A Month of Remembrance: Praying for the Souls in Purgatory
The month of November is traditionally a time in which the Catholic community remembers those who have died. It is related to the fact that the end of November is the end of the Liturgical Year with a new year starting the First Sunday of Advent – the four-week period of preparation before Christmas. The Church then uses this end of the year period as a time to think of the end of life and the end of all things and the great hope that our earthly end is transition into a new life in God’s heavenly reality. We give thanks for those who have gone before us, and we look with prayer and hope to their new life in heaven and our desire to join them there one day.
Throughout this month our minds turn toward the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Whether we pray for our loved ones – or even those we have never met – we should continually remember those who are now in Purgatory. In fact, praying for the living and the dead is one of the spiritual works of mercy.
CCC 1030: “All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”
The Church has always taught us to pray for those who have gone into eternity. Even in the Old Testament prayers and alms were offered for the souls of the dead by those who thought "well and religiously concerning the resurrection." It was believed that "they who had fallen asleep with godliness had great grace laid up for them" and that "it is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be lost from sins." We know that a defiled soul cannot enter into heaven. The Church has from the earliest times faithfully guarded the words of Scripture that it is a holy and a wholesome thing to pray for the dead that they may be lost from their sins. (Read 1 and 2 Maccabees)
“He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. 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.” (2Mac 12: 43-46)
Prayers for the dead and the consequent doctrine of purgatory have been part of the true religion since before the time of Christ. Not only can we show it was practiced by the Jews of the time of the Maccabees, but it has even been retained by Orthodox Jews today, who recite a prayer known as the Mourner’s Kaddish for eleven months after the death of a loved one so that the loved one may be purified. It was not the Catholic Church that added the doctrine of purgatory. Rather, the Protestant churches rejected a doctrine that had always been believed by Jews and Christians.
Purgatory is not eternal. Its duration varies according to the sentence pronounced at each particular judgment. It may be prolonged for centuries in the case of the more guilty souls, or of those who, being excluded from the Catholic communion, are deprived of the suffrages of the Church, although by the divine mercy they have escaped hell. But the end of the world, which will be also the end of time, will close forever the place of temporary expiation.
Suffering on earth offered up and thus united with Our Lord Jesus Christ will lessen our time in Purgatory. That is the fruit of growing in holiness, of detaching ourselves from sin and attachment to sin (see CCC 1471-73), and that’s why some saints could possibly go straight to heaven upon death.
“Dear children! The Most High in His goodness gave me to you to lead you on the way of peace. Many have responded and are praying, but there are many creatures who do not have peace and have not come to know the God of love. Therefore, little children, pray and love, create prayer groups to encourage each other to the good. I am with you and am praying for your conversion. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
