PRAYER WARRIORS FOR ALL SOULS

About us

On November 2, 2013 at Port Charlotte , Florida the Prayer Warriors for All Souls gathered as a group to pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Through the efforts of the members and coordinators namely Domingo Tolentino, Sionne Tolentino, JC Digiralomo, Veronica  Garbella, Vivian James, Jim James, William Donovan, Ann Hagar, Marie Horenk, Immacula Antoine, Rey Lapsan, Betty Lapsan, Fely Marcos, Babie Utakan and Maria Hayes, the Prayer Warrior's for all Souls was finally created. The member's of the prayer warrior’s launch its first prayer for All Souls in 2013 at Port Charlotte, Florida, and is inviting everyone to join and participate in the mission of saving Souls. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the dedicated servants of Christ commit a certain time to pray for the Living and the Dead especially during the month of November each year. By following the teachings of Jesus Christ, the members try to uphold doing the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy which instructs the faithful “to pray for the living and the dead”. This is fundamental to the member’s act of love and faith in God’s Mercy for all Souls. ​With the guidance of the Holy Spirit & in Jesus name, these special people made this prayer for souls possible. Please come and join us!

 

What are the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy?

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Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy

Mercy as it is here contemplated is said to be a virtue influencing one's will to have compassion for, and, if possible, to alleviate another's misfortune. It is the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that although mercy is as it were the spontaneous product of charity, yet it is to be reckoned a special virtue adequately distinguishable from this latter. In fact the Scholastics in cataloguing it consider it to be preferable to the quality of justice mainly because, like justice, it controls relations between distinct persons. It is as they say ad alterum . Its motive is the misery which one discerns in another, particularly in so far as this condition is deemed to be, in some sense at least, involuntary. Obviously the necessity which is to be succoured can be either of body or soul. Hence it is customary to enumerate both corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The traditional enumeration of the corporal works of mercy is as follows:

• To feed the hungry;

• To give drink to the thirsty;

• To clothe the naked;

• To harbour the harbourless;

• To visit the sick;

• To ransom the captive;

• To bury the dead.

The spiritual works of mercy are:

• To instruct the ignorant ;

• To counsel the doubtful ;

• To admonish sinners ;

• To bear wrongs patiently;

• To forgive offences willingly;

• To comfort the afflicted;

• To pray for the living and the dead.

It will be seen from these divisions that the works of mercy practically coincide with the various forms of almsgiving. It is thus that St. Thomas regards them. The word alms of course is a corruption of the Greek elenmosyne (mercy). The doing of works of mercy is not merely a matter of exalted counsel ; there is as well a strict precept imposed both by the natural and the positive Divine law enjoining their performance. That the natural law enjoins works of mercy is based upon the principle that we are to do to others as we would have them do to us.

The Divine command is set forth in the most stringent terms by Christ, and the failure to comply with it is visited with the supreme penalty of eternal damnation ( Matthew 25:41 ): "Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, in everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you covered me not; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me", etc. Here it is true there is mention directly and explicitly of only the corporal works of mercy. As, however, the spiritual works of mercy deal with a distress whose relief is even more imperative as well as more effective for the grand purpose of man's creation, the injunction must be supposed to extend to them also. Besides there are the plain references of Christ to such works as fraternal correction ( Matthew 18:15 ) as well as the forgiveness of injuries ( Matthew 6:14 ). It has to be remembered however that the precept is an affirmative one, that is, it is of the sort which is always binding but not always operative, for lack of matter or occasion or fitting circumstances. It obliges, as the theologians say, semper sed non pro semper . Thus in general it may be said that the determination of its actual obligatory force in a given case depends largely on the degree of distress to be aided, and the capacity or condition of the one whose duty in the matter is in question. There are easily recognizable limitations which the precept undergoes in practice so far as the performance of the corporal works of mercy are concerned. These are treated in the article on Alms and Almsgiving. Likewise the law imposing spiritual works of mercy is subject in individual instances to important reservations. For example, it may easily happen that an altogether special measure of tact and prudence, or, at any rate, some definite superiority is required for the discharge of the oftentimes difficult task of fraternal correction . Similarly to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and console the sorrowing is not always within the competency of every one. To bear wrongs patiently, to forgive offences willingly, and to pray for the living and the dead are things from which on due occasion no one may dispense himself on the pleas that he has not some special array of gifts required for their observance. They are evidently within the reach of all. It must not be forgotten that the works of mercy demand more than a humanitarian basis if they are to serve as instruments in bringing about our eternal salvation. The proper motive is indispensable and this must be one drawn from the supernatural order.

