How We Help the Holy Souls

The Church has always taught that the living can aid the souls in Purgatory by their suffrages — that is, by prayers, good works, and sacrifices offered on their behalf. The three ecumenical councils that defined the doctrine all enumerate the same principal means: the Sacrifice of the Mass, prayer, almsgiving, and other works of piety.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

The offering of the Holy Mass is the most powerful suffrage that can be offered for the souls in Purgatory. The Mass is the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary — the very same Sacrifice by which Christ redeemed the world. When a Mass is offered for a deceased person, the infinite merits of Christ's Sacrifice are applied to that soul, according to the will of God and in the measure He determines.

The Council of Trent declared that the souls in Purgatory are "helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar". St. Gregory the Great relates in his Dialogues the account of a monk whose soul appeared after death requesting that thirty consecutive Masses be offered for his release — the origin of the devotion known as "Gregorian Masses," still practised today.

The faithful may request that a Mass be offered for a particular deceased person, or for all the faithful departed, or for the "most abandoned souls" — those who have no one to pray for them. It is an act of great charity to have Masses said for the dead, and especially for those who might otherwise be forgotten.

Prayer and Almsgiving

Every prayer offered for the dead is a work of mercy. The simplest and most common prayer for the faithful departed is: "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen." This short prayer, known as the Requiem aeternam, can be said at any time and in any place.

The Rosary, the Divine Office, the Stations of the Cross, and any prayer may be offered with the intention of benefiting the souls in Purgatory. Almsgiving — works of charity done for the poor and needy — can likewise be offered for the dead. Fasting and other penances may also be directed to this intention.

Even the most ordinary actions of daily life can become suffrages for the holy souls when offered with that intention: one's daily work, one's sufferings, the small inconveniences of the day. The Grace After Meals prayed in Catholic households includes the petition, "May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace" — a reminder that the care of the dead is woven into the fabric of ordinary Catholic life.

Indulgences Applied for the Dead

An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has already been forgiven. Indulgences may be obtained for oneself or applied to the souls of the faithful departed by way of suffrage ( per modum suffragii). When we apply an indulgence to a soul in Purgatory, we do not act as the "minister" of the indulgence (as a priest acts in the Sacrament of Penance) but as an intercessor: we offer to God, through the Treasury of the Church, the satisfaction of Christ and the saints, asking Him to apply it to the departed soul. A fuller treatment of indulgences follows in Section VII below.

The Heroic Act of Charity

The Heroic Act of Charity is a voluntary offering by which a member of the faithful places all of his or her satisfactory works — all the merit of one's prayers, penances, good deeds, and indulgences, together with all the suffrages that may be offered for oneself after death — into the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to be distributed by her to the souls in Purgatory according to her will.

It is called "heroic" because the person who makes this act surrenders, for the benefit of the holy souls, the entire treasury of satisfaction that would otherwise be applied to his or her own temporal punishment. It is an act of extraordinary charity toward the dead, trusting that God, who is never outdone in generosity, will provide for one's own purification.

The Heroic Act is a voluntary devotion, not a vow, and can be revoked. Older books describe indulgences and privileged-altars grants associated with it. Those historical privileges should not be confused with present discipline: Paul VI’s Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967), norm 20, abolished special altar privileges. For indulgences available under the current norms, see Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls.

The formula is not fixed; the Act may be made simply by an interior intention, or by a short prayer such as: "O Lord, for the benefit of the holy souls in Purgatory, I place all my satisfactory works, and all the suffrages which may be offered for me after my death, into the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Amen."