Prof. Matthew UMUKORO

All Souls’ Day is November 2, a day in which all the dead are remembered by the living. At death, the body gets buried, but the soul rises up to go and give account to God, the Creator. The death of the soul is eternal damnation in Hell. The soul is faced with two major options, to go to Heaven or Hell, or pass through a transitory phase in Purgatory.

In Roman Catholic belief, Purgatory is a temporary place for the purification of sinful souls guilty of minor sins, before being accepted into eternal paradise. According to an Internet Source, “the Latin word, ‘purgatorium’ means a ‘place of purification’, and the concept involves cleansing and spiritual refinement rather than everlasting damnation.” Further to this, The Catechism of the Catholic Church  clarifies that “all who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (par. 1030, p. 268).  Thus, Purgatory is an intermediate point between life and heaven, meant for saved souls that need a period of purification. They are otherwise referred to as the Church Suffering, caught between the Church Militant on Earth who are still working their way into salvation, and the Church Triumphant who have made it into heaven, and are now in the presence of God.

        Some non-Catholic Christian sects do not believe in Purgatory; nor, indeed, in any form of prayer for the dead. As far as they are concerned, the dead have no hope of any form of salvation after breathing their last, and no amount of prayers offered by the living can save any soul that has been damned at death. In other words, God is pictured as an extremist Creator who presents each soul with a rigid alternative between Heaven and Hell, with no form of intervening point for persons who fall slightly short of either. If that were to be so, the grave would be a frightening terminal point for the dead, with no life after life.

Thank God this is not likely to be so; the soul that rises with us at birth also has a setting beyond the grave, and death is merely a transition from the physical to the spiritual. The grim reality is that the overwhelming majority of the living are potential candidates for Purgatory, and only a small handful of souls are qualified for immediate admittance into Heaven. The merciful God will never allow Satan to have a field day with such a huge haul of redeemable souls. Hence, the period of grace that Purgatory offers. And since the dead are in no position to pray for themselves, it behoves the living to come to their aid.

        The first reason why we must pray for All Souls, therefore, is because it is a “turn-by-turn” situation, and nobody can live this world alive. The living have a responsibility towards the dead, starting from giving them a befitting burial, since the dead cannot bury themselves. So, if those alive today neglect to pray for the dead, they will get their repercussion tomorrow when they are also neglected in their turn in after-life. So, it is important to promote a strong tradition of praying for the dead in the interest of everybody. Some of us have parents and relations who have long been dead, and who are only occasionally remembered at landmark anniversaries with full-page colourful memorials. That is totally inadequate. The dead should be remembered in our daily prayers, and through the booking of Masses for them at regular intervals. The persistence of our prayers is capable of shortening their Purgatory ordeal and thus make the souls have peaceful repose in the Bosom of Christ.

        The second reason why we must pray for All Souls is that, apart from the sheer neglect of the living, many of the dead may have no one alive to remember to pray for them. Hence, as with All Saints’ Day, the All Souls’ Day captures the totality of the dead, both as groups and individuals. On such a day, all souls are remembered and made to enjoy one form of reprieve or the other. All practising Christians should take active part in the Solemnity of All Souls, praying, not only for their dead loved ones, but for all the dead in general. A plenary indulgence involving a complete remission of sins often comes with active participation in such major Feasts and Solemnities. Praying for the dead fosters spiritual communion between the living and the dead, and keeps the latter constantly in the minds of the former.

        Another reason for the celebration of the All Souls’ Day is to draw divine attention to the plight of the dead, most especially the Church Suffering who may be languishing in Purgatory. An Internet Source reveals that, following a vision of souls in purgatory, “Saint Odilo, the Abbot of Cluny, brought this tradition into the mainstream when he decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer prayers for the dead and sing the Office of the Dead  (a prayer cycle) for the Holy Souls on November 2, the day after All Saints Day.”  Saint Odilo (c.962-1049) was the fifth Abbot of Cluny, an important Benedictine monastery in France. It is not purely coincidental that All Souls’ Day comes immediately after the Solemnity of All Saints because there is an intricate connection between them. Apart from the fact that all saints are expected to participate spiritually on All Souls’ Day through praying for the dead, some members of the Church Suffering ultimately end up as members of the Church Triumphant.  In the same way, some members of the struggling Church Militant on Earth will transit into the purgatorial Church Suffering, while the extremely good ones will gain direct ascent into the Church Triumphant. The only group left out are the candidates for Hell Fire, comprising the hardened sinners and blasphemous atheists whose transgressions are too weighty to be considered for purgatorial pardon. Such persons are incapable of repentance or requesting for pardon from the Holy Spirit that they have no faith in, and they are thus eeternally doomed. 

        For both the dead and the living, the Solemnity of All Souls remains a significant celebration in the Catholic liturgical calendar. The dead need our prayers to overcome the ordeal of after-life and enter into paradise. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). It should be the desire of every Christian to see God face to face at the end of our journey on earth. For this to happen, we must help one another by praying for both the living and the dead, while placing great attention on our individual spiritual lives.