VTC Prayer For the Dead Compilation

Halloween is the eve of the Feast of All Saints. For many, it is a time to remember and pray for the dead. Here are some of our previous posts of interest.

Elena writes about prayers to and for the dead.

Erika directs us to a history of All Hallow's Eve.

Jimmy Akin gets me musing about what the point would be to NOT pray for the dead.

Candy accuses us of necromancy by saying that we are speaking to the dead.

Some parts of my post on purgatory are also relevant:

2 Tim. 1:16-18 is an example of Paul praying for the dead, in this case, a man named Onesiphorus.

Praying for the dead was common practice among the Jews at that time. It has been the practice at least as long as the time of the Maccabees. 2 Maccabees 12:43–45 states "In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the dead to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin." These verses are the primary reason that the deuterocanonical books were removed from the Old Testament. They justified praying for the dead.

Praying for the dead remains the Jewish practice today. Orthodox Jews recite the Kaddish for eleven months after the death of a parent, to pray for their purification. Judaism 101 says "According to Jewish tradition, the soul must spend some time purifying itself before it can enter the World to Come."

While many contend that purgatory and praying for the dead was a medieval Roman Catholic invention, there is ample evidence that this was a belief of the early Christians. Visit the catacombs, and you find prayers for the dead scrawled on the wall in examples of graffiti dating to the first three centuries of Christianity.

Other writings of that era such as Acts of Paul and Thecla and the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity also attest to this belief.

The Early Church Fathers, who, being "early" predated Medieval times by quite a bit, also wrote on this topic. Tertullian, writes in the second century, "We offer sacrifices for the dead on their birthday anniversaries [the date of death—birth into eternal life]."

Plus, who says Halloween more than Jack Chick!

Joe Carter takes a stroll down memory lane as he contemplates the annual ritual of handing out Chick tracts with Halloween treats.

To me, though, Chick is not just another anti-Catholic bigot. When I was a kid Jack Chick was the man who was responsible for more nightmares than the Twilight Zone and Kolchak: The Nightstalker combined. Chick not only scared the hell out of me, he made me afraid that hell was all around me.

The foundation

When St. Francis de Sales was a young priest, he traveled to the Chablais region in France. Located south of Geneva, it had a population of around 72,000 people, most of whom had converted to Calvinism. St. Francis had a difficult time finding people who were willing to listen to him, so he began printing up pamphlets defending the Catholic faith. He put some up on placards on the streets, but most he slid under doors in the dark of the night. At the end of four years, he left the region almost entirely re-converted back to Catholicism.

I read his collected pamphlets collected in a book called The Catholic Controversy, published by Tan books. I remembered that he had written about one of the topics in our previous comment thread, and I am reproducing that chapter here in its entirety.

Resolution of a Difficulty

But a great proof of the contrary, as our adversaries think, is that, according to S. Paul: No one can lay another foundation but that which is laid: which is Christ Jesus; and according to the same we are domestics of God; built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. And in the Apocalypse [Revelation], the wall of the holy city had twelve foundations, and in these twelve foundations the names of the twelve Apostles. If then, say they, all the twelve Apostles are foundations of the Church, how do you attribute this title to S. Peter in particular? And if S. Paul says that no one can lay another foundation than Our Lord, how do you dare to say that by these words: Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, S. Peter had been established as foundation of the Church? Why do you not rather say, asks Calvin, that this stone on which the Church is founded is no other than Our Lord? Why do you not rather declare, says Luther, that it is the confession of faith which Peter had made?

But in good truth it is an ill way of interpreting Scripture to overturn one passage by another, or to strain it by a forced interpretation to a strange and unbecoming sense. We must leave to it as far as possible the naturalness and sweetness of the sense which belongs to it.

In this case, then, since we see that Scripture teaches us there is no other foundation than Our Lord, and the same teaches us clearly that S. Peter is such also, yea and further that the Apostles are so, we are not to give up the first teaching for the second, the second for the third, but to leave them all three in their entirety. Which we shall easily do if we consider these passages in good faith and sincerely.

