Making Prayer Doubly Effective

[Kay_Cee]

Often in the past I’ve been torn by what to pray for. One of my goals in prayer has been to help relieve the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory. On the other hand, two of my siblings left the Church, and I worry about the state of their souls.

I wasn’t sure which to pray for: the suffering souls or my brother and sister. Sometimes I would pray for one, sometimes the other.

Then I discovered a way to do both at the same time!

Now I pray for a soul in purgatory and ask that soul to, in return, pray for my siblings. After all, a soul in purgatory can be praying for them all the time, even when I can’t.

I thought I was pretty darn clever coming up with this, but of course I discovered it’s been in the Catechism all along: “Because it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins she [the Church] offers her suffrages for them. Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.” CCC 958.

So, since my prayer for the Church Sufferings makes the prayer of those souls effective, I’ll dedicate my prayers to them and ask them to pray for whatever intention I have.

What do you think? Do you think this can work, or am I way off base here?

 

[Catholic4Christ]

My personal belief is that this is a laudable and effective practice. However, the Church is not 100% on whether the poor souls can pray for us on earth (see the section “Invocation of Souls” in this article: newadvent.org/cathen/12575a.htm). This can especially be seen in the fact that the Church’s liturgy invokes the saints all the time to pray for us, but not the poor souls.

That being said, there’s plenty of good reason to believe that they can pray for us, in my opinion. They are, after all, a third of the members of the Church, so it makes sense that even if their prayers can’t hasten their own entrance into heaven, they could still do good along the way by praying for us.

 

[Catholic4Christ]

“Because it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins she [the Church] offers her suffrages for them. Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.” CCC 958.

Since the Church has no definitive teaching on whether the poor souls can pray for the living, I think the Catechism here means that our prayers hasten their entrance into heaven, where they will undoubtedly intercede for us.

 

[egretps]

Kay Cee, I actually recently started doing this. I pray for the faithfully departed and ask that they pray for my special intentions or for their families here on earth.

I think the little exercise that you came up with, answering 'who should I pray for?" Was an illustration of your spiritual growth. Ask your confessor or spiritual director/priest. Over my life I’ve found that the more active I get in prayer and devotion the closer I get to what the Church teaches. In many ways.

God Bless you and thank you for posting this. This has been on my mind and I’m going to lean towards continuing to pray for the departed and ask for their prayers in return.

 

[Paganus]

Kay Cee, I actually recently started doing this. I pray for the faithfully departed and ask that they pray for my special intentions or for their families here on earth.

I think the little exercise that you came up with, answering 'who should I pray for?" Was an illustration of your spiritual growth. Ask your confessor or spiritual director/priest. Over my life I’ve found that the more active I get in prayer and devotion the closer I get to what the Church teaches. In many ways.

God Bless you and thank you for posting this. This has been on my mind and I’m going to lean towards continuing to pray for the departed and ask for their prayers in return.

It’s a good practice. Fr. Heilman calls it “Search and Rescue” in his book.
amazon.com/Church-Militant-Field-Manual-Training/dp/0615649920/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490923082&sr=8-1&keywords=heilman+field+manual

 

[Kay_Cee]

Since the Church has no definitive teaching on whether the poor souls can pray for the living, I think the Catechism here means that our prayers hasten their entrance into heaven, where they will undoubtedly intercede for us.

But the CCC does say praying for them makes their intercession for us effective. It doesn’t say that’s the case only when they get into heaven.