…and Everybody Else

Just returned from noon Mass for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, otherwise known as All Souls.

Of course, one can pray for the souls of the departed at any time, but this day has been specially set aside since the Clunaic reforms of the late 10th century. There are some days I think the Church really needs another Clunaic reform, but that’s a subject for another day.

Why pray for the dead at all? Well, it’s both a natural human act, and it’s scriptural. Check out 2 Maccabees 12:43–45:

43 He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view;
44 for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.
45 But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.

We pray for the dead because we believe in the resurrection, and that there are folks bound for heaven who aren’t there yet. There are folks who can explain Purgatory way better than I can, but I think it’s a pretty obvious doctrine, at least to me.

I find it interesting that the Office of the day is the Office of the Dead, and the hymn is the Dies Iræ, which otherwise doesn’t get a lot of airplay these days.

Although the chant versions I’ve heard of the hymn are haunting and evocative, you never forget your first love: