Remembering the Dead

As I age, the fervor with which I remember the souls of the dead has redoubled, as if to keep pace with the lengthening number of names of individuals who now appear on my personal list of remembrance. And while I am intuitively confident that my increased zeal has something to do with the continually emerging tangible reminders of my own mortality, and with the hope accompanying it that someone will remember me, I do not think this accounts for the phenomenon of remembering in its fullness. Let us consider what it means to pray for and remember the dead and the opportunities these present, either to benefit departed souls, advance the growth in holiness of the living, or both, or neither.

The Church designates November 2 as All Souls’ Day, a day to remember the souls of the faithful departed. The specificity of this designation implies that others have departed this life insufficiently faithful to be included. As severe as this sounds, and as uneasy as it may make us, the Church’s logic is straightforward: If a soul has been condemned to Hell, its condemnation is eternal. Thus, it makes no sense to commend such a soul to God. If, as some have argued, the soul condemns itself by way of an active decision to excommunicate itself from all that is good, all that is God, the result is the same. The divide between Heaven and Hell is not permeable (cf. Lk. 16:19-31).

In his book That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (2019), Eastern Orthodox philosopher David Bentley Hart argues for universal salvation with numerous difficult and fascinating arguments, both scriptural and philosophical. One of the most compelling and accessible is his contention that a just God would not issue eternal condemnation for sins committed by a finite being in time. Essentially, Hart’s point is that eternal punishment is not commensurate with a finite crime and hence represents an act of injustice against the condemned. But God’s nature is such that He cannot act unjustly.

I confess my considerable affinity with Hart’s view, not only because of his arguments but because I am persuaded by St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s teaching regarding the extravagant mercy of God. She understood that God’s mercy is not constrained by the limits of our imagination or by any human inclination to condemn ourselves or others with impunity. Although she does say, prophetically, that “little children are not damned,” nowhere does she claim, contrary to Church teaching, that all are saved. Nevertheless, given her conviction that God’s mercy is incomparably lavish, extravagant in its prodigality, I think it would have been difficult for her to reconcile her experience of God with One who damns, even occasionally. Whatever reservations she might have had, she did not articulate them, opting instead to defer in humility to the wisdom of the Church.