"Conversing with" and/or visiting the grave of someone who has passed away

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What is the Catholic teaching/method/tradition about “conversing with” and/or visiting the grave of someone who has passed away?

I have always felt that, since their soul is no longer with the body, since it’s in Heaven or in Purgatory, I see no point in visiting the grave. Oddly, though, when in a cemetery, I have always believed that it’s inappropriate to walk on graves.
 
Two or three thoughts:

I think conversing with a loved one who has passed away is an almost universal practice. It seems to me to be an indication that we naturally realize there is an after life, it’s in our very being. We feel uncomfortable around a dead body, perhaps we have some sort of natural knowledge that death was not supposed to be part of our existence.

Conversing with the dead is not all that much different than praying to them. Which the Church encourages us to do.

Also, since the very beginning of the Church, Christians have venerated the graves if the saints, so visiting cemeteries is by no means pointless.

We were also taught not to walk on the graves.
 
My wife and I lost our daughter due to a miscarriage. We visit her grave out of love and respect. It’s true the soul is not there, however, the body still belongs to God and is the body that will be resurrected. The body is still Sacred in the eyes of the Church, and of course to us, those who loved the person. We are physical beings and when we visit our daughters grave we feel closer to her. I also, while driving around working, will stop in cemeteries and pray for the dead, so they are not placed in the ground and forgotten.

As far as conversing, God puts no restrictions at all on conversing with those whose souls have been perfected and are more alive than we are. He is the God of the living, not the dead. God does not build walls between loved ones, He tears them down and we become ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
 
When a person dies here on earth, Catholics believe that their soul continues to live on, separates from the body and goes to be judged by God and is sent either straight to Heaven, or to Purgatory for a time of purification after which it will definitely go to Heaven, or straight to Hell. The body is no longer living at that point and is either buried, or cremated and interred, in the cemetery. The soul, which is essentially the living person at that point, isn’t in the body and thus isn’t in the grave or the columbarium niche. We do respect the body because we believe that at the end of the world. God will raise/ reconstitute the deceased earthly bodies, perfect them, and infuse all the souls back into them at that time. Therefore we would not deliberately walk on graves or do other disrespectful things.

Regarding visiting a cemetery, you can converse with your deceased loved one from anywhere. Some people like to visit the cemetery to do this because of the proximity to the bodily remains or because it’s simply a quiet, peaceful, pretty place geared towards remembering the deceased. Catholics can also get indulgences for visiting a cemetery and praying for the dead, which they often apply to the deceased in hopes of helping them get out of Purgatory or have an easier time in Purgatory while they’re there.

For 25 years after my dad’s death, I did not visit the cemetery where he was buried. I didn’t want to revisit the bad memories of his death and I figured he wasn’t in the grave, so why go there when I could just talk to him from my room at home or wherever. After 25 years my mother died and I returned in a big way to active Catholic practice. Within the few years after Mom died, I started to also have a lot of friends and other loved ones including my husband and other relatives die, and I also started serious indulgence practice with the goal of giving all indulgences to help the Poor Souls in Purgatory (including but not limited to all my dead loved ones). So I started spending a lot more time in cemeteries, including the one my parents are now both in. At this point I will sit and talk to them at the grave, pray for them and everyone in the cemetery, and also think about the day when I plan to be buried in the same cemetery.

As for conversing with dead loved ones, it’s a normal thing for Catholics to do because we believe they are still living and have hope that they are in Heaven or at least in Purgatory. We don’t try to conjure them up, we don’t ask them to predict the future for us, we just talk to them. “Hi Dad, how are you doing, I hope you’re in Heaven having fun with Mom, I have this and that going on in my life, please pray for me, I was thinking of you yesterday while watching the ball game and remembering how we used to watch together” etc. As I said, we don’t need to go to the cemetery to do this, and we realize that God is the one who determines whether they will “get the message” or not but I trust that God would be amenable to this sort of chit chat which manifests Catholic belief in the afterlife.
 
What our deceased loved one’s hear and see of us is not all together clear. Some people think the soul processes rationality, but it relies on the body for the senses, eg hearing and seeing. So what we say or do cannot be known directly by the deceased souls. But it can be know because God imparts the knowledge of our actions and words onto those souls. I would think it unlikely that God imparts everything we say or do, but I think it very likely He imparts our prayers and conversations directed to them.
 
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Good point. I will remove the last phrase from my previous post.
 
You are very right that cemeteries are usually quiet and peaceful places. I’ve anyways felt a calm come over me and find prayer there very rewarding. There is a certain blessing we receive for being thoughtful about our decreased loved ones, and for all the other departed souls in the cemetery. I think it makes it more personal to actually be there, maybe it’s just me but I can be more emotionally involved being near them than from other remote locations. It’s all about the love our Lord places in our hearts.
 
