Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH teaches that, besides a place of eternal torments for the wicked and of everlasting rest for the righteous, there exists in the next life a middle state of temporary punishment, allotted for those who have died in venial sin, or who have not satisfied the justice of God for sins already forgiven. She also teaches us that, although the souls consigned to this intermediate state, commonly called purgatory, cannot help themselves, they may be aided by the suffrages of the faithful on earth. The existence of purgatory naturally implies the correlative dogma —the utility of praying for the dead —for the souls consigned to this middle state have not reached the term of their journey. They are still exiles from heaven and fit subjects for Divine clemency.

The doctrine of an intermediate state is thus succinctly asserted by the Council of Trent: "There is a Purgatory, and souls there detained, are helped by the prayers of the faithful, and especially by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar."

It is to be noted that the Council studiously abstains from specifying the nature of the expiating sufferings endured therein.

Is it not strange that this cherished doctrine should also be called in question by the leveling innovators of the sixteenth century, when we consider that it is clearly taught in the Old Testament; that it is, at least insinuated in the New Testament; that it is unanimously proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church; that it is embodied in all the ancient liturgies of the Oriental and the Western Church, and that it is a doctrine alike consonant with our reason and eminently consoling to the human heart?

First —It is a doctrine plainly contained in the Old Testament and piously practiced by the Hebrew people. At the close of an engagement which Judas Machabeus had with the enemy he ordered prayers and sacrifices to be offered up for his slain comrades. "And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection. For, if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead….It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins" (II Mach. xii. 43-46).

These words are so forcible that no comment of mine could render them clearer. The passage proved a great stumbling block to the Reformers. Finding that they could not by any evasion weaken the force of the text, they impiously threw overboard the Books of Machabees, like a man who assassinates a hostile witness, or like the Jews who sought to kill Lazarus, lest his resurrection should be a testimony in favor of Christ, and pretended that the two books of Machabees were apocryphal. And yet they have precisely the same authority as the Gospel of St. Matthew or any other portion of the Bible, for the canonicity of the Holy Scripture rests solely on the authority of the Catholic Church, which proclaimed them inspired.

But even admitting, for the sake of argument, that the Books of Machabees were not entitled to be ranked among the canonical books of Holy Scripture, no one, at least, has ever denied that they are truthful historical monuments, and as such that they serve to demonstrate that it was a prevailing practice among the Hebrew people, as it is with us, to offer up prayer and sacrifices for the dead.

Second —When Our Savior, the Founder of the New Law, appeared on earth, He came to lop off those excrescences which had grown on the body of the Jewish ecclesiastical code, and to purify the Jewish Church from those human traditions which, in the course of time, became like tares mixed with the wheat of sound doctrine. For instance, He condemns the Pharisees for prohibiting the performance of works of charity on the Sabbath day, and in the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew He cites against them a long catalogue of innovations in doctrine and discipline.

But did Our Lord, at any time, reprove the Jews for their belief in a middle state, or for praying for the dead, a practice which, to His knowledge, prevailed among the people? Never. On the contrary, more than once both He and the Apostle of the Gentiles insinuate the doctrine of purgatory. Our Savior says: "Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him. But he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come." When Our Savior declares that a sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven in the next life, He evidently leaves us to infer that there are some sins which will be pardoned in the life to come. Now in the next life, sins cannot be forgiven in heaven, for, nothing defiled can enter there; nor can they be forgiven in hell, for, out of hell there is no redemption. They must, therefore, be pardoned in the intermediate state of purgatory.

St. Paul tells us that "every man's work shall be manifest" on the Lord's day. "The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide," that is, if his works are holy, "he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn," that is, if his works are faulty and imperfect, "he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." His soul will be ultimately saved, but he shall suffer, for a temporary duration, in the purifying flames of purgatory.

This interpretation is not mine. It is the unanimous voice of the Fathers of Christendom. And who are they that have removed the time-honored landmarks of Christian faith by rejecting the doctrine of purgatory? They are discontented churchmen impatient of the religious yoke, men who appeared on the stage long after the foundation of Christianity. Judge you, reader, whom you ought to follow. If you want to know the true import of a vital question in the Constitution, would you not follow the decision of a Story, a Jefferson, a Marshall, a Taney, jurists and statesmen, who were the recognized expounders of the Constitution? Would you not prefer their opinion to that of political demagogues, who have neither learning, nor authority, nor history to support them, but some selfish end to further? Now, the same motive which you have for rejecting the opinion of an ignorant politician, and embracing that of eminent jurists, on a constitutional question, impels you to cast aside the novelties of religious innovators and to follow the unanimous sentiments of the Fathers in reference to the subject of purgatory.

Third —I would wish to place before you extended tracts from the writings of the early Fathers of the Church bearing upon this subject; but I must content myself with quoting a few of the most prominent lights of primitive Christianity.

Tertullian, who lived in the second century, says that "the faithful wife will pray for the soul of her deceased husband, particularly on the anniversary day of his falling asleep (death). And if she fail to do so she hath repudiated her husband as far as in her lies,"

Eusebius, the fourth-century historian, describing the funeral of Constantine the Great, says that the body of the blessed prince was placed on a lofty bier, and the ministers of God and the multitude of the people, with tears and much lamentation, offered up prayers and sacrifice for the repose of his soul. He adds that this was done in accordance with the desires of that great religious monarch, who had erected in Constantinople the great church in honor of the Apostles, so that after his death the faithful might there remember him.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, fourth century, writes: "We commemorate the Holy Fathers, and Bishops, and all who have fallen asleep from amongst us, believing that the supplications which we sent will be of great assistance to their souls, while the holy and tremendous Sacrifice is offered up." He answers by an illustration those that might be disposed to doubt the efficacy of prayers for the dead: "If a king had banished certain persons who had offended him, and their relations, having woven a crown, should offer it to him in behalf of those under his vengeance, would he not grant a respite to their punishments? So we, in offering up a crown of prayers in behalf of those who have fallen asleep, will obtain for them forgiveness through the merits of Christ."

