A:  It is never a bad idea to pray for our departed loved ones…one never really knows what good this can do. If nothing else, prayers for the dead keep our loved ones alive in our memory and our heart. Prayer is always a good idea.

There is no sense of “doom” associated with the sleeping survivors. The Urantia Book tells us that:

30:4.12 The passing of time is of no moment to sleeping mortals; they are wholly unconscious and oblivious to the length of their rest. On reassembly of personality at the end of an age, those who have slept five thousand years will react no differently than those who have rested five days. Aside from this time delay these survivors pass on through the ascension regime identically with those who avoid the longer or shorter sleep of death.

So, we see that even though they may sleep for a very long time, they are not conscious of the passage of time—much like our experience of nightly sleep. And when they do resurrect, they continue on like everyone else, with the same potentials of eternal life.

The Urantia Book spends a good deal of time explaining to us the realities of life after death—the Mansion World experiences, and the ascendent plan of survival . In contrast, relatively little time is spent on the sleeping survivor experience. I take this to mean that most of us will be resurrected in three days—this is only my opinion, however; it is never spelled out for us. We are left to wonder. The requisite for 3-day resurrection is the gaining of a guardian angel—a concept that should be very familiar to you, as a Catholic. Consider the following passage:

113:1.8 When a mortal mind breaks through the inertia of animal legacy and attains the third circle of human intellectuality and acquired spirituality, a personal angel (in reality two) will henceforth be wholly and exclusively devoted to this ascending mortal. And thus these human souls. in addition to the ever-present and increasingly efficient indwelling Thought Adjusters, receive the undivided assistance of these personal guardians of destiny in all their efforts to finish the third circle, traverse the second, and attain the first.

Again, The Urantia Book spends a lot of time on the ministry of angels in a human life, and we are encouraged to get to know more about angels and to love them as they love us. If “sainthood,” as understood by the Church, was necessary, so many would fail—but I believe that a kind of sainthood can be accomplished in the very normal, humdrum experience of life, and one can become quite holy in just loving God and loving others as Jesus taught. So, I doubt whether one has to accomplish extraordinary or heroic feats of faith in order to be a candidate for 3-day resurrection. Again, this is my opinion.

Just as an aside, I am also a Catholic—raised in Catholic schools by nuns and priests for 18 years, and it might interest you to know that there are many, many Catholics who have embraced the teachings of The Urantia Book with a whole heart. Part IV—the Life and Teachings of Jesus—was my entry into The Urantia Book, and convinced me early-on that I had stumbled upon a very significant document. And then, the papers on angels (see link above), Thought Adjusters , and Religion sealed the deal for me.

I have placed several links into this reply. I hope that when you have the time, you peruse some of these links so that you will gain a broader knowledge of what The Urantia Book actually is—a revelation of epochal significance. There is really no conflict with wanting to be a Catholic and embracing the teachings of The Urantia Book. All it takes is an open mind and a sincere, searching, and truth-seeking spirit.

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