Sending prayers back in time

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Honour said:
Well, he never mentioned “backwards” specifically and I never would have thought about it unless I read your post. Thanks again.
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Well,Peter Kreeft will be relieved to hear that!😃

I do not know from what spiritual pathway that you are converting from,but my prayers are with you on your journey.👍

The reason I wrote this ,is that you maybe familiar with the protestant Charismatic Concept of “Healing The Family Tree”.

As I understand it,they too believe in the notion of sending prayers back in time.I gather that what they do, is to get rid of “the bound of the devil” in the person that first broke that family tree.They sort of heal the great grand father who was bound by the evil one–back in time.They take literally that scriptural passage of where the sins of the father will be passed onto to the children,at least to the fourth generation.Jesus of course, debuncked that concept when He was asked --was this the person who sinned or was it his father?He answered them.neither!

Whilst this “healing of the family tree” process may help the emotional healing of those present,I believe that it too falls within the same notion of “sending prayers back in time”.I believe that it is not within the scope of sound traditional catholic spirituality.
 
I get the same feeling when I hear or read about folks fighting in the civil war, such as Gettysburg… 50,000 casualties… it must have been horrific… may God have mercy on their souls…
 
A few things here …

First God is “outside of time” but he is also “at every moment in time”. He is not limited by anything He creates (nor does He have to abide by any of the rules of said creation) because He is the creator. That is what it means to be omnipresent; everywhere ( and everywhen ) at once.

Secondly, again, God is not limited by this time. Just as he is not limited by His sacriments and can choose to impart His Grace as He sees fit, He of course, can apply our prayers “back in time” or “into the future for that matter” (think of all the stories about people praying for their future spouce). God is not limited hence, He is omnipotent; all powerful.

Lastly, God knows everything. He knew it from before creation began. He chose to allow it to happen as it has because He Loves (re: Gift of Free Will). God is omniscient; all knowing. Who is to say that at the time of someone’s death that all the prayers that were prayed, are being prayed or will be prayed can not be applied at that point in time. God can do so if he chooses; He is God. “Isaiah 55:9 For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Remember prayers are never lost. They will be applied to whomever needs them most, if they wouldn’t benefit those you are directly praying for or if they no longer are in need of them. Trust in Jesus!

We must depend on God’s Mercy for our past, His Grace for our present, and His Providence for our future. 🙂
 
karoleck,

I skimmed over your great wall of text in search for an actual argument, but I found none. All I found was an series of opinions to which I respectfully disagree with. There is no need get worked up over my post. Especially since it means so little to me. You seem to be investing a lot of time and energy over a small discussion amongst brothers and sisters of Christ.

I hope you write back with another “wall of text” because this is getting amusing. Now I can see why trolls come in here and stir things up as it is fun to see people get so worked up.

You must be an awesome person to hang out with in real life. :rolleyes:
 
I have also wondered about this. A few times I felt an urge to pray for people at some point in the past when difficult things happened. For example, I learned that a member of my family had an abortion many years ago and she was dead over 10 years when I found this out. I prayed for her, for that moment in her life when she decided to do that. No idea what God did with that prayer but it crossed my mind that maybe it was used to bring her to repentance at some point.
 
karoleck said:
Well,Peter Kreeft will be relieved to hear that!😃
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I didn’t mean to use his reference to support the idea. But it does talk about how our prayers work across time and space and relates.

Since God is not temporal like us, I don’t see why we should put him in a box. I’m sure he can use prayers from anywhere anytime to work anywhere anytime.

I don’t know enough about the subject…but its interesting to mull around these thoughts…I think it helps us grasp just how little we know about some things in the spiritual world work.
 
PrayRosary said:
karoleck,

I skimmed over your great wall of text in search for an actual argument, but I found none. All I found was an series of opinions to which I respectfully disagree with. There is no need get worked up over my post. Especially since it means so little to me. You seem to be investing a lot of time and energy over a small discussion amongst brothers and sisters of Christ.

I hope you write back with another “wall of text” because this is getting amusing. Now I can see why trolls come in here and stir things up as it is fun to see people get so worked up.

You must be an awesome person to hang out with in real life. :rolleyes:
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Thank you
 
Honour said:
I didn’t mean to use his reference to support the idea. But it does talk about how our prayers work across time and space and relates.

Since God is not temporal like us, I don’t see why we should put him in a box. I’m sure he can use prayers from anywhere anytime to work anywhere anytime.

I don’t know enough about the subject…but its interesting to mull around these thoughts…I think it helps us grasp just how little we know about some things in the spiritual world work.
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It was a great quote,believe me .I think that what Peter Kreeft writes & says is just brilliant.I have just finished reading on his artile on Spiritual Discernment.👍
 
I think prayers can help with things from the past, but the can NEVER change the past (the physical past from the time and place we live in). That would be ridiculous. But when it comes for prayers for people who have died al long time ago, we CAN pray for their absolution from purgatory, that it might happen sooner. Because these places are not in the same time and space as we are. So the question remains, to which extent can a prayer from now , help a person in the physical past of this earth. We are bound to several laws of nature, those which are present in our reality here on earth. So unfortunately I guess there is no use to pray for anything that happend in the past. If you mean by past the past we have here in earth. However, we can pray for the ‘past’ in the eternal life. But there is no past in there. I say a prayer alsmost daily for the person I love most, that she may find eternal happiness in heaven earlier. But I definately cannot say ‘when’ that is. There is no time comparison between earth and the afterlife.
 
Interesting topic. I probably shouldn’t reply to it after having only one cup of coffee, so forgive anything that doesn’t make sense. 😉

I don’t know anything about sending prayers back in time, but this did make me think about part of the Apostles’ Creed:
“He descended to the dead.”

