Purgatory and Praying for All the Faithful Departed

“I’ve always had a hard time explaining purgatory,” the man said. “Didn’t the Second Vatican Council say that Catholics no longer have to believe in purgatory?”

That remark was made to me years ago, not long after I had entered the Catholic Church. Although I was saddened to hear it, it didn’t surprise me. In the course of studying various Catholic doctrines, I had learned that certain beliefs, including purgatory, were often avoided or even ignored by some Catholics. And this, unfortunately, meant that many Catholics don’t appreciate the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, which is all about praying for those who are in purgatory.

“I think purgatory is rather simple to understand,” I responded. “The problem is that we often have to do away with our flawed notions of purgatory.”

Growing up in a Fundamentalist home, I had been told purgatory was the belief that everyone gets a “second chance” after death. Purgatory, I had also been taught, was just another Catholic invention without any basis in Scripture.

What I learned years later was quite different. I saw that the early Christians prayed for the dead, and that this practice was based, in part, on the actions of those Jews who had prayed for the dead (cf., 2 Macc. 12:41-46). As today’s reading from the Book of Wisdom indicates, the idea of spiritual cleansing was a common one in the Old Testament: “For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.”

It followed logically that if there was life after death for the just, those who were just would be cleansed fully and completely, if necessary, before entering the presence of God. This, of course, also flowed from the deepened understanding of death and resurrection given through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Savior had promised, in today’s Gospel, “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

But the early Christians recognized that not every disciple of Jesus is perfectly cleansed in this life from venial sins. St. Augustine explained that the Church’s prayers, the Mass, and the giving of alms provided spiritual aid to the dead. “The whole Church,” he wrote, “observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf.”

It is ironic that the culture of death, which is present in so many ways, is so afraid to face death squarely and honestly. It tries to cheat and avoid death, both mocking it and cowering before it in movies, books, video games, and music. We fear death because it is so mysterious and hidden. We fear it because it seems so unjust that the vibrancy of life can end so suddenly and completely. If this world is all that exists, then death is to be feared. But it also will not be denied.

St. Paul, on the other hand, embraced death—that is, the death of Jesus Christ. “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,” he wrote to the Christians in Rome, “so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

All Souls not only provides us an opportunity to pray for those who have gone before us, but also reminds us of our mortal end. We cannot deny it. But by God’s grace we can and should prepare for it, trusting that the Lord our Shepherd will guide us through the valley of darkness.

Ecc 9:5" For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. "

This was written before Christ but then how do we explain Matthew 27:

51 "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[e] went into the holy city and appeared to many people."

54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

This certainly shows the "many holy people who had died were raised to life."

I would gather the dead in the first quote is talking about the spiritually dead not physical as Christ talks in the Gospels. You know when he states do not worry about the first death(human body dies) but the second death(spiritual death or going to Hell).

Ecc 9:5" For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. "

This was written before Christ but then how do we explain Matthew 27:

54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

This certainly shows the "many holy people who had died were raised to life."

This was written before Christ but then how do we explain Matthew 27:

You don't have to go back as far as Matthew 27. There were many places where Christ raised people from the dead; the woman and her son, the Jewish leader and his dead daughter, Lazarus, etc. Paul raised the boy who fell out of the window in which he fell asleep. In fact you'll find some places in the Old Testament of people being raised from the dead (Elisha comes to mind). But none of these examples have anything to do with their final death. Even after being raised again, they all died again. They were raised to bring glory to God and to show God is fully capable of raising people from the dead.

And none of the people that were raised would I classify in the sense of "holy" as I take it you mean. They were ordinary people who did what God wanted them to do. Yes they were holy in God's eyes but not in the sense of some great saints. Does any of us know what the dead son did after he was resurrected? Or the Jewish leader's little girl? Or even Lazarus or the boy who fell out of the window?

Ecc 9:5" For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. "

For the living know that they will die (spiritually), but the dead know nothing (about dying), and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

Do you really think your analysis makes sense? I would suggest that those who were raised from the dead, Lazarus, the little girl, the boy sleeping in the window, all knew they would die again. And once dead, then comes judgment. For we certainly don't remember them except what is written by God.

In fact,that verse 5 -- signifies that they 'know nothing more' as to the actions of this world unless it is revealed to them by the grace of God.

Verse 7 is talking about those who are still alive...

Ecc 9:7 Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

God NOW accepts their works WHILE they are alive. And we should rejoice and take comfort in that. Once dead, then judgment. It only confirms verse 5 which makes a distinction between the living and the dead.

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