Thanks to everyone for your thoughts on this topic. I am “processing” them, and look forward to more.
 
I agree with everything you said, except for the phrase, “praying to them.” I’m a convert, so I’m not fully versed in Catholic terminology/common usage, but as I recall from my studies about the Catholic faith, we only pray TO God.

I know that we can ask our deceased love ones to pray for us, and we can pray for them, but I feel like that is not the same as praying TO them. I’m sure I’m just misunderstanding something.
 
I like the idea of stopping at cemeteries and praying for the dead. Although I don’t yet do so, I keep telling myself I’m going to pray for the souls in Purgatory. (There’s a LONG list of things I keep telling myself I’m going to do.). Actually doing so in a cemetery, for all those that are buried there, sort of “personalizes” the idea, in my mind.
 
I’m not disputing what you’re saying, but can you provide the basis for this statement please?
 
we realize that God is the one who determines whether they will “get the message” or not
Is there any Catholic teaching that says whether or not our attempted communication has to be verbal? In other words, can we “talk” to loved ones in a similar way as “mental prayer” with God?
 
Mental prayer, which would include mental talking to God and mental talking to saints, and thus by extension mental talking to the deceased (we hope they are saints or on their way to being saints, because if they’re in Hell they won’t hear us), is just fine. The Church gives indulgences for both mental prayer and recited (verbal) prayer, meaning that they wish to encourage both forms. Many great saints also spent much time in mental prayer.

There is no requirement that you talk verbally to deceased souls, such as saints or your relatives. Sometimes I do and sometimes I just think about what’s on my mind.
 
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It’s Providential that you started this thread. I was at the cemetery this afternoon and paid a brief visit to the grave of my late father. I said something like “Dad, we’ll be visiting you again soon. Mom is coming to be with you.” After i finished praying, some of the questions you posted came into my thoughts. Could Dad hear me? Was I praying to a stone? Then the thought came “Of course, he can hear me.” and I left to go see Father to discuss Mom’s funeral arrangements. (Mom passed away yesterday evening.)

Maybe God allowed you to post this so He could strengthen my faith. Rom. 8:28!
 
Thank you! Like i posted, it’s Providential that this thread was started because the same questions popped in my head earlier - and I’m a life-long Ukrainian Greek Catholic.

The enemy uses every tactic in his infernal book to destroy our faith and God used the OP to bring good out of evil (i.e. to resolve my temptations/doubts about praying to the deceased).

P.S. Thank you for the links!
 
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Thanks for the reminder. In the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, there’s 40 days of prayer for the deceased. In the Latin Tradition, one can have 30 days of Gregorian Masses for the deceased. Which reminds me - I have to do that for Mom.

Thanks again!
 
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We only worship God, but we do pray to saints when we ask for their intercession. Look at the words to the Hail Mary, they are certainly addressed to Mary, not God.
 
I agree with everything you said, except for the phrase, “praying to them.” I’m a convert, so I’m not fully versed in Catholic terminology/common usage, but as I recall from my studies about the Catholic faith, we only pray TO God.
Please understand that for Catholics, especilly cradle Catholics, “Praying to Saints” is shorthand for “Asking the saint to intercede with God on our behalf”. In other words:
I pray to God that I will get a job.
I ask St. Joseph to help me get the job. By that I mean that I would like him to join me in praying to God that I get the job.

When I describe what I did, I might say, “I asked St Joseph to pray for me” or “I asked St Joseph for help” or “I prayed to St Joseph.”

Catholics generally understand that all three descriptions mean the same thing. Our prayers always go to God. The saint helps by adding their prayers to our own but their prayers also go to God and any action comes from God.

Protestants on the other hand sometimes don’t understand when they hear some cradle Catholic say, “I prayed to St Joseph”. If you hang around devout Catholics, especially those who love saints, you’ll hear “I prayed to Saint X” or “I prayed to Mother Mary” or “I prayed to my guardian angel”, a lot. Please understand it does not mean the prayer is not going to God. It’s Catholic-speak.
 
I often pray as I pass a cemetery when driving. Doesn’t have to be a long prayer. I was taught to end every closing sign of the cross with “Jesus have mercy on the souls in purgatory and the souls on earth.” If you pray maybe 3 or 4 times a day (let’s say grace before meals, and night prayer before bed) you’ll say that prayer 3 or 4 times a day. Easy peasy.

When you have more time you can go to the cemetery and do the long litanies for the dead.
 
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