When we speak of prayers for the dead we must always remember that, though they have left this world, they are alive at this very moment in the next.  As Jesus said to Mary, whose brother Lazarus he raised from the dead, “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (NRSV, John 11:25,26).

As you know, when we die we are not fit to go to Heaven which is where God is seen.  Only those who are completely perfect can go there.  Instead, we go to Purgatory until at last we are ready for Heaven.  We call the souls in Purgatory the Faithful Departed, or the Holy Souls, and we help them by praying for them.

St Paul

St Paul, in a letter to Timothy in the New Testament, prays for an old friend of his called Onesiphorus, who was very good to St Paul when he was in prison in Rome.  But since then Onesiphorus has died and St Paul says this prayer for him, “…may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord…” (NRSV, 2 Timothy 1:16-18).

The catacombs

In the catacombs of Rome one can still see the prayers for departed friends and relations scratched there on the tombs by the early Christians during the second and third centuries AD.  Here are four translated from the original Greek or Latin:

“Philomena, may thy soul be in peace”
“O God, refresh the soul of Romulus”
“Eternal light be thine, Timothea, in Christ”
“Heraclea Roma, may thy soul go into rest” (1)

And a Christian writer called Tertullian, writing about the year 200 AD, says how the Eucharist was offered every year on the anniversary of the death of departed Christians: “We offer on one day every year oblations for the dead…” (2)