November 2—ALL SOULS
The Church teaches us that the souls of the just who have left this world soiled with the stain of venial sin remain for a time in a place of expiation, where they suffer such punishment as may be due to their offenses. It is a matter of faith that these suffering souls are relieved by the intercession of the Saints in Heaven and by the prayers of the faithful upon earth.
To pray for the dead is, then, both an act of charity and of piety. We read in Holy Scripture: “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins” (2 Maccabees 12:46). And when Our Lord inspired St. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, towards the close of the tenth century, to establish in his Order a general commemoration of all the faithful departed, it was soon adopted by the whole Western Church, and has been continued unceasingly to our day.
Let us, then, ever bear in mind the dead and offer up our prayers for them. By showing this mercy to the suffering souls in Purgatory, we shall be particularly entitled to be treated with mercy at our departure from this world, and to share more abundantly in the general suffrages of the Church, continually offered for all who have slept in Christ.
Reflection—Let us have a solicitude to remember to pray for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed, especially for those souls who have no one to pray for them.
This article is taken from a chapter in Lives of the Saints For Every Day of the Year by Fr. Alban Butler which is available from TAN Books.
