The Communion of Saints is a most comforting doctrine, for it links together the living and the dead. We believe so intensely in the life beyond that for us death does not make the huge difference that others would have us suppose. Those who have crossed over to that other life are themselves alive. We call it life, and a real life we believe it to be. For us Catholics, indeed, there is no such thing as death in the sense that it means the absolute cutting off of all regard for the life that is this side of eternity. We ask the prayers of those whom we know to be beloved of God, nor does it much matter whether they be alive or dead, since we suppose them always to remain human enough to be interested in human things. Even when they have put off mortality, mortality must have for ever a meaning to them. Hence it is that we ask the good to pray for us when we meet them in our life here; and when we learn that they have gone over into the fuller and ampler life that is above, we do not say that then they cannot be asked to help us, but rather that their prayers are far more likely to have weight with God, and that they will be more interested in our welfare. Hence it is that the Catholic Church has always advocated prayers to the saints; just because the saints are dead, why should we cease to beg their intercession? So, again, is it with those who are in Purgatory. I prayed for them when they were alive; in their troubles, in their day of trial, I remembered them before God; why now that they are still in a state of trial should I put aside their claims on me? How do I know that my prayers can be of any avail to the dead? How do I know that when they were alive, my prayers were of any use to them? I trusted in the mercy of God, and followed the practice of Christian tradition; so now I trust in God's compassion and adopt the Christian inheritance.
Let me consider, then, that belief in Purgatory and in the prayers, etc., for the dead allows me the privilege of friendship continued beyond the grave. Surely it is part of the blessedness of friendship that a friend bears as much as may be of his friend's troubles. Indeed, the way that love best expresses itself is not in the external signs of affection, though these be sweet, but more especially if in sorrow I can by some loss to myself relieve my friends of their pain. The mother is most pleased when by denying herself she can give an extra treat to her child, the friend when he can halve his friend's trouble and by his sympathy double his joy. It is, that is to say, one of the great gladnesses of my love when I can at the cost of my own ease purchase for my friends some consolation. Thus, as our Blessed Lord proclaimed, no greater love could be expressed than that a man laid down his life for his friend, for this meant the very last extremity of sacrifice taken joyously to save the life of those whom he has loved. Love, therefore, can at its best express itself in no other way so well, or with such pleasure to him who makes the sacrifice, as by obtaining relief for another by means of our own discomfort. After all, we should consider that when someone has given us their affection, we can never make any repayment; it is a thing so valuable because so sacred, that we have a debt of gratitude that is a debt always: consequently we are glad of the little opportunities afforded us, not of repaying (for this is impossible), but for acknowledging our indebtedness: for even to acknowledge is to make both of us realize how great the thing is that has happened. The very largeness of the debt is recognized, and by being recognized is best returned.
Now it is just this that prayers for the dead imply. They make us see that friendship is, as Scripture made us aware, stronger than death. It has a hold so firm that it lasts beyond the grave. The "mortmain" for the mediaeval lawyers was the clutch that the dying hand never relaxed, and in the same fashion we hold that the dead do not let go of us; death does not part, but unites us. By our prayers we can help our friends that are dead; and more, it is not prayers only, but everything borne patiently for the dead can be offered up for them that their time of purgation may be shortened. I cannot tell for certain whether God has accepted my pains for theirs, but I am assured that, if He judges fit, what I have suffered may be taken as for them. Just as the whole Christian inheritance supposes that vicarious suffering is part of the divine plan, so that our Blessed Lord could take upon Himself the sufferings of the whole world; so in a lesser way we know that God does allow the children to suffer for their fathers sins, the innocent to make expiation for the guilty. Certain indulgences, that is certain penalties of the older penitential code which I can now satisfy by the saying of certain prayers or by doing certain pious exercises of charity, can also be offered up for the dead. The advantage of all this is that life with all its troubles becomes a thing easily borne with. Gently I become resigned to the will of God which I cannot change; I offer my own daily annoyances and anxieties in satisfaction for the sins of my dead friends, and by my loving sacrifices speed them into the Presence. The fascination of life can be thus renounced for love, human in its origin, but divine in its consummation.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.