Prayer for the dead

“ Prayer for the dead, MADE USE OF FROM THE TIMES OF THE APOSTLES, cannot be rejected as useless by Protestants. They should respect the judgment of the primitive Church, and adopt a practice sanctioned by the continuous belief of so many ages. We repeat that prayer for the dead is a salutary practice. ”

“ He dares not lay polluted hands upon the dead, whose becalmed face is looking up to thee. The dead, the sacred dead. The living are for the world, the dead are Thine. Incense, and prayer, and psalms for the departed. ”

“ They dwell, then, in an abode of peace, although of intense suffering, and calmly await the eternal decree which summons them to heaven; while the time of their probation is shortened day by day, month by month, year by year by the Masses, prayers, alms-deeds and other suffrages of their friends who are still dwellers on earth, living the old life; and in its rush of cares and duties, of pleasures and of pains, forgetting them too often in all save prayer. That is the reminder. The dead who have died in the bosom of the Holy Church can never be quite forgotten. ”

“ Thus the dirge sung by women, their wild lamenting, their impassioned apostrophizing of the dead, their rhetorical declamation of his virtues, finds its analogy among many of the customs of pagan nations, while the prayer for the dead, "the relatives standing about the bed of death reciting the Rosary," the Confraternity of the Brothers of the Dead coming to convey the corpse to the church, where Mass is sung and the final absolution given, is eminently Christian and Catholic. ”

“ As those in heaven rejoice when one sinner does penance, so those in purgatory hear us, see us, love us, and are helped by our prayers. We love them and never cease to pray for them and offer the Holy Sacrifice for them. Even the unbeliever will stand or kneel by the remains of his departed friend and offer a prayer for him, thus showing that praying for the dead is reasonable and the natural dictate of the human heart. ”

“ Unable to go to that long cemetery of wooden crosses which stretches from the Alps to the Sea, we have gathered, all over the country, about the the symbols of the burial places of our dead, for prayer and consolation. In doing that we have done well. Somewhere and somehow, in the mysterious ways of Providence, our sacrifices will have their reward. If we thought otherwise our faith in God would fail. ”

“ Other duties become pressing and absorbing and crowd out prayer. Choked to death, would be the coroner’s verdict in many cases of dead praying, if an inquest could be secured on this dire, spiritual calamity. This way of hindering prayer becomes so natural, so easy, so innocent that it comes on us all unawares. ”

“ You say in your pamphlet that so long as we are alive we can pray for one another; but after we are dead the prayer of no person for another can be heard, and especially because the martyrs, though they cry for the avenging of their blood, have never been able to obtain their request. ”

“ And so far are they from being able to raise the dead, as the Lord raised them (and the Apostles did by means of prayer, as has been frequently done in the brotherhood on account of some necessity—the entire church in that particular locality entreating with much fasting and prayer, the spirit of the dead man has returned, and he has been bestowed in answer to the prayers of the saints—) that they do not even believe that this could possibly be done. ”

“ Though the dead can not pray for the dead, if one among the living say a prayer for the departed, then the dead may join his prayer to the living prayer, and so it makes one prayer, and they'll both be heard. ”

“ It means dying—then why not altogether dying? Has not God angels, in thousands, to praise Him and worship Him, and pray for sinners on earth? And they sing and pray gladly, because they are blessed and do not suffer, as we do. Why should God want us, poor little nuns, to live half dead, and to praise Him with voices that crack with the cold in winter, and to kneel till we faint with the heat in summer, and to wear out our bodies with fasting and prayer and penance, till it is all we can do to crawl to our [45] places in the choir? ”

“ It is a pleasure to observe the constant devotion of the Church of Christ in all ages, to pray for the dead. And first, to take my rise from the Apostles' time, there are many learned interpreters, who hold that baptism for the dead, of which the Apostle speaks, [1] to be meant only of the much fasting, prayer, alms-deeds, and other voluntary afflictions, which the first Christians undertook for the relief of their deceased friends. ”

“ When the dying man actually expires, the prayer ceases and all the relations go into the street mourning and wailing, facing the south—this amounts to an appeal to the God of Death—whose quarters are supposed to be in that direction—to show mercy to their dead relation. ”

“ We also pray for the deceased holy fathers, bishops, and all in general who are dead, believing that this will be a great succor to those souls for which prayer is offered, while the holy and most tremendous victim lies present. ”

“ PRAY one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much. (James v. 16.)
It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. ”

“ For these, "as it is a good and wholesome thought to pray for the dead," we send up our sighs and our prayers in the spirit of fraternal charity, and as a tribute of love and gratitude to our Fathers in the faith who had the burden of the day and the heat, and who now rest from their labors. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. ”

“ And this brings me, in the last place, to speak of the duty of praying for the dead. It is a most consoling privilege of our holy faith. Death indeed fixes our eternal condition irrevocably. "If the tree fall to the south or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be." ”

“ We did not dare to breathe a prayer, Or give our anguish scope: Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope. ”

“ The early Christians used to carry flowers to the grave, and sing hymns of joy because the toils of a Christian warrior were ended, and he had entered into rest. Hear what the Church sings: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Will you weep because one you love is taken away from sin, from temptation, from the trouble to come? Will you grieve because he has secured for himself the Blissful and Eternal Vision of God? But you have no confidence that he was good, that he did die in the grace of God. ”

“ The pious tones which once with a holy inspiration had gushed from the pure fount of his soul—tones to which he had himself listened in silent devotion but a few weeks before,—resounded now in mourning over his grave; and sad and sorrowful, though at the same time sweetly consolatory, still echo far and wide to the hearts of all:
“Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord, now and for ever. ”

