We'll go to Frank in Shreveport, Louisiana, listening on Sirius Radio.
Frank, your question for Patrick Madrid. Hey guys, I was going to tell you that my
wife and I had all sorts of glorious plans for our retirement, but God had a
better plan for her and welcomed her home about eleven months ago. And gosh,
what a blessing it has been, our belief that we can pray efficaciously for those
that have gone before us. But it caused me to have some questions, also. One is,
do we believe the Saints in Heaven know what we're doing all the time? First let
me say, Frank, my condolences to you for the loss of your wife, but I must say how
much I admire you for your truly joyful Christian spirit even in the midst
of the suffering of losing your wife. I really admire that. We don't believe that
the Saints know everything we're doing at any given moment. What we do believe
is that, to the extent that God permits it, that the Saints can be made aware of
what we're doing here on Earth. A good example would come from the book of
Revelation, I believe chapter 6, where we see the martyrs who are beneath the
altar in Heaven, and they're crying out to the Lord, saying, "Lord, when will you
avenge us," and smite, so to speak, "the evildoers who martyred us?" And the Lord
placates them and says, "Don't worry, when the full number of martyrs is present,
then I will take care of it." So that suggests that they're aware that
the people who martyred them had not yet been punished. So there's an example of
them being made aware by God, or being permitted to be aware by God. Similarly
we see on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus brought two "dead" people,
Moses and Elijah--I'm saying "dead" with quotation marks around them, I don't know
if I'm on the livestream right now or not so I may just be making--video-wise--
I may just be making quote marks in the air for no good reason--
but Moses and Elijah were brought into direct contact with the three apostles
Peter, James, and John; and so not only were Peter, James, and John aware of them,
but they were aware of St. Peter, James, and John. So we do see Biblical glimpses
of the Lord permitting this, but the Catholic Church doesn't have any strict
teaching to say, you know, to what extent or how often or anything like that.
It's just simply a matter that we recognize that God does from time to
time; permit those in Heaven to know what's happening on Earth for His good
purposes and we leave it at that. And we believe that the Saints in
Heaven are aware of our prayers when we ask them for their intercession.
So the Blessed Virgin Mary, being the greatest and highest of all the Saints,
she would be a good example of this. And this is all done because God permits it.
That'd probably be the easiest way to explain that. That is really helpful, I
love the explanation. You know, I thought about it, and given even if I had the
power, which I clearly don't, to bring her back, I wouldn't, because I would not rob
her of one second of Heaven and so, you know, we just have to humble ourselves
and accept God's will and try to work through it the best we can. Well I
must say, again, I admire your composure, Frank, and the fact that you are seeing
this through those very Christ-like eyes, so that's a beautiful thing. Keep praying
for your wife, though. One thing that we should always remember is that we don't
know with certitude--certitude, excuse me, if any given person is in Heaven outside
of the canonized Saints. So it's always the right thing to do to continue
praying for your wife. If she's already in Heaven and she doesn't need the
prayers, don't worry, your prayers will not go wasted. God will apply them as
needed. And if it so happens that maybe she needed a bit of purification before
she went into glory, then your prayers can assist her and hasten the time that
she enters into glory. So I would encourage you to not
neglect to pray for her, even though you're confident that she may be in
Heaven now.