Now Our Lord is in very deed the only foundation of the Church; he is the foundation of our faith, of our hope and charity; he is the foundation of all ecclesiastical authority and order, and of all the doctrine and administration which are therein. Who ever doubted of this? But, some one will say to me, if he is the only foundation, how do you place S. Peter also as foundation?

You do us wrong; it is not we who place him as foundation. He, besides whom no other can be placed, he himself placed him. So that if Our Lord is true founder of the Church, as he is, we must believe that S. Peter is such too, since Our Lord has placed him in this rank. If any one besides Our Lord himself had given him this grade we should all cry out with you: No one can lay another foundation but that which is laid.

And then, have you well considered the words of S. Paul? He will not have us recognize any foundation besides Our Lord, but neither is S. Peter nor are the other Apostles foundations besides Our Lord, they are subordinate to Our Lord: their doctrine is not other than that of their Master, but their very Master's itself Thus the supreme charge which S. Peter had in the militant Church, by reason of which he is called foundation of the Church, as chief and governor, is not beside the authority of his Master, but is only a participation in this, so that he is not the foundation of this hierarchy besides Our Lord but rather in Our Lord; as we call him most holy Father in Our Lord, outside whom he would be nothing.

We do not indeed recognize any other secular authority than that of His Highness [of Savoy], but we recognize several under this, which are not properly other than that of His Highness, because they are only certain portions and participations of it.

In a word, let us interpret S. Paul passage by passage: do you not think he makes his meaning clear enough when he says: You are built upon the foundations of the Prophets and Apostles? But that you may know these foundations to be no other than that which he has preached, he adds: Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Our Lord then is foundation and S. Peter also, but with so notable a difference that in respect of the one the other may be said not to be it. For Our Lord is foundation and founder, foundation without other foundation, foundation of the natural, Mosaic and Evangelic Church, foundation perpetual and immortal, foundation of the militant and triumphant, foundation by his own nature, foundation of our faith, hope nad charity, and of the efficacy of the Sacraments.

S. Peter is foundation, not founder, of the whole Church; foundation but founded on another foundation, which Our Lord; foundation of the Evangelic Church alone, foundation subject to succession, foundation of the militant not of the triumphant, foundation by participation, ministerial not absolute foundation; in fine, administrator and not lord, and in no way the foundation of our faith, hope and charity, nor of the efficacy of the Sacraments. A difference so great as this makes the one unable, in comparison, to be called a foundation by the side of teh other, whilst, however, taken by itself, it can be called a foundation, in order to pay proper regard to the Holy Word. So, although he is the Good Shepherd, he gives us shepherds under himself, between whom and his Majesty there is so great a difference that he declares himself to be the only shepherd.

At the same time it is not good reasoning to say: all the Apostles in general are called foundations of the Church, therefore S. Peter is only such in the same way as the others are. On the contrary, as Our Lord has said in particular, and in particular terms, to S. Peter, what is afterwards said in general of the others, we must conclude that there is in S. Peter some particular property of foundation, and that his is in particular has been what the whole college has been together.

The whole Church has been founded on all the Apostles, and the whole on S. Peter in particular; it is then S. Peter who is its foundation taken by himself, which the others are not. For to whom has it ever been said: Thou art Peter, etc.? It would be to violate the Scripture to say that all the Apostles in general have not been the foundations of the Church. It would also be to violate the Scripture to deny that S. Peter was so in particular. It is necessary that the general word should produce its general effect, and the particular its particular, in order that nothing may remain useless and without mystery out of Scriptures so mysterious. We have only to see for what general reason all the Apostles are called foundations of the Church: namely, because it is they who by their preaching have planted the faith, and the Christian doctrine; in which if we are to give some prerogative to any one of the Apostles it will be to that one who said: I have laboured, more abundantly than all they.

