My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
During November, the Church asks us to remember the faithful departed in a particular way. We have celebrated All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, and now we continue through this month with the names and faces of people we have loved.
For some of you, the loss is very recent. There is an empty chair at your table. There is a telephone number you still wish you could call. There are ordinary moments when you turn to tell someone something, and then remember that the person is gone.
For others, many years have passed. Yet a particular hymn, a photograph, or a familiar place can bring that person close to mind again.
Our Catholic faith gives us something to do with that love. We can pray for those who have died. We can have Mass offered for them. We can undertake acts of charity and penance on their behalf. And we can seek the indulgences the Church makes available for the holy souls.
Today I want to speak about why we do these things and how to do them. We will consider what the Church teaches about purgatory, what it means to belong to Christ even while undergoing purification, and how our prayer and sacrifice can assist these souls.
I also want to answer a question people sometimes ask: Can we gain an indulgence by making the Stations of the Cross? The answer is yes, under the conditions the Church prescribes. We will look at those conditions carefully.
But first, let us place before God the people we are remembering.
Think of someone who has died. Bring that person’s name before the Lord. We begin with that simple act of love.
What purgatory means
The Church teaches that those who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still need purification, are purified before entering the fullness of heaven. That final purification is what we call purgatory. Those souls are assured of salvation. They belong to Christ. Their purification prepares them for the complete holiness of life with God.
That is why we call them the holy souls. They have died in friendship with God, and heaven is their destination.
This teaching helps us speak honestly about both God’s holiness and our own need for mercy. We know how much can remain unfinished in a human heart. A person may sincerely love God and still struggle with pride. We may repent of unkindness and discover how deeply the habit of speaking unkindly has taken root. We may receive forgiveness and still need healing from the disorder our sins have caused.
In heaven, our love will be whole. There will be no resentment quietly protected, no dishonesty carefully excused, no selfishness competing with charity. God brings those who belong to Him into that complete holiness.
The Book of the Apocalypse 21:27 says: “There shall not enter into it any thing defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the book of life of the Lamb.”
We should receive that verse with reverence. Heaven is communion with the all-holy God. Purification is part of the mercy by which He prepares His friends to enter that communion.
St. Paul gives us another passage the Church has understood in connection with this purification. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, 3:13-15, he writes: “Every man’s work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.”
The Church reads this passage within the whole of Scripture and Sacred Tradition. St. Paul speaks of a person who is saved, yet undergoes loss and a trial by fire. The passage helps us understand how salvation and purification can belong together.
Purgatory is not a second opportunity to choose God after a life finally closed against Him. Our earthly life matters, and death brings us before His judgment. Purgatory concerns those who die in His friendship and still need to be purified.
The Church has not given us a timetable by which we can calculate the purification of a particular soul. Nor should we treat every story about purgatory as though it carried the authority of Catholic doctrine. We can hold firmly to what the Church teaches without claiming knowledge God has not given us.
There is suffering in purification. We should not make light of it. There is also the certainty that these souls belong to God. We approach them with compassion and hope.
The mercy of being made whole
It can help to think about what we are asking when we ask God to make us holy.
We are asking Him to reach the parts of us that resist His love. We are asking for the healing of our will, our desires, and the ways we relate to others. We want to love Him without continually turning back toward ourselves.
Even now, that work can be painful. An honest confession may require us to admit something we have spent years excusing. Reconciliation with another person may require us to surrender the satisfaction of being right. A new habit of generosity may disturb the comfort we have built around ourselves.
These experiences do not tell us exactly what purgatory is like. But they can help us understand why purification and mercy belong together. Being freed from what deforms our love is a good, even when the freeing is painful.
We should be careful with our language here. Christ’s sacrifice is entirely sufficient. Purgatory does not supply something lacking in His redemption. The purification of the saved is itself a work of His grace. The Savior brings His healing work to completion in those who belong to Him.