“ A saintly fortitude sustains him, as in broken accents these sentences come from his lips: "It is a country worth dying for." "Others will enjoy in coming years what I have fought for." "I can trust my Saviour. He is lighting me through the valley of death." "All is well." Low words of prayer commend the departing soul to the God who made it, and the sweet hymn,
"O sing to me of heaven, When I am called to die," breaks the stillness of the ward. ”

“ Feed Thou the hungry and lighten their sorrow,
Grant them the sunshine of hope for the morrow;
They are Thy children, their trust is on high:
Hear Thou the poor that cry!
4 Dry Thou the mourner’s tear!
Heal Thou the wounds of time-hallowed affection;
Grant to the widow and orphan protection;
Be in their trouble a friend ever near;
Dry Thou the mourner’s tear!
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6 Hear, Father, hear our prayer!
Long hath Thy goodness our footsteps attended;
Be with the pilgrim whose journey is ended:
When at Thy summons for death we prepare,
Hear, Father, hear our prayer! ”

“ The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the condition of the dead may be affected by the prayers of survivors; and many abuses have resulted from a perverted and mechanical misinterpretation of that doctrine; but how if the spirit of a dead man actually owes its spiritual resurrection, not indeed to formally uttered petitions, but to the silent prayers, the loving wishes, the irrepressible desires, of fellow-spirits on earth and in heaven? ”

“ It is not to be doubted that the dead are aided by the prayers of Holy Church and by the salutary sacrifice, and by the alms which are offered for their spirits, that the Lord may deal with them more mercifully than their sins have deserved. ”

“ Grant that when a pious man is borne to his grave, I may be able to rise to my feet." An angel's voice in a vision answered him, "Lo, thy prayer is heard." And so, whenever a pious man was buried, he rose and prayed for his soul. ”

“ Hearken the call,
⁠Christ bids us leave our dead and follow him;
⁠What tho' the steps be feeble, and eyes dim
With tears that rise and burn, but may not fall?
Leave the unburied dead in. Death's great hall:
⁠For Christ is waiting and the dead are dead ”

“ The decent burying of the dead is a piece of humanity, in remembrance of what the dead body has been—the tabernacle of a reasonable soul. Nay, it is a piece of divinity, in expectation of what the dead body shall be at the resurrection. ”

“ In another moment, the livid lips and sunken eye of the clay-cold corpse recall our thoughts to earth and to ourselves again. And while we think of mortality, sin, death, and the grave, we feel the prayer rise in our bosom, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!”
If there be a moment when Christ and salvation, death, judgment, heaven, and hell, appear more than ever to be momentous subjects of meditation, it is that which brings us to the side of a coffin containing the body of a departed believer. ”

“ So might the worshippers of Christ, beholding the sign of life, understand that a servant of the faith of the cross was there buried, and so might they not delay to offer unto the Creator their prayers for his soul. Truly, a pious custom, and worthy is it of general observance that all who were baptized in the death of Christ, and are dead in his faith, should, when buried, have on them or near them the ensign of the death of Him. ”

“ Very often, even in every place, and for some requisite cause, the brethren solicit, by fasting and fervent prayers, the resurrection of a dead person, and obtain it; these dead, thus revived, have lived with us for several years afterwards. ”

“ And of the touching piety of the living toward the dead? There is no joyful occasion where the dead are not called to our remembrance, and their blessing and the blessing of heaven invoked. In joy and in sorrow, we think of our dead always. ”

“ Scattered through the morning and evening services of the Hebrew liturgy there are invocations, frequently repeated, referring to the dead, such as these: “Thou, O Lord, art for ever powerful; thou restorest life to the dead, and art mighty to save. Thou art also faithful to revive the dead: blessed art thou, O Lord, who revivest the dead.” ”

“ Of this ancient, this almost universal, this consolatory practice of praying for the dead, I shall say no more, than that it may be inferred from the words of Christ, that sins are forgiven after death ”

“ At his call and command the gates of oblivion are opened, and the dead come back to life—the sick, laid on their couches of pain and agony, arise and walk at his word; and the gospel of mercy and salvation sounds with marvelous success when its blessings are proclaimed by his eloquent tongue to the weary, and the poor, and the heavy-laden. The evil spirits suffered to torment them who would fain tread in the right path are cast forth, and then the sorrowing repentant goeth on his way rejoicing! ”

“ For, therefore, thou art baptized for the dead, believing the resurrection of the dead, that the body may not remain dead, but revive again.’ So that ‘baptizing for the dead,’ is an elliptical expression for being baptized into the faith or belief of the resurrection of the dead. ”

“ They must bury them in a place where the people pass by.
—Where man coming past, will cross himself and pray for the soul of the departed. For you see, the dead have not had their due singing and prayers as at a proper funeral service. ”

“ Prayers are proffered in their behalf to the powers of death, but not directly to the ghosts themselves; no cult is offered them as to superior beings endowed with supernatural power over the lives of individuals and states.70.1 Nevertheless, the passionate service of lamentation and the extravagant dedication of gifts which marked the funeral ceremonies of the eighth and seventh centuries and which certain early legislation was framed to check, reveals a feeling about the dead bordering on veneration and such as might inspire actual worship. ”

“ It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes that the music of a heavenly harp swept by the fingers of the dead seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. ”

“ The prayers of the Church, or of good persons, are heard in favor of those Christians who departed this life not so bad as to be deemed unworthy of mercy, nor so good as to be entitled to immediate happiness. So also, at the resurrection of the dead, there will some be found, to whom mercy will be imparted, having gone through these pains, to which the spirits of the dead are liable. ”