WHY AND HOW WE CAN HELP THE HOLY SOULS

 

WHY AND HOW WE CAN HELP THE HOLY SOULS

            As I mentioned in my homily on All Souls Day, God in his goodness has given us the gift of praying for the dead.  This prayer is not empty but is efficacious since it is a gift of God, who would not have us do anything that is useless.  It has no effect on their eternal salvation, for that is determined at the moment of death by Christ in what is called the particular judgment.  Those who are saved but still carry the effects of personal sin, however great or little, are “sped” through the process of purification by our prayers and penances.  Their purification is necessary because, according to Scripture, nothing “unclean” can enter heaven (Rev. 21:27).  For heaven to be heaven, where God is all in all, there can be no lingering effects of sin.  Only those souls who are completely free of the temporal punishment of their sins enter directly into heaven at the moment of death, for there is nothing in them to hold them back from God.

The classic biblical text which recommends prayer for the dead is found in 2 Maccabees 12.  In recounting the exploits of Judas Maccabeus it notes that some of his men were killed in battle.  When Judas and his soldiers went to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades they discovered that each one was wearing a pagan amulet, which is strictly forbidden in the Jewish Law.  In response, the soldiers prayed to God for forgiveness of their comrades, and Judas took up a collection to be sent to Jerusalem for the offering of an expiatory sacrifice on their behalf.  “In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead.  But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.  Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin” (2 Mc 43b-46). 

Every sin has what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls a double consequence; it incurs both guilt and temporal punishment.  In his mercy God forgives guilt when a person is perfectly contrite or receives absolution in confession.  The removal of guilt restores communion with God and the Church, in the case of mortal sin, or strengthens that communion which was not broken, but weakened, by venial sin.  The forgiveness of God does not negate sin’s effect on the soul.  The Catechism explains that “every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in a state called Purgatory.  This purification frees one from what is called the ‘temporal punishment’ of sin” (#1472).  A way to understand this is to consider human relationships.  Someone is betrayed by a friend or spouse.  That person may forgive, but the relationship still requires healing, which may take some time, and the person who did the betraying must somehow make up for it.  Basically, the effect of sin is to make us selfish.  By the grace of God, our prayer and penances, including acts of charity, heal us of our self-centeredness.  Punishment due to sin must be satisfied in this life or the next.  Only then is a soul prepared to pass into the heavenly state.

Our prayer for the faithful departed can help them because we are all members of the communion of saints, a “perennial link of charity” which exists between the faithful in heaven, in Purgatory, and on earth.  “In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others.  Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin” (#1475).  Our prayer and penance for the dead contribute not only to their sanctification but to ours as well.  As we are helping them, they also are helping us, although the souls in Purgatory cannot help themselves.  Their purification is a pure grace of God, to which we can contribute in a mysterious and marvelous way.