“At what point can I stop praying for the souls of my deceased relatives? One of my grandfathers died in the ’50’s, another in the ’70’s, my uncle died as a boy in the early ’60’s… How do I know when they’ve moved on from Purgatory to Heaven?”
This might seem like a rather childish, petty question. I actually asked it just a few years ago in a university theology class. I could understand the amused reactions of the professor and my fellow students to this seemingly nit-picking concern. But still it continued to bother me. What if one of my relatives is still stuck in Purgatory because we stopped praying for them after 30 years?
On All Saints’ Day it is the tradition in Belgium for everyone to visit cemeteries. I understand the practical reason behind visiting cemeteries on the 1st rather than the 2nd of November – All Saints’ Day is still a public holiday here, while only some businesses take All Souls’ Day off. However, it seems to me symptomatic of a general confusion regarding what happens to the soul directly after death.
Straight to Heaven
When my mother passed away last year, I used to get irritated when well-meaning people would be too quick to say that she’d gone straight to Heaven. I never responded directly, because I didn’t want to give anyone the feeling that I thought my mother to be an especially bad person! But somehow, letting her skip Purgatory didn’t seem to do justice to the uniqueness of her life.
She lived! And that meant that she did good things and bad things, made good choices and bad choices, lived in a sinful world… and would need to grow ever closer to the Light that burns all sin away. The degree to which we have not been able to let the Light burn our sin away in this life, is the degree to which we need Purgatory. We all need Purgatory for as long as is necessary before we are ready to be fully in the presence of God.
Praying for the Dead: How long does it ‘take’?
Which brings me back to my original question: my much loved mother has been gone for a year and a half now. Other friends and relatives have been dead for two years, three years, ten years forty years a hundred years… Will there ever come a point when I can say, for instance: “Okay, great-great-gradnmother Cameron, we’ve prayed for you for 87 years now, you should have made it to Heaven by now”?! And then I read something illuminating in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“…Our prayer for them [the dead] is capable not only of helping them,
but also of making their intercession for us effective.” (CCC number 958)
Because I had fallen into the trap of thinking that it was an either/or situation: either I pray for the souls of the departed while they’re in Purgatory, or I ask the souls in Heaven to pray for me. This line from the Catechism showed me: I can pray for my Mum (and everyone else) and ask her (and them) to pray for me!
This line of thought led me to take a closer look at the Communion of Saints section in the Catechism, which is actually the larger paragraph in which the passage cited above comes from (CCC numbers 946-962). I had come across the idea of the three states of the Church before (thank you Hearts Aflame!) – the pilgrim Church on earth, the suffering Church in Purgatory, and the Triumphant Church in Heaven. But this was the first time that I consciously read about how we are all in communion with one another. For instance, from the Catechism numbers 954 and 955, quoting Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from the Second Vatican Council) number 49:
“… But in various ways and degrees we all partake in the same love of God and neighbour,
and all sing the same hymn of glory to our God.
For all who belong to Christ, having His Spirit, form one Church and cleave together in Him (cf. Eph. 4:16).
Therefore the union of the wayfarers with the brethren who have gone to sleep in the peace of Christ
is not in the least interrupted.
On the contrary, according to the perennial faith of the Church,
it is strengthened through the exchanging of spiritual goods.”
What are these spiritual goods? See CCC 949-953: faith, the sacraments, charisms, and, what especially touched me, charity:
“… In this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints,
the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all. (CCC number 953)
This is immediately followed by the warning:
“Every sin harms this communion.”
All About Interceding
Seen from this point of view, it doesn’t matter who is doing the interceding. We are all being caught up in the love of God which radiates in love of neighbour, and we are all trying to be increasingly caught up in that love until we reach the point of complete union. My being caught up in that love affects your being caught up in that love and vice versa, for good and ill.
Lastly, when is our communion with the faithful departed most fully expressed? In the Eucharist:
“… In the Eucharist, the Church expresses her efficacious communion with the departed…” (CCC number 1689)
Remember that ‘efficacious’ means “having the power to produce a desired effect or result” – our communion with the departed has a real effect! Then, a little later in the same number:
“It is by the Eucharist… that the community of the faithful,
especially the family of the deceased,
learn to live in communion with the one who
‘has fallen asleep in the Lord,’
by communicating in the Body of Christ of which [the deceased] is a living member
and, then, by praying for him and with him.” (Emphasis added)
For the dead are still alive in Christ. And we learn best how to relate to them through the Eucharist, in which we pray for them and ask for their prayers. Lex orandi, lex credendi – the law of prayer is the law of faith (loosely translated). Or: if you have a theological question, go to the liturgy and see how we pray about the issue. A principle I learned in my theological studies – if only I would have remembered to apply it to the question of prayers for and from the dead sooner!
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