Finally it is interesting to note that for the exercise of the sixth among the corporal works of mercy two religious orders have at different times in the history of the Church been instituted. In the year 1198 the Trinitarians were founded by St. John of Matha and St. Felix of Valois, and just twenty years later St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymond of Pennafort established the Order of Our Lady of Ransom . Both of these communities had as their chief scope the recovery of Christians who were held captive by the infidels. In the religious body which owes its origin to St. Peter Nolasco, the members took a fourth vow to surrender their own persons in place of those whom they were not otherwise able to redeem from slavery.

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Catholic teaching regarding prayers for the dead is bound up inseparably with the doctrine of purgatory and the more general doctrine of the communion of the saints, which is an article of the Apostle's Creed. The definition of the Council of Trent (Sess. XXV), "that purgatory exists, and that the souls detained therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar", is merely a restatement in brief of the traditional teaching which had already been embodied in more than one authoritative formula — as in the creed prescribed for converted Waldenses by Innocent III in 1210 (Denzinger, Enchiridion, n. 3 73) and more fully in the profession of faith accepted for the Greeks by Michael Palaeologus at the Second Ecumenical Council of Florence in 1439: "[We define] likewise, that if the truly penitent die in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for their sins of commission and omission, their souls are purified by purgatorial pains after death; and that for relief from these pains they are benefitted by the suffrages of the faithful in this life, that is, by Masses, prayers, and almsgiving, and by the other offices of piety usually performed by the faithful for one another according to the practice [instituta] of the Church" (ibid., n. 588). Hence, under "suffrages" for the dead, which are defined to be legitimate and efficacious, are included not only formal supplications, but every kind of pious work that may be offered for the spiritual benefit of others, and it is in this comprehensive sense that we speak of prayers in the present article. As is clear from this general statement, the Church does not recognize the limitation upon which even modern Protestants often insist, that prayers for the dead, while legitimate and commendable as a private practice, are to be excluded from her public offices. The most efficacious of all prayers, in Catholic teaching, is the essentially public office, the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Coming to the proof of this doctrine, we find, in the first place, that it is an integral part of the great general truth which we name the communion of saints. This truth is the counterpart in the supernatural order of the natural law of human solidarity. Men are not isolated units in the life of grace, any more than in domestic and civil life. As children in Christ's Kingdom they are as one family under the loving Fatherhood of God; as members of Christ's mystical body they are incorporated not only with Him, their common Head, but with one another, and this not merely by visible social bonds and external co-operation, but by the invisible bonds of mutual love and sympathy, and by effective co-operation in the inner life of grace. Each is in some degree the beneficiary of the spiritual activities of the others, of their prayers and good works, their merits and satisfactions; nor is this degree to be wholly measured by those indirect ways in which the law of solidarity works out in other cases, nor by the conscious and explicit altruistic intentions of individual agents. It is wider than this, and extends to the bounds of the mysterious. Now, as between the living, no Christian can deny the reality of this far-reaching spiritual communion; and since death, for those who die in faith and grace, does not sever the bonds of this communion, why should it interrupt its efficacy in the case of the dead, and shut them out from benefits of which they are capable and may be in need? Of very few can it be hoped that they have attained perfect holiness at death; and none but the perfectly holy are admitted to the vision of God. Of few, on the other hand, will they at least who love them admit the despairing thought that they are beyond the pale of grace and mercy, and condemned to eternal separation from God and from all who hope to be with God. On this ground alone it has been truly said that purgatory is a postulate of the Christian reason; and, granting the existence of the purgatorial state, it is equally a postulate of the Christian reason in the communion of saints, or, in other words, be helped by the prayers of their brethren on earth and in heaven. Christ is King in purgatory as well as in heaven and on earth, and He cannot be deaf to our prayers for our loved ones in that part of His Kingdom, whom he also loves while He chastises them. For our own consolation as well as for theirs we want to believe in this living intercourse of charity with our dead. We would believe it without explicit warrant of Revelation, on the strength of what is otherwise revealed and in obedience to the promptings of reason and natural affection. Indeed, it is largely for this reason that Protestants in growing numbers are giving up today the joy-killing doctrine of the Reformers, and reviving Catholic teaching and practice. As we shall presently see, there is no clear and explicit warrant for prayers for the dead in the Scriptures recognized by Protestants as canonical, while they do not admit the Divine authority of extra-Scriptural traditions. Catholics are in a better position.

