, you would be a saint and able to intercede for yourself. Having been selfish in this, you would then have not died in the state of grace and would find yourself in purgatory, where you would again pray. When you finally reached heaven, you would hear your prayers from earth and from purgatory, but knowing that if you interceded for yourself, you’d once again be in purgatory, you ask God to take away this “gift”. Then you could truly say that in heaven it’s so loud that you can’t hear yourself think.

I confused myself…
 
Well, if you are already in heaven, you would need no reason to pray for yourself. All praying and worship will be directed to God for those souls who are still in purgatory or on earth…

so the answer, sort of, is no, you can’t pray for yourself once your in heaven, there would be no need to…
 
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