19. How can God and the saints hear all our prayers?

How can God respond to all the prayers people say at the same time all over the world? How can Mary or the saints respond to all the prayers addressed to them? Theologians say that we must realize that we are in time. God and those who die are in eternity, where there is no passage of time, but an eternal now.

I've read explanations of this by people as brilliant as C.S. Lewis, but it's still a mystery to me! I can see how it's possible, but I don't understand it. However, we may get some insight into the problem from some of Einstein's theories which say that the faster we move in the universe, the slower time goes.

Theoretically, at least, if someone were to travel to another star in a space ship whose speed approached the speed of light, they might be gone for 100 years by earth time, but they might age only 10 years. Interesting theory, and if this can happen even to human beings who have not died, then certainly God can make it possible for those who are in eternity to be in touch with all the petitions addressed to them from time.

Another way of looking at the problem is to note that we human beings are said to use only a tiny percentage of our intellectual ability. When someone gets to heaven, that person might be able (even from our temporal point of view) to have the intellectual capacity to do what seems impossible here on earth. I suspect that the problem of how the saints and our loved ones are able to help us is tied into the mysteries of God's almighty power and of the relationship between time and eternity.