funeral question

[jjsc3]

I was recently at a Catholic funeral and during the mass, they prayed for the forgivness of the sins committed by the deceased. I had a non-Catholic coworker ask me how our prayers could help the dead receive forgivness of sins. Isn’t it up to the individual to seek forgivness of sins?

 

[cameron_lansing]

Although the individual has faced particular judgment (as far as we can tell) either seeking or rejecting God’s forgiveness, the funeral liturgies include this as an expression of our Catholic belief that it is proper to pray for the dead. This practice is based on our belief in the communion of the saints, a communion based in Christ himself, and which cannot be destroyed by death.

While the destiny of the person is known only to God, objectively, speaking, such a prayer is consistent with the ancient and universal tradition of the Church, drawn from Scripture. See number 1032 of the Catholic Catechism at scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm .

A nice treatment of this can be found in the Holy Father’s Message for the millennium of the Commemoration of All Soul’s Day, 1998, and I encourage reading it. See catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=589

 

[SMHW]

Ultimately it is true that forgiveness is between God and the indivdual.

But we can certainly pray that the individual would want forgiveness and that God would grant it. And we can pray that any sufferings of the individual in Purgatory might be lessened.

Even though from our perspective, the ‘time’ for forgiveness and reconcillation might be over we know that God hears our prayers for this individual even ‘before’ death has occurred.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

1 John 5:16-17

If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and he will give him life. This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray.17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly.

 

[JButky]

jjsc3:

I was recently at a Catholic funeral and during the mass, they prayed for the forgivness of the sins committed by the deceased. I had a non-Catholic coworker ask me how our prayers could help the dead receive forgivness of sins. Isn’t it up to the individual to seek forgivness of sins?

In a way, we assume and hope that the particular judgement was favorable and we also assume that person sinned sometime in their life and will be cleansed through Purgatory. As the soul suffers the realization of their sins and is being prepared through the cleansing of their sin for the union with Christ, we pray for that suffering (i.e. their “forgiveness”)

It is just another part of the total forgiveness that Christ gives to us.

Joe B

 

[Tintin]

I just started thinking about this then remembered an old thread.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=517147#post517147

 

[pira114]

When you get those questions, you must remember that a lot of Christian denominations believe that there is no awareness after death. That you are simply dead and gone, until you are resurected and judged. That is why Catholics (and some others) get criticized so much for praying to anyone except Jesus. When we pray to Mary or the Saints, they would say that these people are just dead, cannot hear us, and won’t have any awareness until judgement day.

Answering the questions from these people is difficult unless they are prepared to accept our religion without judging it. Be carefull, many of my Christian friends like to try and “set me up” with these questions.