That can be a source of great hope for people who see their own weakness clearly. Perhaps you have followed the Lord for years and still find yourself confessing familiar sins. Perhaps you have made progress, but you also know how much remains to be changed.
Keep cooperating with grace now. Ask for a more generous heart today. The teaching about purgatory should deepen our desire for holiness while there is still time to grow through the choices of this life.
It also teaches us how to look at others. We tend to judge by the little we can see. God knows the whole person: the wounds, the freedom, the resistance, the repentance, and the hidden acts of love. Judgment belongs to Him. Intercession has been entrusted to us.
When someone dies, we do not have to settle every question about that person’s life. We can acknowledge what was good, grieve what was painful, and commend the person to the Lord.
There is humility in doing that. There is also relief. We can leave to God what belongs to God and undertake the loving work that belongs to us.
Why their suffering should move us
The souls in purgatory need our charity. Their purification is real, and we should not allow the certainty of their eventual happiness to make us indifferent to their suffering.
Think of how readily you would respond if someone you loved were suffering in a hospital. You would want to go. You would want to offer whatever help was possible. If you could do only one small thing, you would still want to do it.
Let that readiness carry into your prayer for the departed.
We do not need to imagine detailed scenes or invent descriptions of what a particular soul experiences. Catholic teaching gives us enough reason to care. These souls are undergoing purification, and the Church teaches that our suffrages can assist them.
Their need can also widen a heart that has become narrow. It is natural to begin with our own family. But the Church’s prayer reaches further. We pray for people whose language we never spoke, whose country we never visited, and whose lives were very different from ours.
Consider remembering a deceased person who was difficult for you to love. You need not deny any harm that was done. You can ask God to purify that soul and bring it into the fullness of His peace. Such prayer can become a sincere act of forgiveness.
Or remember someone who quietly served you: the nurse who cared for your mother, the teacher who encouraged you, the neighbor who helped when you were overwhelmed.
You may never know what your prayer accomplishes. Christian charity does not require that kind of report. We offer what we can, in faith, because God has made us responsible for loving one another.
Why we pray for the dead
The practice of praying for the dead has a clear witness in Sacred Scripture.
The Second Book of Machabees 12:46 says: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”
Notice how directly Scripture commends this prayer. It calls it holy and wholesome.
The Church continues that prayer because our union in Christ reaches beyond death. We speak of the communion of saints: the faithful on earth, the souls undergoing purification, and the saints in heaven belong to the one Church. Our care for one another continues within that communion.
We cannot visit a departed loved one in the way we once did. We cannot prepare a meal for that person or sit beside the bed. But prayer remains possible. The separation we experience does not put the person beyond the reach of God’s mercy or beyond the charity of the Church.
This also changes the way we speak at funerals and afterward. We may have very good reasons to remember someone’s faith, generosity, and kindness. We should give thanks for those things. Yet our love should continue in prayer, rather than deciding that prayer is unnecessary.
Entrusting someone to God is an act of confidence. Asking mercy for that person is an act of confidence too.
Perhaps you have wondered whether you should still pray for a parent who died thirty years ago. Yes, continue to pray. You do not need to discover the condition of that soul before offering your love to God. He knows perfectly what you do not know.
And widen that love. Remember those whose names no one speaks anymore. Remember people buried far from their families, people who died alone, and those for whom nobody thinks to request a Mass.
A name on an old gravestone belongs to someone who was once a child, someone who had hopes and fears, someone known completely by God. We can stop and pray.
Remember them at the altar
The Church gives a privileged place to the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the departed. The Catechism recalls this practice and also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance on their behalf.
If you are wondering where to begin this November, contact your parish and ask to have a Mass offered for someone who has died.
Then, as you are able, attend Mass and unite yourself prayerfully to that intention. Bring your loved one before the Lord. Thank Him for what was good in that person’s life. Ask for mercy and purification wherever they are needed.
