310. How we can help the dead
310. HOW WE CAN HELP THE DEAD
Does the communion of saints cut across the divide of death? If so, how?
Whether the dead can be assisted by the works of the living?
Objection 3. It belongs only to one who is on the way (on earth) to advance on account of some deed. Now after death men are no longer wayfarers. . . . Therefore the dead cannot be assisted by a person’s suffrages (good works).
Reply to Objection 3. Although strictly speaking, after death souls are not in the state of the way, yet in a certain respect they are still on the way in so far as they are delayed a while in their advance towards their final reward (S71,2).
It would truly be “bad news” to learn that our good works and prayers could not help our beloved dead. That would mean death is stronger than love. That is the point of the next answer: that communal life does not end with death any more than individual life does:
Objection 4. No one is assisted by the deed of another unless there be some community of life between them. Now there is no community between the dead and the living, as the Philosopher says. Therefore the suffrages of the living do not profit the dead.
Reply to Objection 4. Although the communion of civic deeds whereof the Philosopher speaks is impossible between the dead and the living, because the dead are outside civic life, the communication of the spiritual life is possible between them, for that life is founded on charity toward God, to Whom the spirits of the dead live (S71,2).
St. Thomas next settles the issue by the clear and direct words of Scripture, and then explains why it is so: because charity is not just a subjective feeling, a personal virtue, or a good deed but an ontological union between souls. We the living can remember and help the dead only because God has given us two mental powers that transcend the present time, namely memory and anticipation or hope.
On the contrary are the words of 2 Machabees [Maccabees] 12:46: It is . . . a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins. Therefore the suffrages of the living profit the dead. . . .
I answer that Charity, which is the bond uniting the members of the Church, extends not only to the living but also to the dead who die in charity. For charity, which is the life of the soul even as the soul is the life of the body, has no end: Charity never falleth away (1 Cor 13:8).
Moreover, the dead live in the memory of the living, wherefore the intention of the living can be directed to them. . . .
Nevertheless we must not believe that the suffrages of the living profit them so as to change their state from (eternal) unhappiness to (eternal) happiness or vice versa, but they avail for the diminution of punishment (and / or the increase of reward). . . (S71,2).
Augustine says: Suffrages profit those who are not very good or not very bad. Now such are those who are detained in purgatory. . . (S71,6).
Venial sins are called sins as being dispositions to sin . . . so that the punishment which is awarded to them in purgatory is not a retribution simply, but rather a cleansing. . . (S75,1).
The basic purpose of Purgatory is rehabilitation, not retribution: the perfection of characters and habits rather than the punishment of sins. God created Purgatory out of love and mercy, not merely justice.