Arguments from Scripture

Omitting some passages in the Old Testament which are sometimes invoked, but which are too vague and uncertain in their reference to be urged in proof (v.g. Tobias, iv, 18; Sirach 7:37; etc.), it is enough to notice here the classical passage in II Machabees, xii, 40-46. When Judas and his men came to take away for burial the bodies of their brethren who had fallen in the battle against Gorgias, "they found under the coats of the slain some of the donaries of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbiddeth to the Jews: so that all plainly saw, that for this cause they were slain. Then they all blessed the just judgment of the Lord, who had discovered the things that were hidden. And so betaking themselves to prayers, they besought him, that the sin which had been committed might be forgotten...And making a gathering, he [Judas] sent twelve [al. two] drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection (for if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead), and because he considered that they who had fallen asleep in godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." For Catholics who accept this book as canonical, this passage leaves nothing to be desired. The inspired author expressly approves Judas's action in this particular case, and recommends in general terms the practice of prayers for the dead. There is no contradiction in the particular case between the conviction that a sin had been committed, calling down the penalty of death, and the hope that the sinners had nevertheless died in godliness — an opportunity for penance had intervened.

But even for those who deny the inspired authority of this book, unequivocal evidence is here furnished of the faith and practice of the Jewish Church in the second century B.C. — that is to say, of the orthodox Church, for the sect of the Sadducees denied the resurrection (and, by implication at least, the general doctrine of immortality), and it would seem from the argument of which the author introduces in his narrative that he had Sadducean adversaries in mind. The act of Judas and his men in praying for their deceased comrades is represented as if it were a matter of course; nor is there anything to suggest that the procuring of sacrifices for the dead was a novel or exceptional thing; from which it is fair to conclude that the practice — both private and liturgical — goes back beyond the time of Judas, but how far we cannot say. It is reasonable also to assume, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary, that this practice was maintained in later times, and that Christ and the Apostles were familiar with it; and whatever other evidence is available from Talmudic and other sources strongly confirms this assumption, if it does not absolutely prove it as a fact (see, v.g., Luckock, "After Death", v, pp. 50 sq.). This is worth noting because it helps us to understand the true significance of Christ's silence on the subject — if it be held on the incomplete evidence of the Gospels that He was indeed altogether silent — and justifies us in regarding the Christian practice as an inheritance from orthodox Judaism.

We have said that there is no clear and explicit Scriptural text in favour of prayers for the dead, except the above text of II Machabees. Yet there are one or two sayings of Christ recorded by the Evangelists, which are most naturally interpreted as containing an implicit reference to a purgatorial state after death; and in St. Paul's Epistles a passage of similar import occurs, and one or two other passages that bear directly on the question of prayers for the dead. When Christ promises forgiveness for all sins that a man may commit except the sin against the Holy Ghost, which "shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come" (Matthew 12:31-32), is the concluding phrase nothing more than a periphrastic equivalent for "never"? Or, if Christ meant to emphasize the distinction of worlds, is "the world to come" to be understood, not of the life after death, but of the Messianic age on earth as imagined and expected by the Jews? Both interpretations have been proposed; but the second is far-fetched and decidedly improbable (cf. Mark 3:29); while the first, though admissible, is less obvious and less natural than that which allows the implied question at least to remain: May sins be forgiven in the world to come? Christ's hearers believed in this possibility, and, had He Himself wished to deny it, He would hardly have used a form of expression which they would naturally take to be a tacit admission of their belief. Precisely the same argument applies to the words of Christ regarding the debtor who is cast into prison, from which he shall not go out till he has paid the last farthing (Luke 12:59).