And it is in this sense that is meant the passage of the Apocalypse [Revelation]. For the twelve Apostles are called foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem, because they were the first who converted the world to the Christian religion, which was as it were to lay the foundations of the glory of men, and the seeds of their happy immortality. But the passage of S. Paul seems to be understood not so much of the person of the Apostles as of their doctrine. For it is not said that we are built upon the Apostles, but upon the foundation of the Apostles--that is, upon the doctrine which they have announced.

This is easy to see, because it is not only said that we are upon the foundation of the Apostles, but also of the Prophets, and we know well that the Prophets have not otherwise been foundations of the Evangelical Church than by their doctrine. And in this matter all the Apostles seem to stand on a level, unless S. John and S. Paul go first for the excellence of their theology. It is then in this sense that all the Apostles are foundations of the Church; but in authority and government S. Peter precedes all the others as much as the head surpasses the members; for he has been appointed ordinary pastor and supreme head of teh Church, the others have been delegated pastors entrusted with as full power and authority over all the rest of the Church as S. Peter, except that S. Peter was the head of them all and their pastor as of all Christendom.

Thus they were foundations of the Church equally with him as to the conversion of souls and as to doctrine; but as to the authority of governing, they were so unequally, as S. Peter was the ordinary head not only of the rest of the whole Church but of the Apostles also. For Our Lord had built on him the whole of his Church, of which they were not only parts but the principal and noble parts.

"Although the strength of the Church," says S. Jerome, "is equally established on all the Apostles, yet amongst the twelve one is chosen that a head being appointed occasion of schism may be taken away." "There are, indeed," says S. Bernard to his Eugenius, and we can say as much of S. Peter for the same reason, "there are others who are custodians and pastors of flocks, but thou hast inherited a name as much the more glorious as it is more special."

Assumption talk

Really guys! It is helpful if you keep comments on the blog topic so that when people are looking for information on the Assumption, they can find it!

I'm going to try and gather several of the comments together here, so that those who wish to continue discussing may do so.

Elena pasted from this article:

The Assumption is the oldest feast day of Our Lady, but we don't know how it first came to be celebrated.

Its origin is lost in those days when Jerusalem was restored as a sacred city, at the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 285-337). By then it had been a pagan city for two centuries, ever since Emperor Hadrian (76-138) had leveled it around the year 135 and rebuilt it as Aelia Capitolina in honor of Jupiter.

For 200 years, every memory of Jesus was obliterated from the city, and the sites made holy by His life, death and Resurrection became pagan temples.

After the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 336, the sacred sites began to be restored and memories of the life of Our Lord began to be celebrated by the people of Jerusalem. One of the memories about his mother centered around the "Tomb of Mary," close to Mount Zion, where the early Christian community had lived.

On the hill itself was the "Place of Dormition," the spot of Mary's "falling asleep," where she had died. The "Tomb of Mary" was where she was buried.

At this time, the "Memory of Mary" was being celebrated. Later it was to become our feast of the Assumption.

For a time, the "Memory of Mary" was marked only in Palestine, but then it was extended by the emperor to all the churches of the East. In the seventh century, it began to be celebrated in Rome under the title of the "Falling Asleep" ("Dormitio") of the Mother of God.

I said to Jennie:

Well, I hope you don't celebrate Christmas, or worship on Sunday, or use grape juice instead of wine for the Lord's Supper. Because that all sounds good, but none of it is from Scripture.

Jennie replied:

I don't consider Christmas as a part of church doctrine. It's a tradition that some celebrate as part of church worship and some celebrate as just a family and cultural tradition. It's certainly not something that was commanded in scripture or done in the early church.

As to the other things, they are not major doctrines pertaining to salvation, but would be considered matters of freedom and conscience, as to what day to worship, and whether to use alcoholic wine for communion. There is not agreement on them, so we should do as conscience dictates. We don't believe traditions are bad, just that they must be in line with scripture.

