November 2024: Editorial

Praying for the Dead     

Tens of thousands of children have lost their lives because of war this year, many of them in the Holy Land where the tragedy continues. This November as we remember our deceased loved ones and all who have died, Pope Francis has asked Catholics to pray especially for parents who mourn the loss of a child. There can hardly be a greater grief for a parent than standing by the grave of their offspring. 
For such bereaved families and for all who have lost loved ones, praying for the dead provides both consolation and healing. It’s also not just a Catholic tradition. Many Protestants and other Christian denominations and religions too ask God to bless their departed loved ones. One of them, the noted author C.S.Lewis wrote; ‘Of course I pray for the dead. At our age the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of conversation with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to Him?’ (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, 107).
While many things have changed about the way Irish Catholics practice their faith, the offering of Mass for the faithful departed on their anniversaries or birthdays brings many families and communities together especially at this time of year and reminds us as the poet Patrick Kavanagh wrote; ‘we are not alone in our loneliness, others have been here and known griefs we thought our special own.’
Our prayers for the dead remain the great lifeline between those of us who are alive and those who are now gone home to God. When the dying St Monica said to her son Augustine, ‘All I ask is that you remember me at the altar of God’ it was a recognition that prayer remains an unbreakable bond between the living and the dead. It ensures that as long as we who remain live, they too live as part of us.

Paul Clayton-Lea