Praying for the Dead in Life

We often speak of praying for the dead. This is usually done with the intent to speed along their journey through purgation that they may more swiftly reach the heavenly choirs of the Church Triumphant. But what of praying for the dead in their life?

Now this may seem quite bizarre, however I posit that the perceived oddity of this proposal is strictly due to our oh-so-constrained linear perception of time. Consider first the Immaculate Conception, so merited by the redemptive sacrifice of Our Lord on Calvary, inextricably linked to Mary's fiat. Such is a concrete example of events of the future having an impact on the past. After all, God is not as we are, constrained to a linear (and essentially uni-directional) perspective of the temporal dimension.

So, therefore, why not pray for the dead in life? If we have the capacity to impact the past through our prayer, are we not duty bound to pray for others in their life just as we pray for them in death, that we may all be united in the Church Triumphant at the end of time? Pray that they have the strength to follow Christ, just as we pray for our brothers and sisters in the world today. Perhaps, by our perspective, their fate is already determined, as the moment of their death has come and gone, but who's to say that they did not arrive at that moment strengthened and guided by the graces granted through future prayers, uttered by men and women not yet even conceived when they passed from this world to the next?

Once again, I will admit that there is a struggle in the perception of this reasoning, however I am of the conviction that this is merely due to the feebleness of the strugglings of my mind against the predominantly Cartesian mindset in which I have been raised, which is a flawed and partial view of the world at its best, and a deceptive and potentially damning one at its worst.