The RC doctrines of Mary are not taught in scripture AND are in contradiction to it. They are myths with no historical support and, in protestant eyes, should not be believed and certainly should not be dogmas that everyone must believe. In the firm belief of many Christians, they take away from the supremacy of Christ and the gospel message, and point people to Mary instead.

I then wrote:

I get very frustrated that things non-Catholic Christians do which are traditions are always okay, even though they aren't Scriptural. Anything Catholics do which smack of tradition (such as pray the rosary) is met with the accusation that it isn't in the Bible, and therefore shouldn't be done.

How does the Assumption contradict Scripture, which is silent on what happened to Mary. Elijah and Enoch were assumed into heaven.

I would also disagree that there is no historical support. In my blog entry which I linked to earlier, you can see that the church which holds Mary's empty tomb is still around. Historical accounts always refer to an empty tomb.

It isn't as if there are accounts of the body being there, and then at a certain point they change to describing an empty tomb, as it would if the body were stolen.

Jennie's response:

I haven't heard of Mary's empty tomb. When does history speak of it? I've heard of many people going to the Holy Land to see Jesus' empty tomb, but not Mary's. I'll go back and look at your earlier blog entry.

The Bible records Jesus' resurrection and ascension, and earlier as you said it records Elijah and Enoch being taken up into heaven alive, so if Mary was assumed and it's so important to Christianity, why is it not recorded in scripture and testified to by early believers by many eyewitnesses as Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension were?

It looks like all the documents that refer to the assumption are from the 5th century or later. That's not the same as the eyewitness accounts of Christ and the historical accounts from the same period as Christ that speak of the events of the time. It still looks like the Mary stories came in later as myths.

Clare chimed in with:

It is a little bit intriguing to observe the lack of relics of Mary. No 'true bones' or anything.

The early church ( and this habit persists) tended to treat the mortal remains of saints with great care and reverence.

Daughter of Wisdom wrote this (in response to Clare):

I can shed a little light on why the body of Mary was not found.

The burial practices of 1st century Jews were markedly different from the modern burial practices of today, or of our culture. In first century Jewry, bodies were not embalmed or preserved. The body was anointed with special herbs such as myrrh or aloes to mask the stench as the body decomposed. Once the body had decomposed, the bones were taken and placed in a box called an ossuary, which contained all the bones of a particular family. These ossuaries were then stored in special burial caves where they could be retrieved at any time so that new bones from newly deceased family members could be added. For more information see Ossuary.

Another thing: The name Mary was very common back then. It would have been difficult to next to impossible for a devout Catholic who came along hundreds of years later (as there were no Roman Catholics in the first century) to to determine which bones belonged to Mary of Nazareth. The destruction of familial records by the then Roman empire, and the Jewish diaspora of 70 A.D would also make it virtually impossible for people to identify remains.

Conclusion: No body of Mary because the body had rotted away, and the documentation to identify the bones were destroyed.

Finally, Barbara wrote:

Much of what is known about Mary is found in the NT apocrypha. While some of these books were rejected from the official canon as heretical, others were rejected because their authorship was questioned, not their validity. Other things were passed down in oral tradition.

The reason that many doctrines about Mary were officially declared was in response to those questioning Jesus' humanity. Jesus was fully human because his mother was fully human. Would you not agree that a central tenent is that Christ was both human and divine.

---------------

Now, let us try to get back to the original question. How does the doctrine of the Assumption contradict Scripture?

The only response I've heard is that it would have been an important enough event that it should have been in Scripture. That is not proof of contradiction, folks.

Can God assume bodies into Heaven? Yes, there is Biblical proof of this.
Is Mary's death recorded in Scripture? No, it is not.
Therefore, this doctrine does not explicitly contradict Scripture.

Going back to Jennie's other original assertion, that traditions practiced by non-Catholic Christians are not major doctrines, but matters of personal choice in minor matters, I would point out the the doctrine of the Trinity is a major cornerstone of Christianity which was not explicitly mentioned in Scripture. It was also not agreed upon by the early Christians for this reason. The early church was nearly torn apart by this controversy, but eventually Arianism was declared a heresy.

