All Souls Day: Pray For Your Relatives and Friends

Candles to remember the dead

It's All Souls Day! Yesterday was All Saints when we remember all the Saints, including the many we don't know by name - including those in our own families/bloodlines.

Imagine! A distant (or close!) relative in Heaven to intercede wth God on our behalf as part of the Church Triumphant.

Today is All Souls, when we remember the Church Suffering, those souls in purgatory, who we have a duty to pray for and who, in turn, will remember us when they get to Heaven.

Sadly in the modern world too few people pray for the dead. Some think it morbid. Some think it medieval. Some think everyone who dies goes straight to Heaven (a kind of instant canonisation). The sad truth is that very few of us are living Saints, and so many of us will see Purgatory.

It is our duty to pray for those who have gone before us. The Church has always taught this right from its earliest days. Prayers for the dead even featured in the Old Testament.

That's what "RIP" means. Rest in Peace - i.e. pray for him, that he may be loosed from Purgatory and find peace in Heaven.

Let's hope that if we get to Purgatory there are still those in our families that will pray on our behalf!

So offer up a prayer for your friends and relatives - today and every day - that we may help them, and they in turn will one day help us!