November: Month of the Faithful Departed

Holy Mother Church always encourages us to offer our prayers in suffrage for the souls in Purgatory. In fact, a long tradition dedicates the month of November for this laudable practice. Our ties with deceased relatives and friends do not end with their death. In the funeral homily for his father, Justice Antonin Scalia, Fr. Paul Scalia reflected on the need for such prayer. What he said of his father could be said of our loved ones:

“We look to Jesus, in petition…as we mourn the one we love and admire, the one whose absence pains us. Today we pray for him. We pray for the repose of his soul. We thank God for his goodness Dad, as is right and just. But we also know that, although Dad believed, he did so imperfectly, like the rest of us. He tried to love God and neighbor but, like the rest of us, did so imperfectly. He was a practicing Catholic—practicing in the sense that he hadn’t perfected it yet. Or, rather, that Christ was not yet perfected in him. And only those in whom Christ is brought to perfection can enter heaven. We are here then, to lend our prayers to that perfecting, to that final work of God’s grace, in freeing Dad from every encumbrance of sin.

…Let us not show him a false love and allow our admiration to deprive him of our prayers. We continue to show affection for him and do good for him by praying for him: that all stain of sin be washed away, that all wounds be healed, that he be purified of all that is not Christ. That he rest in peace.”
[Washington, D.C. 2/20/16]