DEAD
656
DEAD
briefly what is needful to be said in answer to these
questions, mindful of the admonition of the Council
of Trent, to avoid in this matter those "more difficult
and subtle questions that do not malie for edification "
(Sess. XXV).
(1) The Sacrifice of the Mass has always occupied the foremost place among prayers for the dead, as will be seen from the testimonies quoted above; but in addition to the Mass and to private prayers, we have mention in the earliest times of almsgiving, especially in connexion with funeral agapw, and of fasting for the dead (Ivirsch, Die Lehre von der Gemeinschaft der Heiligen, etc., p. 171 ; Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'ar- cheologie, I, 80S-830). Believing in the communion of saints in which the departed faithful shared. Chris- tians saw no reason for excluding them from any of the offices of piety which the living were in the habit of performing for one another. The only development to be noted in this connexion is the application of In- dulgences (q. V.) for the dead. Indulgences for the living were a development from the ancient peniten- tial discipline, and were in use for a considerable time before we have any evidence of their being formally applied for the dead. The earliest instance comes from the year 1457. Without entering into the sub- ject here, we would remark that the application of Indulgences for the dead, when properly understood and explained, introduces no new principle, but is merely an extension of the general principle under- lying the ordinary practice of prayers and good works for the dead. The Church claims no power of absolv- ing the souls in purgatorj' from their pains, as on earth she absolves men from sins. It is only per modum suffragii, i. e. by way of prayer, that Indulgences avail for the dead, the Church adding her official or corpor- ate intercession to that of the person who performs and ofTers the indulgenced work, and beseeching God to apply, for the relief of those souls whom the offerer intends, some portion of the superabundant satisfac- tions of Christ and His saints, or, in view of those same satisfactions, to remit some portion of their pains, in what measure may seem good to His own infinite mercy and love.
(2) To those who die in wilful, unrepented mortal sin, which implies a deliberate turning away from God as the last entl and ultimate good of man. Catholic teaching holds out no hope of eventual salvation by a course of probation after death. Eternal exile from the face of God is, by their own choice, the fate of such unhappy souls, and prayers are unavailing to reverse that awful doom. This was the explicit teaching of Christ, the meek and merciful Saviour, and the Church can but repeat the Master's teaching (see Hell). But the Church does not presume to judge individuals, even those for whom, on other grounds, she refuses to offer her Sacrifice and her prayers [see below, (4)], while it may happen, on the contrary, that some of those for whom her oblations are made are among the number of the damned. What of such prayers? If they cannot avail to the ultimate salvation of the damned, may it at least be held that they are not entirely unavailing to procure some alle^aation of their sufferings, some temporary refrigeria. or moments of mitigation, as a few Fathers and theologians have suggested? All that can be said in favour of this speculation is, that the Church has never formally reprobated it. But the great majority of theologians, following St. Thomas (In Sent. IV. xlv, q. ii, a. 2), consider it rash and imfounded. If certain words in the Offertory of the Mass for the Dead, "Lord Jesus Christ, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell, and the deep abyss", .seem originally to have suggested an idea of deliverance from the hell of the damned, this is to be understood not of rescue, hut of preservation from that calamity. The whole requiem Office is intensely dramatic, and in this particular prayer the Church suppliant is figured
as accompanying the departed soul into the presence
of its Judge, and praying, ere yet sentence is pro-
nounced, for its deliverance from the sinner's doom.
On the other hand, prayers are needless for the blessed
who already enjoy the vision of God face to face.
Hence in the Early Church, as St. Augustine expressly
assures us (Serm. cclxxv, 5, P. L., XXXVIII, 1295),
and as is otherwise abundantly clear, prayers were not
offered for martyrs, but to them, to obtain the benefit
of their intercession, martyrdom being considered an
act of perfect charity and winning as such an imme-
diate entrance into glory. And the same is true of
saints whom the Church has canonized; they no
longer need the aid of our prayers on earth. It is only,
then, for the souls in purgatory that our prayers are
really beneficial. But we do not and cannot know
the exact degree in which benefits actually accrue to
them, collectively or individually. The distribution
of the fruits of the communion of saints among the
dead, as among the living, rests ultimately in the
hands of God — is one of the secrets of His economy.
We cannot doubt that it is His will that we should
pray not only for the souls in purgatory collectively,
but individually for those with whom we have been
bound on earth by special personal ties. Nor can we
doubt the general efficacy of our rightly disposed
prayers for our specially chosen ones as well as for
those whom we leave it to Him to choose. This is
sufficient to inspire and to guide us in our offices of
charity and piety towards the dead; we may con-
fidently commit the application of their fruits to the
wisdom and justice of God.
(3) For a theoretical statement of the manner in which prayers for the dead are efficacious we must refer to the articles Merit and S.\ti.sfaction, in which the distinction between these terms and their techni- cal meanings will be explained. Since merit, in the strict sense, and satisfaction, as inseparable from merit, are confined to this life, it cannot be said in the strict sense that the souls in purgatory merit or satisfy by their own personal acts. But the purifying and expiatory value of their discipline of suffering, techni- cally called satispassio, is often spoken of in a loose sense as satisfaction. Speaking of satisfaction in the rigorous sense, the living can offer to God, and by impetration move Him graciously to accept, the satis- factory value of their own good works on behalf of the souls in purgatory, or in view of it to remit some part of their discipline; in this sense we may be said to satisfy for the dead. But in order that the personal works of the living may have any satisfactory value, the agents must be in the state of grace. The prayers of the just are on this account more efficacious in as- sisting the dead than the prayers of those in sin, though it does not follow that the general irapetratory efficacy of prayer is altogether destroyed by sin. God may hear the prayers of a sinner for others as well as for the supplicant himself. The Sacrifice of the Mass, however, retains its essential efficacy in spite of the sinfulness of the minister; and the same is true, in lesser degree, of the other prayers and offices offered by the Church's ministers in her name.
(4) There is no restriction by Divine or ecclesias- tical law as to those of the dead for whom private prayers may be offered — except that they may not be offered formally either for the blessed in heaven or for the damned. Not only for the faithful who have died in external communion with the Church, but for deceased non-Catholics, even the unbaptized, who may have died in the state of grace, one is free to offer his personal prayers and good works; nor does the Church's prohibition of her public offices for those who have died nut of external comnnmion with her affect the strictly personal element in her minister's acts. For all such she prohibits the public offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass (and of other liturgical offices) ; but theologians commonly teach that a priest