St. Monica’s request near the end of her life gives us a beautiful example. St. Augustine records her words, and the Catechism quotes them in its teaching about the Eucharist: “I simply ask you to remember me at the Lord’s altar wherever you are.”
There is great simplicity in that request. Here is something children can do for their parents long after the funeral. Here is something a husband can do for his wife, a friend for a friend, and a parish for a priest who once served it.
We should also remember deceased bishops, religious, benefactors, teachers, and those who handed the faith on to us. Often we are living from the fruit of sacrifices we never saw. Someone taught us to pray. Someone kept a parish going. Someone offered quiet help during a difficult year.
November gives us an opportunity to repay that care with prayer.
You can also give alms in memory of someone who has died, offer a reasonable penance, or unite the ordinary burdens of your day to Christ on behalf of the holy souls. Illness and limitations need not make a person useless to others. Even when much of life has become difficult, prayer and love remain possible.
Prayer and sacrifice in ordinary life
Having a Mass offered is a very concrete beginning. Daily prayer allows that remembrance to become part of the way we live.
A Rosary can be offered for the faithful departed. So can a few quiet minutes before the Blessed Sacrament. You might pray a decade while walking, remember a soul during your morning prayers, or add the Eternal Rest prayer at the end of the day.
These suggestions are ways to intercede; they are not a claim that every prayer, in every circumstance, carries the same indulgence.
Do not wait until you can pray with perfect concentration. When your thoughts wander, gently return to your intention. When grief makes speech difficult, remain before God with the person’s name.
Almsgiving gives another expression to that prayer. You might help a family buy groceries in memory of your parents, support a work of mercy, or assist someone whose need would otherwise go unnoticed. The gift can remain quiet. Its purpose is love.
A reasonable sacrifice can accompany your intercession. You might give up a small comfort, accept an interruption patiently, or undertake an unpleasant duty without complaint. Offer it in union with Christ for the faithful departed.
We should use sound judgment. Penance should respect our health and our responsibilities. A person who needs food or medication should not endanger health in an attempt to make a greater offering.
And suffering does not have to be sought out before it can be offered. Many listeners already carry enough: chronic pain, exhaustion, loneliness, or the limitations of age. Bring those burdens to Christ. Ask Him to unite them to His saving love and make them fruitful for others.
This does not mean refusing treatment or pretending that suffering is easy. We can seek relief and still pray. We can admit that we are tired and still make an offering.
For someone who feels unable to do much anymore, that can be a profound encouragement. The Church still needs your prayer. The holy souls still have a place in your charity.
Perhaps your outward life has grown smaller. Your love can still reach beyond the walls of your room.
Indulgences as one way to help
Among the ways we can assist the holy souls, the Church offers indulgences.
An indulgence remits temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven. A partial indulgence remits part; a plenary indulgence remits all. This gift comes through the Church from the merits of Christ and the saints united to Him. It accompanies conversion and does not replace confession or forgive the guilt of sin.
We may offer indulgences for the departed by way of intercession. The November cemetery and All Souls’ Day indulgences are applicable only to the souls in purgatory.
To seek a plenary indulgence, complete the prescribed work with the intention of gaining it, be in the state of grace at its completion, and be completely detached from every sin, even venial sin. Also make a sacramental confession, receive Holy Communion, and pray for the Pope’s intentions.
Complete detachment calls us to surrender every affection for sin. Ask God for that disposition, and bring your struggles honestly to confession.
Confession, Communion, and the prayer may take place about twenty days before or after the work; Communion and prayer on the day itself are especially fitting. One confession can cover several plenary indulgences, but each needs a separate Communion and prayer for the Pope’s intentions. An Our Father and a Hail Mary suffice. Ordinarily, one plenary indulgence may be gained daily.
If the full disposition or conditions are lacking, the indulgence is partial, provided the requirements for a partial indulgence are met.
