Pray for the Dead and the Dead Will Pray for You

Feast of All Souls (Nov 2)

On the Feast of All Souls we commemorate and pray with special fervor for the souls of the all the Faithful Departed in Christ. We still hope for those whose whose life and death were not clearly marked by the sanctity of Christ because of the fact that they lived and died in Him. This union with Him continues to progress even after life on earth does not, precisely because their soul is immortal and because in Christ there is no death, no end - but only eternal life. The spiritual (and to us, unknown) process by which their sanctification and purification continues is commonly referred to as Purgatory.

Purgatory is necessary not because they must earn forgiveness for their sins. That can't be done. It is necessary because sinning isn't just breaking rules. Sinning harms things, which is why it is "against the rules". First and foremost, sin damages us, our ability to relate and love others, to share communion with them, to enter the Communion of Saints with God and all the Elect in Heaven. This damage must be undone.

Sin blinds us to its own nature, to our nature, and to our enmeshedness with it. Sin hardens the heart of the sinner against truth, beauty, and goodness - to reality itself, to transcendence, and to God. Sin makes us more prone to further sin. All these effects are added to the visible, material damage done by the sinful deed itself (the stolen money, the broken heart, etc.). People enmeshed in sin wouldn't enjoy heaven even if they somehow got there, any more than a rough street gangster would enjoy the opera or a museum of fine art. Preparation is needed.

For those of us unlikely to die completely transformed in Christ, completely united to Him, completely reconfigured to Him, the thought that the process can continue as long as necessary is a comforting one. There is comfort in the thought that, as our prayers on earth can assist in the conversion of our brothers and sisters on earth, so can our prayers can assist in this final purification of our brothers and sisters gone ahead of us. If we would like our brethren to assist our preparation to enter Eternal Paradise, we might begin by assisting in theirs.