Today being the last day of November, the month of the last things and the souls in purgatory, I publicly confess: in my Catholic adulthood of 60 years I have almost never, excepting wakes and funerals, prayed for the souls in purgatory. I never confessed the sin until Friday. The priest, who is about my age, clearly resonated and seemed to almost co-confess with me. I knew about the souls, of course. But I didn't care. Purgatory was not part of my lived world.
It is not just me of course. I am a product of my society and age. At the time of the second Vatican Council, our society, including Catholicism, turned increasingly secular...right about 1965 as I graduated from high school. I ingested the flavor of the age and lost interest in the souls. On purgatory we Catholics for practical purposes went Protestant. No need for purification or reparation: God's mercy is all that matters. Souls pretty much go smoothly, directly to heaven: they are "in a better place." And so, we gather "to celebrate a life." Judgment, wrath, purgatory, retribution, reparation, purification...all that is SO pre-Vatican Council!
It was not always so. Medieval and Tridentine Catholicism placed great emphasis upon prayer for the souls. The Mystical Body of Christ was a sophisticated economy of grace: the saints in heaven (Triumphant) pray for us who struggle on earth (Militant) as we assist the souls in purgatory (Suffering). Prayers, masses, and sacrifices for the souls was a foundation of Catholic life. Our generation learned this from the Baltimore Catechism, but we cavalierly discarded it after the Council in our implicitly arrogant dismissal of our legacy.
My emergent consciousness is not unrelated to my age. Born 8/20/47, I was conceived circa 11/20/46 and so have just completed 79 years alive and begun my 80th year. Life expectancy for men in the USA is around 75. So, purgatory is becoming increasingly probable and imminent!
I hope my family and friends are more diligent in prayer for my soul than I have been for those who have gone before me.
The "saint for the day" in Magnificat for November 2025 has been "saints who teach us about purgatory." This has opened my eyes. My favorite is Blessed Christina the Wonderful. She died; in the middle of her funeral mass she sat up in the casket and levitated up to the rafters of the Church. Later she explained that she had gone to heaven, hell and purgatory and seen in each people she knew. She was told she could go to heaven or return to earth to pray for sinners and the souls in purgatory. She opted to return and spent the rest of her life doing just that.
Saint Maria Assunta Pallotta prayed the "Eternal Rest" prayer 100 times a day to help the souls. This is very doable and salutary. The prayer takes about 5 seconds to say, without rushing. So, said 100 times is 500 seconds which comes to under 10 minutes a day. It is a good aspiration: short, direct, inspiring. It can be said while walking, driving, or restless in bed at night. It fruitfully occupies a mind that otherwise can become distracted, discouraged or restless.
No, this is not "salvation by works." It is a work, an act, but it is inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is not human initiative. It is a work of Christ in his Church.
Prayer for the souls is a win/win/win. It helps them to get to heaven. They help us from heaven. But in addition, like any meritorious act...prayer, act of mercy, sacrifice...it sanctifies our soul. After I pray for the souls, I am flowing with faith, hope, charity, serenity, gratitude, joy, and integrity.
I had an argument with Sister Joan Noreen, of happy memory, who insisted that the souls in purgatory pray for us and that we can pray to them, as well as for them. I resisted: insisting we pray for them, not to them. When I looked into it a little further I saw that it was unclear. Most of the earlier fathers and doctors have us praying for, not to them. They are passive; dependent upon our prayers. But more recent authorities, including a statement in the Catechism have them also praying for us. It seems to me to be something Catholics can disagree about as the teaching is not clear. But my position is "lex orandi, lex credendi." "The way we pray is the way we believe." Our traditional prayers and liturgical practices NEVER have us praying TO the souls. So why start now?
I pray daily TO those I know who lived holy lives, who are not canonizable, who had evident flaws, but lived in the state of grace and are surely in God's presence, even if serving a mild purgatory: Sister Joan Noreen herself, my father/mother Ray and Jeanne, Aunt Grace, Betty Hopf, Fathers Joe Whelan S.J., Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J., John Wrynn S.J., Neal Doherty S.J., Paul Viale, John and Mary Rapinich, Sisters of Charity Patricia Brennan, Virginia Kean, Maria Martha Joyce, Alberta, Peggy McCarthy.
Souls I did not know but pray TO: Pope Benedict, Baron von Huegel, Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrandt, Maurice Blondel, Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Etienne Gilson, Fr. Schleeben, Elizabeth Anscombe, G.K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, C.S. Lewis, Fathers Delubac, Danielou, Congar, Boyer, Phillips, Cardinal Suenens, Archbishop Martinez, Popes Pius XII and John Paul I, Caryll Houselander, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Adrienne von Speyr, Madaleine del Brel, Elizabeth Leseur, Rose Hawthorne, Mother Margaret Cusak, and others I cannot recall at the moment.
My friend Tim does not the "Eternal Rest" prayer. He understands "rest" to be absence, negation, privation. I differ. I see "rest" in the context of prayer as plenitude, reception, joy, gratitude, praise, liberation from stress and striving. I see that genuine, wholesome, holy action always springs forth from deeper grounding in "rest" as abiding, reception, communion, plenitude. In God and his life, of course, the polarity of rest/action that structures our finitude is transcended in an eternal rest that is at the same time an eternal event of love.
Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and those of all the faithful departed rest in peace.
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