A few years back my aunt passed away at a young age. A couple of years later I was talking with another aunt who, told me about a dream she had that her sister, my aunt appeared in her dream asking why she had not prayed for her. As she was telling me about her dream all I could think of was my dad telling me as I grew up to always remember to pray for the lost souls when praying. So, yes I believe that, we should pray for the dead. I don’t even mean just the dead that we may have known in life or even in this century, it doesn’t even matter if they were good natured or bad. I am not talking about religion or whether the dead were religious, spiritual, or nonbelievers.
Prayer can be defined as many things, some believe you must be in a house of worship to truly pray, I do not. I was raised as a Roman Catholic and have many pieces of my spiritual life invested in my faith. I do not attend church as often as I would like but, I love the connection that I feel when I am there. I believe that church is a wonderful asset for both believers and nonbelievers alike. They are places of worship, love, beauty, and a sense of community. This book is not a book about religion, but, these are my thoughts about finding ourselves and how I try to live a spiritual, loving, and happy life. I feel strongly that our walk with God, is a daily effort and that we should all strive to do better with those who, surround us.
Prayer in my opinion is sending positive messages to God, regarding the universe, or anything that we truly believe in on behalf of our loved ones, others in need, and to those who, have passed on before us. Prayer is passing on positive and meaningful thoughts with sincere conviction. We all have prayed without even knowing it, even atheists! A good example; is a guy who passes by a sick person or a homeless person and feels a sincere deep sorrow or pity for them. The thoughts going through this person’s mind may be “my God, how sad, I hope they are okay.” Through those simple thoughts a positive message was extended for that person, therefore, there was a prayer being sent out for the betterment of someone else’s life. We all have different belief systems and we live in a very diverse world, especially today!
Growing up I found praying repetitive and exhausting, I admit it took me a really long time to remember the prayers being taught in Sunday school. I now love to pray at night before I go to sleep, even if it is just a brief prayer. Most nights my prayers consist of a lot of thanking God, for the good in my life and asking for me to live with the Light of Love. When it comes to praying for the dead however, one thing is for sure they have lost the earthly ability to pray for themselves. “The Purgatorian Manual” says “one who, is infinitely holy, not yet worthy to take possession of my dwelling - a place in heaven, is the greatest sorrow of the suffering soul.” If we no longer have the ability to pray for ourselves after death, what was the “Purgatorian Manual” saying? We need to be sincere in our prayers and not just repeating words that, have no meaning to you, this would defeat the purpose of praying which, is to send positive energies into the universe and heaven. I truly believe, that our beliefs have a lot to do with where we are and where we are going. It doesn’t matter if you pray to God, Ala, or another higher power, or whatever name you have for your belief, what matters is that, you have a belief in something which, will make your life truly meaningful.
