Remember November to Pray for the Dead.

November is the month in the church calendar dedicated to prayers for the dead, specifically for the benefit of the holy souls in purgatory.  What is a Holy Soul?  Well, they are folks who have passed on from this life and are not condemned to eternal punishment but may not yet be in heaven.  They have left this life and are destined for heaven but are in a place of purgative suffering first. 

What if we aren't sure what purgatory is all about?  What if we are reading this as new converts to the church and aren't sure about a soul going anywhere after death except for 1. Heaven or 2. Hell?  Can you give scriptural support for praying for the dead?  Yes!  And all of those questions and, I am sure, a dozen others related to them are valid, very valid.  But this article will not cover those things in particular, for the sake of brevity, I don't want to get too long winded here or lose the focus of this particular reflection.

  
After All Hallows Eve (Hallow'een, which is just to say the evening vigil of All Saints Day). The church saw fit to follow All saints Day (November 1st) with All souls Day (November 2nd) and thus to encourage graces and blessings to be sought by those of the body of the church on earth to the benefit of those holy souls of the church who had passed on but are still detained in their sufferings in purgatory. With this goal in mind there are even days and feasts when precious indulgences can be gained and then prayerfully gifted in charity for those we had once professed to be so close to in life.

If our earthly friendship to others is valuable enough to call them, email them, party with them, and attend weddings and birthdays with them, then so much more our spiritual friendship should have great value. We have heard that we have a spiritual responsibility to bring our friends to conversion, as much as is in our power to do so, during life. Then, I would say, even more when we hear of a friend passing on, since we cannot know the state of their soul, we have a responsibility to pray, fast, offer the mass, and our sufferings or pains for that soul as they may be in a purgative state awaiting heaven. 

Whenever we see their anniversary come up or an old memory posted on social media or something strongly reminds us of them suddenly, as if they are near at that moment, then is the prompting of our angel or the Holy Spirit not moving us to do more than shed a tear and feel fondness and nostalgia in our hearts for what is lost?  

Nostalgia does nothing to help the dead. Tears at their passing are useless to them. Instead they ask for fervent prayers, something as simple, upon receiving the Eucharist at Mass, as saying "Jesus, this is for my friend, Jenny." Yes, offering the graces of recievning the Eucharist, right then and there, is believed to be a viable and grace-filled offering!  And we should not worry about "losing" those grace for ourselves, for our Lord will ensure that we are not spiritually injured by giving with a generous heart.  This spiritual work of mercy can also be something as simple as traveling to the cemetery in town and walking or even sitting in your car offering prayers, even as simple as "Lord, for those here who suffer in purgatory may they rest in peace." Any prayer prayed fervently from the heart can be of great benefit no matter how small.  My personal favorite is "<name>, Requiescat in pace."

If we have the time for a spontaneous drive through the pickup window at Dunkin' because we saw a billboard and didn't mind a short diversion on our drive home, then we have the time for the spiritual drive through to pray for the souls of the dead. We just have to re-orient ourselves to be mindful of it.  And there is an indulgence attached to prayers offered in cemeteries. There are also indulgences attached to prayer in the presence of the tabernacle. We have then a bank of graces available to us that we can confer, yes confer, onto a soul in need of them.  All we need to do is ask our Lord and our Father to make whatever indulgence, partial or plenary, that may be earned by our current action, available to a soul that he chooses in purgatory who is in need.

Every hour for a soul in purgatory is like days, and days can seem like years, or years like ages. But in God's love and mercy, we are told by saints and doctors of the church, our prayers, pains, sacrifices, and fastings here, on earth, can provide much more efficient reparation for those temporal punishments which afflict us in purgatory than any purgative cleansing we would someday suffer there after death. What's even greater is that we can give them, give them, to those we had said that we loved so much in this life. 

With relatively little suffering here we can remit much more suffering in that place of penance. So, according to Saint Faustina, St Augustine, and others, our sacrifices here are a valuable storehold of graces and we see that the divine equity, as it were, is nothing of what we would expect. When we show such sacrificial love, the God of love is moved to Mercy and he repays, in his infinite mercy, far more than we can imagine. For if man can be moved to love generously then so much more does God!  A generosity we almost cannot comprehend!

It brings to mind Matthew 7:11 where Jesus says that if we, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts, how much more does our heavenly Father know how to give.  And Luke 11:11 For what father hands his son a snake when he asks for a fish.  Even more, it is like the feeding of the five-thousand with loaves and fishes. We see how the feeble gifts we are able to offer to feed each other are taken and multiplied by a generous and merciful God to go far beyond human limits. So how much more will our feeble prayers and sufferings and fastings here on earth, intended by us to be a partial remittance or a drop in the ocean to ease the pain and suffering of one of those we love in purgatory, may be multiplied by our Heavenly Father to great enormity!

So each November let us try to remember that a sudden memory of someone we've lost should move us to pray for them, because we might be reminded of them for a reason. Remember that prayer is not the only tool in our arsenal when so many of us suffer from knee pain, back pain, crippling anxiety, or worse afflictions. Look into acts such as offering Communions and the requirements for partial and plenary indulgences, which are great graces even though it was a bad word for a while associated with the church, it's not what it used to be and we should utilize them. Finally, remember that divine equity is not what we would think and does not follow the laws of human beings. For God deals with us far more mercifully than we would deal with each other.  Justice demands fulfillment (purgatory) but His mercy supplies all else, according to God's love.