Different takes on praying for the deceased

Commencing with All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1, and All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2, each November is the special time set aside in many Roman Catholic churches to pray for the dead.

“They were loved in life, so they should be loved in death,” said Msgr. Cyril Navin, 86, pastor emeritus of St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catholic Church in Encino. “They’re still in the family.”

The ways of praying for the dead, and the intent of those prayers, vary from faith to faith. Among Roman Catholics, the tradition of praying for the souls of the deceased stems from the church’s doctrine of the communion of saints, experts say.

“There is a union between us here on earth and souls that directly go to heaven itself, and then the souls that are in a purgative state -- cleansing state -- which we call purgatory,” Navin said.

Put simply, just as believers are expected to be helpful to one another in this life, they are expected to help those who have passed on, he said.

Navin noted that although purgatory is a “controversial topic,” it is based on 2 Maccabees, which says: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”

He added: “We believe on account of that statement that we can be helpful in accelerating the union of souls in a purgative stage, accelerating their union with God in heaven.”

Sister Thomas Bernard MacConnell, founder of the Spirituality Center on the Doheny Campus of Mount St. Mary’s College and a veteran teacher of spirituality, gave this explanation of the Roman Catholic perspective:

“On the Feast of All Saints, we remember all the saints who are in God’s presence. On the Feast of All Souls, we remember people who haven’t, maybe, quite made it yet into the presence of God. So we rejoice in all of them.”

Many Protestants, too, profess to believe in the communion of saints, as it is written in the Apostles’ Creed and recited in many churches. But they do not believe in purgatory and do not pray for the dead.

“Typically, we wouldn’t be praying for the dead in the sense that somehow we’ve got to do that to help advance them along toward going to heaven,” said the Rev. Edward Hansen, a longtime pastor at Hollywood United Methodist Church who retired last year. “But Protestants might pray for the dead in the sense, as they did on All Saints’ Day, as a way of remembering them with thanks for their lives.”

Among Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians, All Souls’ Day falls two or more times a year, usually on a Saturday, because they believe it was on a Saturday that Jesus lay in the tomb after his crucifixion.

“We pray for all those who have died,” said the Rev. Michel Najim, dean of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Los Angeles. Worshipers also offer wheat, Najim said, in reference to the Gospel of John, in which Jesus says, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

In Judaism, the El Maleh Rakhamim is a prayer recited for the souls of the deceased, according to Rabbi Stewart Vogel, spiritual leader of Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills and president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

Many Jews, he said, are not as familiar with this prayer as they are with the Kaddish, known as the mourner’s prayer. He explained that the Kaddish -- in Aramaic and focused on the bereaved -- is a doxology praising God, while the El Maleh Rakhamim is a prayer for the soul of the deceased.

Vogel said the Kaddish opens with “Great and sanctified is God’s name,” while the most significant words to him from the El Maleh Rakhamim, recited in Hebrew, are “May his/her soul be bound up in the bonds of [eternal] life.”

“There are many Jews who are under the misimpression that we do not believe in a soul or hereafter,” Vogel said. “This prayer is very important to dispel those concerns.”

Muslims, too, pray regularly for the dead.

“We are seeking God’s blessings upon them and seek forgiveness for those who are living,” said Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Shura Council of Southern California, an organization representing Islamic centers and mosques, and an expert on comparative religion.

“Our prophet said, visit the dead, the grave; it will remind you of your own death,” Siddiqi said.

“Our belief is that after a person dies, he or she cannot do any more deeds” to influence his or her destiny, he said. But children and relatives of the deceased can continue to pray on behalf of their loved ones.

As for the destination of the soul after death, that answer is in “God’s hands,” he said.

Praying for the dead gets complicated in Buddhism. In its original form, the goal of Buddhism is to rid one of the self, said the Rev. Dickson Yagi, a Japanese American Christian theologian and an authority on Buddhism. “So, when you die, you disappear,” he said.

After Buddhism arrived in China, it incorporated elements of the tradition of ancestor worship, in which mourners prayed for the dead. So, as Buddhism is practiced in East Asia, prayers are said in seven-day cycles during a 49-day mourning period, he said.

“At the end of seven days, if the person was really a wonderful person, then that person has enough good karma -- or good merits -- to deserve being born in a good life in the next rebirth,” Yagi said. “If he is a really bad person, he has enough bad karma to be born into a bad existence in the next rebirth.

“But most people are not all that good and all that bad. So at the end of seven days, their soul is suspended -- it’s not yet decided whether they’re going to get a better rebirth or a worse rebirth.”

During this period, the family of the deceased has an opportunity to perform religious services for the dead by earning what Yagi called “merits by proxy.”

Whether praying for the deceased has an effect on the afterlife is a matter of faith. But it’s hard not to recognize its effect on the living.

Navin, who during his 62 years as a priest has been at the side of countless grieving parishioners, says praying for the departed is “consoling” to those left behind.

A parishioner who sought Navin’s counsel when her sister died last month says praying for the “repose and peace” of her sister has made all the difference in her outlook.

“Initially, I was overcome with grief and guilt when I heard my sister had died,” said Angela Lee, who had been estranged from her sister for 30 years.

Twice, her sister had sought her help, but Lee had not responded because, she said, her sister had left her young children and was leading a “shameful life.”

Lee, who daily attends the 7:30 a.m. Mass officiated by Navin, said the priest told her, “God is merciful.”

Lee said she has found comfort in Navin’s words, as well as her daily prayer, in which she asked God to let her sister “rest in peace and enable the sisters to meet someday in Christ’s presence.”

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connie.kang@latimes.com