For Catholics, November is the month to pray particularly for the dead.
Often the season seems particularly apt for certain prayers and feast days in the Catholic Church. Christmas and the Nativity of Our Lord arrive just after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, a time, as T.S. Eliot wrote, with “The ways deep and the weather sharp, the very worst time of the year.” In that worst time of the year there shines forth in the darkness the light from a stable in Bethlehem. Easter and the Resurrection mirror spring’s blossoms and verdant grass, with the brown earth and gray woodlands green-mantled once again in leaves and vivid colors.
Often the season seems particularly apt for certain prayers and feast days in the Catholic Church. Christmas and the Nativity of Our Lord arrive just after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, a time, as T.S. Eliot wrote, with “The ways deep and the weather sharp, the very worst time of the year.” In that worst time of the year there shines forth in the darkness the light from a stable in Bethlehem. Easter and the Resurrection mirror spring’s blossoms and verdant grass, with the brown earth and gray woodlands green-mantled once again in leaves and vivid colors.
The same holds true of November, that month when the earth seems to shrink in upon itself, when the weather often turns cold and drizzly with rain. November seems appropriate as a time to pause and recollect the dead in prayer.
Wise Catholics pray for all their dead. Uncle Harry may have buccaneered his way through life, philandering, drinking, and leaving in his wake a trail of debt and bad feelings, but which of us can guess his final thoughts as he thundered to the clay with that massive heart attack? Sweet old Aunt Constance was a daily Mass-goer, a woman declared a living saint by all her friends, but who knows what dark thoughts may have lurked behind those guileless blue eyes and that ready smile?
We do not presume on God in our prayers for the dead. We do not reckon all the dead are in heaven, enthroned there simply because of God’s mercy. We remember He is merciful and just. Unlike our human understanding of justice, He sees into the heart of men and women, understands all the circumstances of our sins, and welcomes our contrition and acts of penance. For those of us who have committed some great or small sin against our neighbor or against God, this mercy and this final justice bring hope to tormented souls.
Neither the dead in heaven nor those in hell need our prayers. We may pray with the souls in heaven, asking for their prayers in return, a part of what we call the communion of saints, but we do not pray for them: they are beyond need of such assistance. Nor do we pray for the souls in hell: they are where they have willed themselves to be—separated from the love of God. (Okay, I admit it, I do pray for them. That may be contrary to Christian doctrine, but if God’s mercy is boundless, then perhaps that mercy even reaches into hell.)
No—we pray for what the Church calls “the souls in purgatory”, that place of purgation, of cleansing, where all stain of sin is washed away, where penitents recognize, fully comprehend, and reject all their wrongdoing before entering into full union with God. The Church tells us that we the living may ameliorate the suffering of these souls, that our prayers may move the heart of God, that by the efficacy of our petitions we may help raise such souls to heaven. And as part of the communion of saints, the souls in purgatory may also pray for us.
For some non-Catholics, purgatory makes perfect sense—Anglican C.S. Lewis rejected many other tenets of Catholicism, but maintained a firm belief in purgatory—yet most Protestants regard purgatory as unbiblical, though some passages in the Old and New Testament allude to its existence. Even many Catholics give little consideration to purgatory, forgoing the prayers for their dead, with some no doubt regarding such petitions as gross superstition in our modernistic and scientific age.
To the latter group, and indeed to faint-of-heart believers and fervent non-believers alike, I would direct them to Christ’s admonition: “Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Here Christ addresses our faith, warning us that sophistication and self-esteem act as blockades against belief. And as our belief—and that “our” very much includes me—has diminished in our secular age, our faith in prayer has also weakened. To pray, to really pray, one must believe that someone is listening, yet unless plagued by some great crisis or trial, many of us either brush off prayer altogether or else mumble formulaic supplications to a deity who seems as distant from us as the farthest star.
To remember our dead—our wives, our parents and grandparents, our children, our friends—keeps them alive in our memory. To pray for them, and conversely to ask their prayers for us, may deliver them and us into heaven.
Wise Catholics pray for all their dead. Uncle Harry may have buccaneered his way through life, philandering, drinking, and leaving in his wake a trail of debt and bad feelings, but which of us can guess his final thoughts as he thundered to the clay with that massive heart attack? Sweet old Aunt Constance was a daily Mass-goer, a woman declared a living saint by all her friends, but who knows what dark thoughts may have lurked behind those guileless blue eyes and that ready smile?
We do not presume on God in our prayers for the dead. We do not reckon all the dead are in heaven, enthroned there simply because of God’s mercy. We remember He is merciful and just. Unlike our human understanding of justice, He sees into the heart of men and women, understands all the circumstances of our sins, and welcomes our contrition and acts of penance. For those of us who have committed some great or small sin against our neighbor or against God, this mercy and this final justice bring hope to tormented souls.
Neither the dead in heaven nor those in hell need our prayers. We may pray with the souls in heaven, asking for their prayers in return, a part of what we call the communion of saints, but we do not pray for them: they are beyond need of such assistance. Nor do we pray for the souls in hell: they are where they have willed themselves to be—separated from the love of God. (Okay, I admit it, I do pray for them. That may be contrary to Christian doctrine, but if God’s mercy is boundless, then perhaps that mercy even reaches into hell.)
No—we pray for what the Church calls “the souls in purgatory”, that place of purgation, of cleansing, where all stain of sin is washed away, where penitents recognize, fully comprehend, and reject all their wrongdoing before entering into full union with God. The Church tells us that we the living may ameliorate the suffering of these souls, that our prayers may move the heart of God, that by the efficacy of our petitions we may help raise such souls to heaven. And as part of the communion of saints, the souls in purgatory may also pray for us.
For some non-Catholics, purgatory makes perfect sense—Anglican C.S. Lewis rejected many other tenets of Catholicism, but maintained a firm belief in purgatory—yet most Protestants regard purgatory as unbiblical, though some passages in the Old and New Testament allude to its existence. Even many Catholics give little consideration to purgatory, forgoing the prayers for their dead, with some no doubt regarding such petitions as gross superstition in our modernistic and scientific age.
To the latter group, and indeed to faint-of-heart believers and fervent non-believers alike, I would direct them to Christ’s admonition: “Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Here Christ addresses our faith, warning us that sophistication and self-esteem act as blockades against belief. And as our belief—and that “our” very much includes me—has diminished in our secular age, our faith in prayer has also weakened. To pray, to really pray, one must believe that someone is listening, yet unless plagued by some great crisis or trial, many of us either brush off prayer altogether or else mumble formulaic supplications to a deity who seems as distant from us as the farthest star.
To remember our dead—our wives, our parents and grandparents, our children, our friends—keeps them alive in our memory. To pray for them, and conversely to ask their prayers for us, may deliver them and us into heaven.
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