for those who went before

Today of the feast of All Souls, and this is what Catholics believe. In case you've ever wondered.

(All the following taken from Magnificat, November 2017)

"The commemoration of All Souls is rooted in the Church's strong conviction that we, the living, have a serious responsibility in love to accompany with prayer those who have died but who must yet complete the purificatory preparation every human being needs to be able to dwell in the all-encompassing love of God."

                                                     

Remember those, O Lord,

Who in your peace have died,

Yet may not gain love's high reward

Till love is purified.

With you they faced death's night

Sealed with your victory sign;

Soon may the splendor of your light

On them for ever shine!

"I would go so far as to say that if there was no purgatory, then we would have to invent it, for who would dare say of himself that he was able to stand directly before God. And yet we don't want to be, to use an image from Scripture, 'a pot that turned out wrong', that has to be thrown away; we want to be able to be put right. Purgatory basically means that God can put the pieces back together again. That he can cleanse us in such a way that we are able to be with him and can stand there in the fullness of life. Purgatory strips off from one person what is unbearable and from another the inability to bear certain things, so that in each of them a pure heart is revealed, and we can see that we all belong together in one enormous symphony of being."

                                                             -  Pope Benedict XVI

For all the dead whom we have loved in life: 

           Raise them up, O Lord.

For all the dead among those who have harmed us:

           Raise them up, O Lord.

For all the dead whom no one remembers in prayer:

           Raise them up, O Lord.

"If he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. 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."

                                            -  First Maccabees, 12: 44,45