St. Ephrem, in the same century, says: "I conjure you, my brethren and friends, in the name of that God who commands me to leave you, to remember me when you assemble to pray. Do not bury me with perfumes. Give them not to me, but to God. Me, conceived in sorrows, bury with lamentations, and instead of perfumes assist me with your prayers; for the dead are benefited by the prayers of living saints."

St. Ambrose (same century), on the death of the Emperors Gratian and Valentinian, says: "Blessed shall both of you be [Gratian and Valentinian], if my prayers can avail anything. No day shall pass you over in silence. No prayer of mine shall omit to honor you. No night shall hurry by without bestowing on you a mention in my prayers. In every one of the oblations will I remember you." On the death of the Emperor Theodosius he offers the following prayer: "Give perfect rest to Thy servant Theodosius, that rest which Thou hast prepared for Thy servants. May soul return thither whence it descended, where it cannot feel the sting of death….I loved him and therefore will I follow him, even unto the land of the living. Nor will I leave him until, by tears and prayers, I shall lead him…unto the holy mountain of the Lord, where is life undying, where corruption is not, nor sighing nor mourning."

St. Jerome, in the same century, in a letter of condolence to Pammachius, on the death of his wife Paulina, writes: "Other husbands strew violets and roses on the graves of their wives. Our Pammachius bedews the hallowed dust of Paulina with balsams of alms."

St. Chrysostom writes: "It was not without good reason ordained by the Apostles that mention should be made of the dead in the tremendous mysteries, because they knew well that they would receive great benefit from it."

St. Augustine, who lived in the beginning of the third century, relates that when his mother was at the point of death she made this last request of him: "Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it in any way disturb you. This only I request of you, that you would remember me at the altar of the Lord, wherever you be."

And that pious son prays for his mother's soul in the most impassioned language: "I therefore," he says, "O God of my heart, do now beseech Thee for the sins of my mother. Hear me through the medicine of the wounds that hung upon the wood….May she, then, be in peace with her husband…and inspire, my Lord,…Thy servants, my brethren, whom with voice and heart and pen I serve, that as many as shall read these words may remember at Thy altar, Monica, Thy servant…"

These are but a few specimens of the unanimous voice of the Fathers regarding the salutary practice of praying for the dead.

You now perceive that this devotion is not an invention of modern times, but a doctrine universally enforced in the first and purest ages of the Church.

You see that praying for the dead was not a devotion cautiously recommended by some obscure or visionary writer, but an act of religion preached and inculcated by all the great Doctors and Fathers of the Church, who are the recognized expounders of the Christian religion.

You see them, too, inculcating this doctrine not as a cold and abstract principle, but as an imperative act of daily piety, and embodying it in their ordinary exercises of devotion.

They prayed for the dead in their morning and evening devotions. They prayed for them in their daily office, and in the Sacrifice of the Mass. They asked the prayers of the congregation for the souls of the deceased in the public services of Sunday. On the monuments which were erected to the dead, some of which are preserved even to this day, epitaphs were inscribed, earnestly invoking for their souls the prayers of the living. How gratifying it is to our Catholic hearts that a devotion so soothing to afflicted spirits is at the same time so firmly grounded on the tradition of ages!

+   +   +

If a brother leaves you to cross the broad Atlantic, religion and affection prompt you to pray for him during his absence. And if the same brother crosses the narrow sea of death to pass to the shores of eternity, why not pray for him then also? When he crosses the Atlantic his soul, imprisoned in the flesh, is absent from you; when he passes the sea of death his soul, released from the flesh, has gone from you. What difference does this make with regard to the duty of your intercession? For what is death? A mere separation of body and soul. The body, indeed, dies, but the soul "lives and moves and has its being." It continues after death as before, to think, to remember, to love. And do not God's dominion and mercy extend over that soul beyond the grave as well as this side of it? Who shall place the limits to God's empire and say to Him: "Thus far Thou shalt go and no farther?" Two thousand years after Abraham's death Our Lord said: "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

If, then, it is profitable for you to pray for your brother in the flesh, why should it be useless for you to pray for him out of the flesh? For while he was living you prayed not for his body, but for his soul.

If this brother of yours dies with some slight stains on his soul, a sin of impatience, for instance, or an idle word, is he fit to enter heaven with these blemishes on his soul? No; the sanctity of God forbids it, for "nothing defiled shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Will you consign him, for these minor transgressions, to eternal torments with adulterers, and murderers? No; the justice and mercy of God forbid it. Therefore, your common sense demands a middle place of expiation for the purgation of the soul before it is worthy of enjoying the companionship of God and His saints.

God "will render to every man according to his works" —to the pure and unsullied everlasting bliss; to the reprobate eternal damnation; to souls stained with minor faults a place of temporary purgation. I cannot recall any doctrine of the Christian religion more consoling to the human heart than the article of faith which teaches the efficacy of prayers for the faithful departed. It robs death of its sting. It encircles the chamber of mourning with a rainbow of hope. It assuages the bitterness of our sorrow, and reconciles us to our loss. It keeps us in touch with the departed dead as correspondence keeps us in touch with the absent living. It preserves their memory fresh and green in our hearts.

It gives us that keen satisfaction which springs from the consciousness that we can aid those loved ones who are gone before us by alleviating their pains, shortening their exile, and hastening their entrance into their true country.

It familiarizes us with the existence of a life beyond the grave, and with the hope of being reunited with those whom we cherished on earth, and of dwelling with them in that home where there is no separation, or sorrow, or death, but eternal joy and peace and rest.