Why We Pray for the Holy Souls: The Purpose and Benefits of Prayer for the Dead

Every November the Church turns our hearts toward the faithful departed. Praying for the holy souls is one of the oldest and most loving works a Catholic can do: we ask God's mercy for those who have died, and we keep faith with the people we have loved and lost.

This article explains why Catholics pray for the dead, what that prayer does, and how to make it a habit this month. At the end you will also find a printable booklet we made to help you pray through November.

Why Catholics Pray for the Dead

The practice is older than the Church itself. After a battle, Judas Maccabeus took up a collection and sent it to Jerusalem so that sacrifice could be offered for fallen soldiers. Scripture praises the act: "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins" (2 Machabees 12:46).

The Church teaches that those who die in God's grace but are not yet fully purified undergo a final cleansing before entering heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1030–1032 call this purification Purgatory and state plainly that "from the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice." The Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Purgatory traces the same teaching through the early Fathers, the liturgies of East and West, and the inscriptions in the Roman catacombs.

The Benefits of Praying for the Holy Souls

• Love that reaches past the grave. The communion of saints means our prayers truly help those being purified, and nothing we offer for them is wasted.

• Comfort in grief. Prayer gives sorrow something to do. Many people find that praying for a parent, spouse or child by name brings a peace that time alone does not.

• A friendship that is returned. Catholic tradition holds that the souls we help will remember us, and that once in heaven they intercede for the ones who prayed for them.

• A healthy reminder of our own death. Thinking of the last things makes us more serious about confession, forgiveness and the way we spend our days.

St. Augustine records that his mother, St. Monica, asked only one thing as she was dying: to be remembered at the altar of the Lord. St. Augustine kept that promise, and countless Catholics have done the same for their own parents since.

All Souls' Day and the Month of November

In the year 998, St. Odilo of Cluny directed his monasteries to keep a day of prayer for all the faithful departed on November 2, the day after All Saints. The custom spread through the whole Church. Today the Church still celebrates the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed with its own Mass; you can read the Mass readings for All Souls' Day at the USCCB.

Many Catholics visit cemeteries during the first eight days of November, have Masses offered for their loved ones, and pray the Eternal Rest prayer every day of the month. The prayer traditionally attributed to St. Gertrude the Great, offering the Precious Blood of Jesus for the souls in Purgatory, is another November favorite.

A Prayer to Begin

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

You will find more prayers on our Prayers for the Dead page, including the De Profundis, the Prayer for the Souls in Purgatory, the Prayer for All Souls' Day and a nine-day Holy Souls Novena.

A Booklet to Help You Pray Through November

To make this month's prayer simple, we put the traditional prayers for the dead into one printable booklet: Prayers for the Holy Souls: A November Prayer Booklet. It is 26 letter-size pages you can print at home and keep in your missal, by your bed, or in the car for cemetery visits.

• Eternal Rest, the De Profundis and the St. Gertrude prayer, each opening with a red-and-gold illuminated initial in the style of old Catholic missals.

• Prayers for a deceased father, mother, spouse and child, and for priests and bishops.

• A short graveside service you can pray at a family grave.

• Notes on the All Souls indulgences, a 30-day November prayer calendar, and pages for writing the names of those you want to remember.

• Seven public-domain paintings of the holy souls by Bouguereau, Tiepolo, Schikaneder and other masters.

The booklet is $4.99 as an instant PDF download. See the booklet here.

However you pray this November, remember the holy souls by name. They cannot help themselves, and they are counting on us.