on the countenance of the sick person.
He clings no more to the things of earth. His thoughts are centered in
heaven. The minister of God consoles him with the thought of immortality
and the resurrection of the body. He soon hears the singing of the
angelic choir; and breathing the sweet names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
his soul takes its flight to the _regions of eternal bliss_.

IX. Praying for the Dead

"It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that
they may be loosed from their sins" (_2 Mach_. xii. 46).

NO ONE will deny that the practice of praying for the dead is
reasonable, if the dead are benefited by our prayers. That our prayers
are beneficial to the departed we will endeavor to show. We are taught
by revelation that besides heaven and hell, a state of everlasting
pleasure and a state of eternal pain, there also exists a middle state
of punishment for those who die in venial sin, or who have not
sufficiently satisfied the justice of God for mortal sins already
forgiven.

The people of God in the Old Law believed, and Jesus Christ and His
apostles in the New Law taught, the existence of this middle state. In
the Second Book of Machabees, quoted above, we read that the pious
general Judas Machabeus having made a collection, "sent twelve thousand
drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifices to be offered for the
dead [soldiers], thinking well and religiously concerning the
resurrection [for if he had not hoped that they that were slain should
rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the
dead], and because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with
godliness had great grace laid up for them. It is, therefore, a holy and
wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from
their sins." If prayers were not beneficial to the dead, God would not
have sanctioned them.

This is exactly the practice of the Catholic Church. We pray and offer
sacrifices for the souls in purgatory, just as Judas Machabeus did. Even
if the Books of Machabees were not inspired, it is historically true
that the Jews and almost all nations of antiquity believed in the
existence of purgatory and the utility of prayers for the souls detained
there. This universal consent is the voice of nature and of God. Hence
we see that the practice of praying for the dead is reasonable.

This practice is in accordance with the teaching of Christ. In the 12th
chapter, 32d