This past week we began the month of November with the Solemnity of All Saints (1st November) and the Feast of All Souls (2nd November). As the Liturgical calendar draws to a close, concluding with the Feast of Christ the King at the end of November, the Church guides the attention of the faithful to a contemplation of the ‘Last Things’. The entire Christian faith hinges upon our belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on Easter Sunday. Jesus’ death and resurrection establishes the pattern for the entire Christian life: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:24-25). Jesus came into the world ultimately for one purpose - to die…and to rise again. Death which came into the world as the penalty for sin, is transformed by Christ into the remedy for sin. Death becomes the portal through which we enter eternity.  
 
One of the Fathers of the early Church, St Ambrose, mourned the passing of his dear brother, Satyrus, which prompted him to reflect deeply on the mystery of human mortality in his two-volume tract On the Death of Satyrus. The profound Christian hope of the resurrection led Ambrose to conclude that a holy death was in fact a blessing, not something to be feared: “Death in this sense is a pilgrimage, a lifetime’s pilgrimage which none must shirk, a pilgrimage from decay to imperishable life, from mortality to immortality, from anxiety to perfect calm. Do not be afraid of the word death: rather rejoice in the blessings which follow a happy death.” (St Ambrose, Reflections on the Death of Satyrus). St Francis of Assisi in his famous canticle of creation concludes with an affectionate tribute to his ‘sister, bodily death’:  
 
“Be praised, my Lord, for our Sister Death, whom we must all face.  
I praise and bless you, Lord, and I give thanks to you!” 
 
These saints remind us that death itself is not something to be feared, provided one has strived to live a life of holiness and is living in a state of grace. Death does not have the last word because it becomes the means by which we enter eternal life. “If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” (Romans 14:8-9). 
 
With these reflections in mind, we might stop to reflect: why do we pray for the dead? What possible advantage could our prayers make? In truth, we could ask this of any prayers for any cause. Does God need to be convinced by our begging? Clearly not, however our praying for some intention, especially something so well-intentioned as the eternal salvation of the deceased is pleasing to God, and meritorious; it fosters charity for the salvation of souls which is a most pure kind of charity, since there is nothing more loving we can do than desire the eternal salvation of the deceased. According to St Augustine “prayer is desire” and so to pray for the eternal repose of the departed is to desire their ultimate good. Praying for the holy souls also fosters within us a desire for heaven, and strengthens our will to live a virtuous life.  
 
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n.1030) states: “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 gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.” This reassures us of two important points. Firstly, that the souls in purgatory enjoy the consolation of the assurance of their eternal salvation; secondly, that the purification of purgatory is of a wholly different order to the suffering that would be experienced by the souls in hell, since the latter is characterised by despair, whereas purgatory is filled with blessed hope.  
 
In his encyclical on the virtue of Hope, Spe Salve, Pope Benedict XVI writes: “Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. …in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives becomes evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation ‘as through fire’. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.” (Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, Encyclical Letter, 2007, n. 47). 
 
The Church’s teaching on purgatory is among the most comforting and reassuring of the Church’s soteriological doctrines (ie. her teachings concerning salvation). It is profoundly realistic in recognising the reality of sin in our lives, but it is also genuinely hopeful of the human person’s fundamental goodness and capacity for holiness. The Church’s perennial teaching on purgatory keeps open the hope of heaven for those who we know lived less-than-saintly lives (namely, most of us!!) and offers us the consolation of knowing that our prayers for the deceased are truly efficacious.   
 
Among the most spiritually efficacious things we can do for the souls of the faithful departed is to have Mass offered for the intentions of the faithful departed. Indeed, there is in every Mass a specific memento for the dead: “Remember also, Lord, your servants (N. and N.) who have gone before us with the sign of faith and rest in the sleep of peace. [priest pauses and prays silently for the deceased] Grant them, O Lord, a place of refreshment, light and peace.” (from the First Eucharistic Prayer of the Roman Missal). Here the infinite merits of Christ’s Passion, death and resurrection are poured out like a fountain of grace for the sake of the poor souls. Second only to the Mass, the most beautiful and efficacious prayer we can offer for the Holy Souls is the rosary. Finally, it can be a beautiful expression of our prayerful remembrance of the Holy Souls to visit the graves of the faithful departed at the cemetery and to spend time praying before them. If you would like to have Mass/es offered for the souls of deceased relatives and friends there are envelops available in the narthex of the church which can be handed in to the sacristy, the parish office or within the Sunday collection. Please indicate if you would like their names added to our book of Remembrance, which will be on display in the month of November. 
 
May the Divine Assistance remain always with us and may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.