Why is the power of prayer restricted to time?

[Mavzylor]

It has supposedly been revealed to various saints that prayers hold more power when said at specific times, such as the power to grant indulgences. Why would a timeless God choose specific times to make our prayers more powerful?

 

[phil19034]

There is no specific times where power of prayer is more powerful.

Indulgences are a totally different thing and has nothing to do with prayer being more powerful.

Please refer to my answer to your post in the previous thread.

God Bless

 

[Mavzylor]

How do indulgences have nothing to do with prayer being more powerful? A post from the previous thread said, " I spent the first week of November visiting cemeteries every day because you can get a special indulgence to help the Poor Souls in Purgatory by visiting a cemetery to pray, and you can get it once a day from Nov 1 to Nov 8." This suggests prayer is more powerful from Nov 1 to Nov 8, and I am asking why? Why would God care about the time a prayer is said when granting indulgences?

 

[phil19034]

How do indulgences have nothing to do with prayer being more powerful? A post from the previous thread said, " I spent the first week of November visiting cemeteries every day because you can get a special indulgence to help the Poor Souls in Purgatory by visiting a cemetery to pray, and you can get it once a day from Nov 1 to Nov 8." This suggests prayer is more powerful from Nov 1 to Nov 8, and I am asking why? Why would God care about the time a prayer is said when granting indulgences?

OK - first, please forgive me a little because indulgences are one area of Catholic theology that is hard for me (and many) to wrap their heads around. With that said, here is my take.

1. Indulgences are typically for us, mostly around doing spiritual and corporal acts of mercy, and other things that are spiritual and sacrificial in nature (like pilgrimages, going to Church to pray the rosary, reading the Bible for a good amount of time, etc). They are prayers and/or actions that help to make us holy and help to establish holy habits, etc.
2. Indulgences also typically contain an element of submitting to the authority of the Church. If the Church says that we will grant a special indulgence if you do X between Nov 1st and Nov 8th, then the person doing what is required for the indulgence is committing an act of humility, in addition to whatever the spiritual activity is.

So the time frame associated isn’t about making the prayer more powerful… it’s about submitting to the Church. PLUS, it’s also about organizing many people to pray for particular intentions together and pray for an intention that they might not normally pray for.

I pray I’m making sense. But my main point is this: the assigned time frames are less about making the individual prayers more powerful, but really about causing more people to pray about a particular intention.

God Bless

 

[Mavzylor]

Yes, what you said actually made a lot of sense, thank you!

 

[stpurl]

Why not?

Why would a "timeless God’ need to come INTO time to redeem us, as Jesus did?

However, it is not that the power is ‘restricted’.

Indulgences, the "Divine Mercy Hour’ of 3 p.m., etc., Novenas, are disciplines for US. We are the ones who receive the benefit.

Listen, if we want to get fit we don’t just go into the gym whenever the spirit moves us. We plan things out. We get into a regular routine because that helps keep us ‘going’ and the benefits build up.

So God gives us some options (you don’t HAVE to go for the indulgences or Novenas, do you?) to help us to build our prayer lives and get the ‘most’ of our spiritual preparations. Makes sense to me.

 

[Mavzylor]

Yeah that’s a really powerful point about God coming into time to redeem us. I don’t quite understand your gym analogy, as it’s best to constantly go to the gym, and you can build strength whenever you go. Contrarily, indulgences are only available at certain times under certain circumstances, but Phil’s answers made sense to me.

 

[phil19034]

I don’t quite understand your gym analogy, as it’s best to constantly go to the gym, and you can build strength whenever you go.

I think the point of the gym analogy was that it’s often recommended that in order to get the best work out and get the most out of the gym, going at the same time, everyday, is recommend because it helps us get into habits.

So if you go to gym every morning at 5:30am, it becomes a health habit, just like if you pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day at 3PM, it becomes a holy habit.

I believe that was the point @stpurl was trying to make.

BTW - I’m glad my previous post made sense to you.

God bless