Not only did our Lord Jesus love, teach, heal, and suffer so greatly in His Passion for the living, He also went to the dead and offered eternal life.
Here are a few beautiful verses from Isaiah:
8 He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah (RSV) 25)
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So, I think that whatever suffering happened to people in the past, God will take care of them and it won’t compare to being with Him. And maybe seeing that story was God’s way of nudging you to pray for people suffering similarly now. 🙂
 
PrayRosary said:
So, today I was thinking about something. I was watching a documentary about this man who grew up in a juvenile detention facility in like the 1930’s. While there, he and other children were physically abused by the staff. I felt the urge to say a quick Hail Mary for them, but I hesitated since the abuse happened so long ago and he has since died. So here is my topic…

Since God is outside of time and space, He knows and takes into consideration all of the prayers offered to someone even after they have passed on (like praying for someone who might be in Purgatory).
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My protestant (Evangelical) father came to believe in praying for the dead on the same basis. Example: “My friend might have accepted Christ right before death do to my prayers in the present because God is outside of time.” I grew up hearing this theory. 🙂
 
Maybe it’s just me, but when I’m reading the New Testament and Paul asks for prayers for his ministry, I try to offer him one when I’m paying the close attention I should be! 😊
 
PrayRosary said:
These are all very thought provoking responses.
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Since you are my best friend on Catholic Answers(as you know me as I really am) I have some thoughts that I have pondered over.
Pope Benedict emeritus, gave out a series of reflections during one Lent. He gave the following insight----

“In Lent each one of us is asked by God to mark a turning point in our life,thinking and living **in accordance with the gospel,correcting some aspect of our way of praying,**acting,or working and of our relations with others.Jesus makes this appeal to us,not with a severity that is an end in itself,but precisely because he is concerned for our good,our hapiness.and our salvation”

I believe that there is a danger of us being “too spiritual” in the narrow sense,a type of Transcendentalist approach.What we humans are dealing with,is a God who is beyond time and those of us here living at the present moment that is subject to time(past,present & future time ,which we refer to the past, as history,now in the present and a nebulious uncertain future)

What we know about God was revealed by His Son Jesus,in the fullness of time.As man Jesus was subject to our time patterns.We have an example when His mother Mary noticed the “they have no wine”,His first response was “well,it is not my hour yet”! He often spoke of His Hour which He was to die on The Cross.Now notice that Pope Benedict asked us to use The Gospels as our starting point on how we pray.The Gospel accounts never ever gave an account of Jesus sending prayers back in time,so should we not follow how He prayed?
 
There is another approach to your question,especially dealing with the example you used and on how when seeing a documentary where children where abused in the 1930s.Your first response was that perhaps the abused victims had not enough spiritual support to have dealt with all the issues.But whilst it is a nice, generous and compassionate movement of the heart on your part,it differs to what I have been always taught, and that is, God never ever asks us to endure any sufferings,abuse etc that is too much for us to endure.God always will give us the graces to endure what ever His Providential Will has in store for us.

I suspect that since our protestant separate brothers & sisters have rejected the Catholic Churches’ belief in the place of Purgation after death.Your type of sending prayers back in time is the only logical alternative to deal with gross injustice & sufferings.

Here is a thought for you to ponder,I know that this event that moved your spiritual heart happened over 80 years ago.But have you considered that there maybe a multitude of people at the present time that could still be affected in a real way because of abuse?

Victims can often become abusers and this type of cruel behaviour can be spread far and wide in a snow balling effect unless this cycle of sin is stopped.Maybe your present prayers might help to stop this abuse now and into the future generations.I think that the present sexual and abusive sins that have come to light in and outside the Catholic Church in recent times, do go back into the past and this abuse was not dealt with and so it fed in the devils’ world of darkness and denial.

Tomorrow(at least in aussie land) we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady Of Fatima,there Our Lady gave us the cures for all our sins—go PrayRosary:signofcross::getholy::highprayer::hug1:
 
Its interesting, God might have helped them back then since he knew you’d pray for them years later. But I dont think you could pray and reverse the effects of a war or something that happened in the 1600s or anything similar.
 
See this:
The doctor knew that some time had passed since he had received the letter and the girl was at death’s door. He was perplexed by Padre Pio’s assurance that all was done, that the request for prayer would work.
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Padre Pio continued, “Maybe you don’t know that I can pray even now for the happy death of my great-grandfather.”
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"But he has been dead for many, many years," replied the doctor."
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I know that too,” said Padre Pio. “Let me explain by giving you an example. You and I both die, and through the good fortune and the goodness and mercy of the Lord we are obliged to stay in purgatory for 100 years. During these years nobody prays for us or has a Mass offered for the release of our souls. The 100 years pass and somebody thinks of Padre Pio and the good doctor and has Masses offered. **For the Lord, the past does not exist; the future does not exist. Everything is an eternal present. Those prayers had already been taken into account so that even now I can pray for the happy death of my great-grandfather! ** Do you really think the Lord needs our bureaucracy-- that somebody has to ask for a grace on a piece of paper and bring it to Padre Pio?”
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The important moral is that we should always pray for the deceased, even those who have died many years ago, because for God there is neither a past nor a future, but all as one eternal present.
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domestic-vocation.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/praying-for-things-passed.html
 
Karo,

Thank you for your thoughts on this brother. Please take comfort in knowing that this is not the center of my spirituality. It is just a thought that crossed my mind and I wanted to share it. If God chooses not to allow my prayer to console those who have suffered in the past, then He will use it in a way that He knows best.
 
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