Passing over the well-known passage, 1 Corinthians 3:14 sq., on which an argument for purgatory may be based, attention may be called to another curious text in the same Epistle (15:29), where St. Paul argues thus in favour of the resurrection: "Otherwise what shall they do that are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not again at all? Why are they then baptized form them?" Even assuming that the practice here referred to was superstitious, and that St. Paul merely uses it as the basis of an argumentum ad hominem, the passage at least furnishes historical evidence of the prevalence at the time of belief in the efficacy of works for the dead; and the Apostle's reserve in not reprobating this particular practice is more readily intelligible if we suppose him to have recognized the truth of the principle of which it was merely an abuse. But it is probable that the practice in question was something in itself legitimate, and to which the Apostle gives his tacit approbation. In his Second Epistle to Timothy (1:16-18; 4:19) St. Paul speaks of Onesiphorus in a way that seems obviously to imply that the latter was already dead: "The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus" — as to a family in need of consolation. Then, after mention of loyal services rendered by him to the imprisoned Apostle at Rome, comes the prayer for Onesiphorus himself, "The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day" (the day of judgment); finally, in the salutation, "the household of Onesiphorus" is mentioned once more, without mention of the man himself. The question is, what had become of him? Was he dead, as one would naturally infer from what St. Paul writes? Or had he for any other cause become separated permanently from his family, so that prayer for them should take account of present needs while prayers for him looked forward to the day of judgment? Or could it be that he was still at Rome when the Apostle wrote, or gone elsewhere for a prolonged absence from home? The first is by far the easiest and most natural hypothesis; and if it be admitted, we have here an instance of prayer by the Apostle for the soul of a deceased benefactor.

Questions of detail

Admitting the general teaching that prayers for the dead are efficacious, we are naturally led on to inquire more particularly:

• What prayers are efficacious?

• For whom and how far are they efficacious?

• How are we, theoretically, to conceive and explain their efficacy?

• What disciplinary laws has the Church imposed regarding her public offices for the dead?

We shall state briefly what is needful to be said in answer to these questions, mindful of the admonition of the Council of Trent, to avoid in this matter those "more difficult and subtle questions that do not make for edification" (Sess. XXV).

What prayers are efficacious?

The Sacrifice of the Mass has always occupied the foremost place among prayers for the dead, as will be seen from the testimonies quoted above; but in addition to the Mass and to private prayers, we have mention in the earliest times of almsgiving, especially in connection with funeral agapae, and of fasting for the dead (Kirsch, Die Lehre von der Gemeinschaft der Heiligen, etc., p. 171; Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'archeologie, I, 808-830). Believing in the communion of saints in which the departed faithful shared, Christians saw no reason for excluding them from any of the offices of piety which the living were in the habit of performing for one another. The only development to be noted in this connection is the application of Indulgences for the dead. Indulgences for the living were a development from the ancient penitential discipline, and were in use for a considerable time before we have any evidence of their being formally applied for the dead. The earliest instance comes from the year 1457. Without entering into the subject here, we would remark that the application of Indulgences for the dead, when properly understood and explained, introduces no new principle, but is merely an extension of the general principle underlying the ordinary practice of prayer and good works for the dead. The church claims no power of absolving the souls in purgatory from their pains, as on earth she absolves men from sins. It is only per modum suffragii, i.e. by way of prayer, that Indulgences avail for the dead, the Church adding her official or corporate intercession to that of the person who performs and offers the indulgenced work, and beseeching God to apply, for the relief of those souls whom the offerer intends, some portion of the superabundant satisfactions of Christ and His saints, or, in view of those same satisfactions, to remit some portion of their pains, in what measure may seem good to His own infinite mercy and love.