So yes, Jennie, it is possible for major doctrines to not be explicitly found in Scripture.


As to the history of Mary. At the crucifixion of Jesus, Jesus gave Mary into the care of the apostle John. It is widely believed that Mary went to live with John in the city of Ephesus. The place where the house stood is a place of pilgrimage for both Christians and Muslims today. While the upper part of the house is newer, the foundations date back to the 1st century.

While Mary lived there, it is reasonable to assume that the disciples of Jesus came to visit her there. Luke does not name his "eyewitnesses" but from whom else would he have heard of the circumstances of the birth of Jesus? Was elderly Elizabeth still around to tell how John the Baptist leaped in her womb when Mary came to visit her?

St. John died and was buried in Ephesus, where a church was erected over his grave. The remains of it are still there. Similarly, the location of the tomb of Mary is still remembered with a church, which was built over the site of 1st century burial caves.

These people were very important to the early Christians. They began collecting "relics" from them. In Acts 19:11-12 it is recorded that people were healed of illness and possession by being touched by aprons or handkerchiefs which had touched Paul. That proved so successful, they kept track of Paul when he died.

The early Christians visited tombs of the martyrs and of significant Christians regularly. There exists ample historical evidence of this in the form of 1st century graffiti on the tombs. The Christians honored and remembered their dead. They made pilgrimage to their tombs. And when the persecution was over, churches were erected on these sites.

Consider the most significant example of this, the tomb of St. Peter in Rome. No, we can't prove that the DNA on the bones matches that of St. Peter. But it is becoming clear that with so many of these sites, they do date back to the earliest times. Christians honored and remembered their dead.

Blessed James Duckett

Today is the feast day of Blessed James Duckett. Who was he?

James Duckett was an Englishman who lived during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. As a young man he became an apprentice printer in London. This is how he came across a book called The Firm Foundation of the Catholic Religion. He studied it carefully and believed that the Catholic Church was the true Church. In those days, Catholics were persecuted in England. James decided that he wanted to be a Catholic anyway and would face the consequences. The clergyman at his former church came to look for him because James had been a steady church goer. He would not come back. Twice he served short prison terms for his stubbornness. Both times his employer interceded and got him freed. But then the employer asked James to find a job elsewhere.

James Duckett knew there was no turning back. He sought out a disguised Catholic priest in the Gatehouse prison. The old priest, "Mr. Weekes," instructed him. Duckett was received into the Catholic Church. He married a Catholic widow and their son became a Carthusian monk. He recorded much of what we know about his father.

Blessed Duckett never forgot that it was a book that had started him on the road to the Church. He considered it his responsibility to provide his neighbors with Catholic books. He knew these books encouraged and instructed them. So dangerous was this "occupation" that he was in prison for nine out of twelve years of his married life. He was finally brought to trial and condemned to death on the testimony of one man, Peter Bullock, a book binder. He testified that he had bound Catholic books for Blessed Duckett, a "grave offense." Bullock turned traitor because he was in prison for unrelated matters and hoped to be freed.

Both men were condemned to die on the same day. On the scaffold at Tyburn, Blessed Duckett assured Bullock of his forgiveness. He kept encouraging the man as they were dying to accept the Catholic faith. Then the ropes were placed around their necks. Blessed Duckett was martyred in 1602.

Martyrs such as James Duckett go against everything we've learned from the Candy version of history. Good model Christians such as Elizabeth persecuted Catholics? Even killed them?

The printing press was used for something besides printing Reformation literature? I would point out that there must have been literate Catholics, despite the Catholic Church's famous attempts to keep people illiterate, but one could make the argument that Bl. Duckett could read because he not Catholic, and used the books to try and convert other people who weren't Catholic.