Here are the practical opportunities to remember:
From November first through eighth, devoutly visit a cemetery and pray for the departed, even silently. With the usual conditions, this can gain a plenary indulgence for the holy souls. Outside those dates, a devout cemetery visit with prayer for the dead carries a partial indulgence.
You do not have to visit a relative’s grave. Go devoutly, and pray. You may simply say: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.”
There is also a plenary indulgence for a devout visit to a church or oratory on All Souls’ Day with the Our Father and Creed and the usual conditions. The local Ordinary may authorize All Saints’ Day or the preceding or following Sunday instead. All Souls’ Day itself has passed; check locally about any authorized alternative. An ordinary church visit on any November day is not automatically this particular grant.
And yes, making the Stations of the Cross can carry a plenary indulgence throughout the year with the usual conditions. You may offer it for the departed.
For the ordinary grant, make the devotion before legitimately erected Stations with fourteen crosses, meditating on Christ’s Passion and Death and moving from station to station. No particular booklet is required. In public celebrations, if everyone’s moving would cause inconvenience, the leader may move while the others remain in place.
Those legitimately impeded may instead spend time devoutly reading and meditating on Our Lord’s Passion and Death; the Manual gives a quarter of an hour as an example. The usual conditions remain.
If illness or another serious obstacle prevents you from fulfilling a work or condition, ask your priest about the Church’s provisions for those legitimately impeded. Confessors can commute works and conditions within the norms.
These are gifts worth learning to use. Let them strengthen the larger purpose of this month: faithful, loving care for the holy souls.
A simple practice for this month
Let me suggest a manageable way to begin.
Choose someone who has died and pray for that person each day this month. Add a prayer for the souls who have no one to remember them.
Arrange for a Mass to be offered. If you can, visit a cemetery on or before November eighth, and seek the indulgence under the usual conditions.
Find an opportunity to make the Stations of the Cross. Return to confession, receive Holy Communion worthily, and pray for the Holy Father’s intentions.
Then let your care continue beyond these first days of November.
Keep a short list of the departed in your prayer book. Remember death anniversaries. Pray when you pass a cemetery. Include the faithful departed in your family prayers.
If your grief is heavy, you need not find many words. Begin with a name. Place that name before God. Ask for mercy, and remain with Him.
There may also be pain mixed with your memories. A relationship may have been difficult. Things may have been left unsaid. You may regret your own failures or still feel the wound of someone else’s.
You can bring all of that to prayer. You do not have to pretend the relationship was easy. Ask God to receive the person in mercy, and ask Him to heal what remains wounded in your own heart.
Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical Spe salvi: “It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain.”
He was speaking in a passage about prayer for the departed and the way our lives remain bound together. His words encourage us to continue in hope.
As we close, remember the person whose name you brought before God at the beginning.
And remember those beyond your own family: the forgotten, those who died in war, those who died without someone beside them, and those whose graves will receive no visitors this month.
Let our prayer make room for them.
Closing prayer
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Merciful Father, we commend to You the souls of the faithful departed, especially those we have named in our hearts.
Through the saving Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Your Son, bring to completion the purification of those who have died in Your friendship.
Receive our prayers and the works of charity we offer on their behalf. Teach us to remember them faithfully at Your altar.
Console those who mourn. Give courage to those facing death. Grant us sincere repentance, freedom from attachment to sin, and perseverance in Your grace.
May our love for the departed deepen our gratitude for the salvation won for us by Jesus Christ.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
NOTE FOR TRANSCRIPT
Usual plenary conditions: Prescribed work; intention to gain the indulgence; state of grace at completion; complete detachment from every sin, even venial; sacramental confession; Holy Communion; prayer for the Pope’s intentions. One confession may cover several plenary indulgences; a distinct Communion and prayer for the Pope’s intentions are required for each. Ordinarily one plenary indulgence per day. About twenty days before or after is allowed for confession, Communion, and prayer, with Communion and prayer especially fitting on the day of the work.
