Why pray for the dead?

Catholics observe November as the month of prayer for the faithful departed.

But November begins with All Saints Day. What, if anything, connects these two?

Well, they are connected. We perhaps need to widen our aperture to see the connection. November is the month of the holy souls, but, more broadly, it is the month of the “communion of saints.”

The Apostles Creed declares we believe in “the communion of saints.” However—as with many classic concepts of Catholic theology—perhaps not a few Catholics are hazy about what “communion of saints” means.

Put simply, the “communion of saints” means the bond of love that joins together people united to God: those alive in this world still working out their salvation; those in purgatory whose salvation is assured but not yet fully achieved; those in heaven who see God face-to-face and truly live. Traditionally, Catholics speak of these three as the Church Militant, Suffering, and Triumphant.

Realize that’s saying that the Church is bigger than my parish or diocese or even the whole Church here and now on earth. The Church stretches beyond the here and now into eternity. The Church is not a funnel organization that just gets you to heaven. The Church is heaven, with its preparatory branches here on earth and in purgatory.

So, what we Catholics do in November in terms of praying for the faithful departed (and note that term—not the “dead” but the faithful departed, i.e., those we hope have fulfilled the purpose of their lives) is not just a “nice thing” we do as a November hobby. Prayer for the dead is part and parcel of being Catholic because it is part of being a member of the Church. (That is a fundamental difference, by the way, between how Catholics and Orthodox understand “church” compared to most Protestants.)

But why do we need to pray for the faithful departed? Is it just a ‘nice thing” to do, a discretionary add-on act of charity? Or is it a necessity?

It’s a necessity. Why?

Because the faithful departed cannot help themselves and so need you.

Why can’t they help themselves? Because they have passed the point of change, which is death. But why is death that decisive point? Isn’t it just an arbitrary point that God imposes? No. Death is the decisive point of self-determination because death shatters the unity of the person. Soul and body are separated by death.

That matters because it is the whole person—body and soul—that acts in a morally relevant way. When I steal, I make a spiritual choice to take what is not mine—but I take the money with this hand. When I kill, I make a spiritual decision to take another man’s life—but I use these hands to strangle the person. Body and soul act together normally when a person makes a moral choice and death ends their togetherness.

Many people don’t realize how this perspective differs from what otherwise in our society passes as “normal.” Ever since the 17th-century, Western thought has been bedeviled by the ghost of Cartesianism, the “I think; therefore, I am” that reduces the person to consciousness (with a body attached). It is found, for example, when people speak about the severely handicapped but not dying (e.g., the stable comatose) as “vegetables,” a bizarre alchemy that turns people into things.

In a strange sense, that worldview shares perspectives with the ancient heresies of Gnosticism and dualism, both of which treated the body as something evil or, at best, a husk which (like a snake) is shed to reveal the “real” creature. This is not Christianity. How Catholics understand death and its decisiveness shows why it isn’t.

That’s why the souls in purgatory need our prayers. In a clear expression of the reciprocal solidarity of charity as ordered by Divine Providence, they can benefit us by their prayers. They merely lack agency as regards themselves. Love can change others but, to change themselves they must be completely themselves, body and soul—a unity death has disrupted.

This is why the “Church” which is those of us alive together with those joined to Christ in heaven and awaiting that joining in purgatory can pray for each other—and which affirms the Evangelical teaching that only by losing one’s self does one truly gain one’s self. It’s why prayer for the dead is not just a “nice thing” but part of the very lifeblood of the Church, which is supernatural charity, the lifeblood that joins us and unites us to God who Is Love (I Jn 4:8).

Vatican II taught that salvation is not a solo sport, that we are saved not just as individuals but in community (Lumen gentium, 9). November as a month that teaches us about the communion of saints through prayer for the souls of the faithful departed makes that lesson real.