Queen Isabella of Spain

In keeping with her Jr. High readability, Candy writes:

The RC king and queen of Spain were interested, because they were interested in cha-ching and power, so they decided to send Columbus, so that they could be the top dudes in spices and such from India.
I found this article on the spiritual life of Queen Isabella - it's written by a nun (Candy's favorite) so I'm sure she'll take it for what it's worth.  The rest of us might be humbled to read more about the life of this holy woman.

A Humble Daughter of the Church
A Model for Contemporary Catholics
By Sister Joan Gormley

Queen Isabel of Castile is ranked among the greatest and most influential figures in history. Even her critics agree on that. She supported Columbus in his voyages of discovery and evangelization, and together with her husband, Ferdinand, began the unification of modern Spain and completed the reconquest of the peninsula from Muslim domination.

This article, commemorating the fifth centenary of Isabel’s death (Nov. 26, 1504), will consider the queen as a Servant of God whose cause for beatification has been introduced. Having lived her Catholic faith with heroic fidelity at a time when that faith was under assault, Isabel is a model for contemporary Catholics in the depth of her faith, her sense of personal vocation to live her faith and her zeal to spread it to the ends of the earth.

Isabel begins her final testament by solemnly professing her faith. She declares herself a faithful Catholic, “believing and confessing firmly all that the Holy Catholic Church of Rome holds, believes and confesses, and preaches.” She mentions her faith in the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, specifically the articles on the humanity and divinity of Christ and the seven sacraments.

In a personal addition to the formal profession, she declares that she is ready and willing to die for the Catholic faith and would consider martyrdom a great favor. In a time when the Church was weakened by corruption and heresy, Isabel’s faith never wavered. She professed it in its entirety from her childhood to the day of her death.

One of Isabel’s first teachers, Father Martin de Cordoba, wrote a handbook for her entitled Garden of Noble Maidens. In it, he instructed the princess that her noble birth was a vocation from God that required from her the greatest possible response of love. “Since God, who in her mother’s womb gave and predestined this one to be queen of such a noble kingdom as Spain,” he wrote, “she is more obligated to love him than any other woman.”

Isabel took this advice seriously. As queen, she led a devout Christian life and regularly sought the advice of a carefully chosen spiritual director. Her day included the Divine Office and Mass as well as reading and contemplation. Her obligations as wife and mother and her duties as queen were fused in such a way that she kept in view the good of her kingdom and of the Church. At a time when in other kingdoms offices and favors were for sale in Church and court, Isabel’s favor could not be bought. If a man was made a royal herald, it was because he had the best voice for the task. If a bishop was appointed to reform the monasteries, it was because he was living a holy life in accord with his vocation.

Contemporary chroniclers note the queen’s fortitude amid the great sufferings of her later life, especially the death of her oldest daughter, Isabel, and that of her son Juan, the heir to the throne. Another terrible blow was the “madness” of her daughter, Juana, the next in line to the throne. These sorrows, as well as the sufferings of her last illness, she accepted as coming from God.

In the codicil to her testament, Isabel declares that her principal intention in the discovery of the islands and lands in the “West Indies” was “the evangelization and conversion of the natives of those places to the Catholic Faith.” When many Europeans were debating whether indigenous peoples were full human beings, Isabel insisted that the natives of those lands were her subjects and should be treated justly. Certain of their humanity, she was eager to send missionaries to evangelize them. In a real sense, she anticipated the emphasis of the Second Vatican Council on the dignity of every human person. The extent of her contribution to carrying the Gospel to the ends of the earth must be measured in terms of the vibrant Christian faith and culture that sprang up in the lands evangelized by Spain.

Isabel’s last will and testament sums up her dispositions at the end of her life. She is aware of the judgment that awaits her as one who has wielded power: “If no one can be justified in his sight, how much less can those of us of great kingdoms and high estate.” But in humble faith, she recognizes her dependence on God’s mercy and begs that Christ’s passion stand between her soul and judgment. In short, this Catholic queen died as she had lived, a humble daughter of the Church.

Sister Joan Gormley is a professor of Scripture and homiletics at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md.