Edmond Grace SJ responds to a bereaved person on the issue of praying for the dead.
My mother died last year. I missed her very much but after a while I had a sense of her being present and looking out for me. More recently, however, I feel prompted to pray for her, but it has me all confused. I am convinced she is with God, so why should I want to pray for her? I don’t know what to make of it.
Our relationship with the dead is not like our relationship with those who are still with us on earth. They are no longer living within the confines of time and place. It is an ancient teaching, going back before Christ, not only that life continues after death but that people are not always in a state of perfect readiness for God at the moment of death.
Time and eternity
Perhaps the best image of entry into eternal life is that of coming out of a dark cave into bright sunshine. It takes time for our eyes to adjust. Purgatory, as we call that state of purification after death, can be compared to that period when we have to give our eyes a little time to adjust after coming out of darkness into the full glory of daylight.
However, that image has its limitations because it does not really make sense to speak of people ‘doing time’ in purgatory. We can say that a person died at such-and-such a time on such-and-such a day but estimating when they might have arrived in heaven is pointless. In talking about purgatory we are talking about the transition from time to eternity; it is a mistake to think of eternity as ‘some time and place in the future’.
Perspective
Eternity is a perspective from which we can see all of reality including all of time. It is a ‘now.’ In a sense we can say that, if we are destined to enter heaven after we die, we are already there with a full view of what is happening at this and every other moment of our lives.
Of course, in the perspective from which we see things from this earth we cannot know if we will end up in heaven. We cannot take it for granted, but God can already see, as it were, the end of the story.
Imagine if it were possible for us to make a kind of day trip to heaven. We would find everyone who is destined to live with God in eternity no matter when they died. This would be so even if they happen to die in the future which is only the future from our perspective. The idea of people waiting around in heaven for the ‘late arrivals’ to turn up does not fit with a state of all-inclusive and eternal communion.
Isolation
On the other hand, if we were to take a day trip to purgatory we would be experiencing a state of transition, but there wouldn’t be hours of arrival and departure as if ‘the place’ – which it is not! – were some kind of air terminal where all the passengers sit around and wait. Purgatory is best understood in terms of our own isolation. No one would deny that this condition is painful but pain is best measured by its intensity, not by the length of time it lasts. As long as it endures we have a sense of it never ending and if we don’t cry audibly for help we do so in the silence of our hearts.
It may be helpful to see these imaginary day trips as coming out of a cave into full daylight. That period of discomfort, as our eyes adjust to the experience, is unique to ourselves. The fact that others may have to endure something similar is of no direct relevance to the adjustment needed by our own eyes. This is like the isolation and purification of purgatory. Once we have adjusted, however, and can look around at the view, the fact that others can see what we see and delight in it will surely affect our experience. This experience is one of beauty and community and can be compared to heaven for that reason.
Moments of grace
Your mother is with the saints in heaven – all of them raising an eternal cheer to the one who is the source of all life and love. You are aware of this at some times more than others. These times are moments of grace when you are in tune with what awaits all of us if we can remain faithful to love, in spite of our human weakness.
There are also times when you are more aware of your mother’s adjustment to the glory of eternal daylight in God’s presence. This is an adjustment which she must go through alone and cannot be measured by the passage of time.
In this period she is isolated and – as we all do when we are suffering alone – crying out for help. These moments when you are aware of her needing your support are also moments of grace, but in a different way. They awaken in you a sense of solidarity with your mother in her struggles and failures. You are being called to a deeper understanding of her human nature and of your own.
Perhaps you are also being called to a deeper reconciliation with her. No relationship, not even the closest, is free of hurt; even the most loving mothers can hurt their children and even the most loving children can disappoint their parents. Perhaps in being drawn to pray for your mother you are being prompted by the Spirit to forgive her, because as we enter the glory of eternal life part of the forgiveness that we all need from God is the forgiveness of those whom we have hurt.
Promptings of the spirit
The fact that you find yourself praying for her after having had a sense of her being with God and caring for you has more to do with the mysterious movements of the heart than with the passage of time. It does not mean that she has taken a backward step from heaven to purgatory or that you were wrong when you thought of her as being in heaven. All it means is that, at some moments, the Spirit of God prompts in you an awareness of her glory with the saints and at others an awareness of her need for your care in her adjustment to that glory.
The order in which this happens is of no importance once you are open to the varying and mysterious promptings of the Spirit of Love in your own heart – at times to give thanks for your mother and ask her support and at other times to pray for the repose of her soul.
This article first appeared in the Messenger, a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