For whom and how far are they efficacious?

To those who die in wilful, unrepented mortal sin, which implies a deliberate turning away from God as the last end and ultimate good of man, Catholic teaching holds out no hope of eventual salvation by a course of probation after death. Eternal exile from the face of God is, by their own choice, the fate of such unhappy souls, and prayers are unavailing to reverse that awful doom. This was the explicit teaching of Christ, the meek and merciful Saviour, and the Church can but repeat the Master's teaching (see HELL). But the Church does not presume to judge individuals, even those for whom, on other grounds, she refuses to offer her Sacrifice and her prayers [see below, (4)], while it may happen, on the contrary, that some of those for whom her oblations are made are among the number of the damned. What of such prayers? If they cannot avail to the ultimate salvation of the damned, may it at least be held that they are not entirely unavailing to procure some alleviation of their sufferings, some temporary refrigeria, or moments of mitigation, as a few Fathers and theologians have suggested? All that can be said in favour of this speculation is, that the Church has never formally reprobated it. But the great majority of theologians, following St. Thomas (In Sent. IV, xlv, q. ii, a. 2), consider it rash and unfounded. If certain words in the Offertory of the Mass for the Dead, "Lord Jesus Christ, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell, and the deep abyss", seem originally to have suggested an idea of deliverance from the hell of the damned, this is to be understood not of rescue, but of preservation from that calamity. The whole requiem Office is intensely dramatic, and in this particular prayer the Church suppliant is figured as accompanying the departed soul into the presence of its Judge, and praying, ere yet sentence is pronounced, for its deliverance from the sinner's doom. On the other hand, prayers are needless for the blessed who already enjoy the vision of God face to face. Hence in the Early Church, as St. Augustine expressly assures us (Serm. cclxxv, 5, P.L., XXXVIII, 1295), and as is otherwise abundantly clear, prayers were not offered for martyrs, but to them, to obtain the benefit of their intercession, martyrdom being considered an act of perfect charity and winning as such an immediate entrance into glory. And the same is true of saints whom the Church has canonized: they no longer need the aid of our prayers on earth. It is only, then, for the souls in purgatory that our prayers are really beneficial. But we do not and cannot know the exact degree in which benefits actually accrue to them, collectively or individually. The distribution of the fruits of the communion of saints among the dead, as among the living, rests ultimately in the hands of God, and is one of the secrets of His economy. We cannot doubt that it is His will that we should pray not only for the souls in purgatory collectively, but individually with whom we have been bound on earth by special personal ties. Nor can we doubt the general efficacy of our rightly disposed prayers for our specially chosen ones as well as for those whom we leave it to Him to choose. This is sufficient to inspire and to guide us in our offices of charity and piety towards the dead; we may confidently commit the application of their fruits to the wisdom and justice of God.

How are we, theoretically, to conceive and explain their efficacy?

For a theoretical statement of the manner in which prayers for the dead are efficacious we must refer to the articles MERIT and SATISFACTION, in which the distinction between these terms and their technical meanings will be explained. Since merit, in the strict sense, and satisfaction, as inseparable from merit, are confined to this life, it cannot be said in the strict sense that the souls in purgatory merit or satisfy by their own personal acts. But the purifying and expiatory value of their discipline of suffering, technically called satispassio, is often spoken of in a loose sense as satisfaction. Speaking of satisfaction in the rigorous sense, the living can offer to God, and by impetration move Him graciously to accept, the satisfactory value of their own good works on behalf of the souls in purgatory, or in view of it to remit some part of their discipline; in this sense we may be said to satisfy for the dead. But in order that the personal works of the living may have any satisfactory value, the agents must be in the state of grace. The prayers of the just are on this account more efficacious in assisting the dead than the prayers of those in sin, though it does not follow that the general impetratory efficacy is altogether destroyed by sin. God may hear the prayers of a sinner for others as well as for the supplicant himself. The Sacrifice of the Mass, however, retains its essential efficacy in spite of the sinfulness of the minister; ad the same is true in lesser degree, of the other prayers and offices offered by the Church's ministers in her name.