Communion of saints/prayer ?

[Hiskid1973]

I cut this from another thread: "

God is outside of time and space (of course) and prayers can be applied to those already past. I believe they can actually save souls that otherwise would have been lost."

Can someone explain how/where this came from an the theology behind…We die then judgment…So someone dies rejecting Christ and somehow apart from time they can chose to follow Him ? Thanks

 

[lutherlic]

I cut this from another thread: "

God is outside of time and space (of course) and prayers can be applied to those already past. I believe they can actually save souls that otherwise would have been lost."

Can someone explain how/where this came from an the theology behind…We die then judgment…So someone dies rejecting Christ and somehow apart from time they can chose to follow Him ? Thanks

I have never heard this and its premise seems unlikely to me. Did the original thread quote a source or was it someone’s personal opinion?

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

Did the original thread quote a source or was it someone’s personal opinion?

This was discussed in another thread, and when pressed to quote scripture to verify this it is generally revealed to be personal opinion.

 

[Hiskid1973]

The way they said it was that it was their belief but another agreed with them that this was part of/ how the communion of saints/prayer worked…Is this a common Catholic belief ?

 

[JonathanG]

This is not Catholic teaching, and is not related to doctrines regarding the Communion of Saints. The Catholic Church teaches of an immediate judgement (called the particular judgement) upon death:

scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm#1022
“CCC 1022: Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification or immediately, – or immediate and everlasting damnation”

When you die, you are judged as saved or not saved. If you are not saved, you will suffer everlasting (permanent) damnation - no second chance. If you are saved, you will either go straight to Heaven, or alternatively, be purified in Purgatory after which you will go straight to Heaven. Prayers can benefit those in the state of purification only.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I believe what is meant, Hiskid, is that God (and heaven) exist ‘out of time’.

Ok, so here we are right now in 2010, right? Suppose we say a prayer for somebody (maybe a grandparent) who died in 1970, 40 years ago.

Now --this is the thing. Obviously, when the grandparent died (40 years ago), at that very time (the minute of death) the grandparent either chose heaven or hell, yes?

That has not changed.

BUT. . .in Heaven, and with God, God Himself did not experience 1970 as a ‘time’. God exists out of time. God, right now, is not sitting up there in heaven saying, “Well it’s August 30, 2010, better get out the day planner and get ready to change the calendar to September the day after tomorrow”. . .

IOW, God hears our prayers ‘today’ (we experience this as August 30, 2010) but God is hearing them in an eternal kind of ‘now’ just as He experienced hearing our prayers last year, the year before, the year before, 40 years before. . .

IOW, God is hearing our prayers in an eternal NOW and He hears all our prayers in this eternal now.

The prayer of the grandparent 40 years ago. . .the prayers of the people living 100, 500, 1000, 10,000 years ago. . .are all heard in that same eternal now.

THAT is what is meant by applying prayers. We don’t think we go ‘back in time’. We think that since God hears all prayers kind of ‘at once in an eternal now’ that prayers that we say NOW are heard at the same ‘time’ (so to speak) as prayers said by people 100s and 1000s of years ago. So indeed, even while our grandparent was dying 40 years ago, our prayers today might have helped him (BEFORE that instant of death) to repent, even though we’re saying those prayers years ‘after’ the event.

Does that help explain? It’s not that we go ‘back in time’ ourselves but that God hears everything in a kind of ‘time out of time’ that is the same for all people at all our ‘temporal’ times.

 

[JonathanG]

Tantum Ergo, your explanation of God being out of time is a good one and my understanding as well. God sees all time simultaneously. However, I am not sure that it is official Catholic teaching or if there is an official Catholic consensus on whether prayers that occur in the present time are efficacious in changing the temporal outcome of events that occurred in the past. It would seem to me that although all things are possible for God, it would put God in a situation where he would need to make exception his own divinely mandated law of linear time.

It’s a fascinating topic anyway. If it’s an official Church teaching that prayer can affect past temporal events, I will humbly submit to the Magisterium