312. Whether suffrages offered for several are of as much value to each one as if they had been offered for each in part
312. WHETHER SUFFRAGES OFFERED FOR SEVERAL ARE OF AS MUCH VALUE TO EACH ONE AS IF THEY HAD BEEN OFFERED FOR EACH IN PARTICULAR?
Sometimes we offer specific prayers or “suffrages” (good works) tailored to the needs of specific other people (e.g., “Please convert Joe” or “Please cure Zoe’s cancer”); but sometimes we offer general prayers, like the Rosary, for others either in general, or for a group of persons, or for more than one named individuals. Is praying for all always best? Would adding many more persons to the list for whom we offer the prayer multiply the power of the prayer, or would it divide it? If I offer a Rosary for Jack and Jill, does it still have as much power for Jack as it would if I offered it for Jack alone?
We seem to have a dilemma here. For if the answer is yes, then it seems we should always pray for the whole world rather than concentrating our prayers on one or a few individuals. And that seems wrong. On the other hand, if the answer is no, then that would seem to make prayer like a material thing, such as food, with a finite, quantifiable value, so that dividing a prayer among two individuals instead of praying for one only would be like dividing a pizza among two eaters, where each eater gets only half of what he would have had if he had had the whole pizza alone. And that seems wrong too.
It is better to assist many than one. If therefore a suffrage offered for several is of as much value to each one as if it were offered for one alone, it would seem that the Church ought not to have appointed a Mass and prayer to be said for one person in particular, but that Mass ought always to be said for all the faithful departed. And this is evidently false.
Further, a suffrage has a finite efficiency. Therefore if it be divided among many, it avails less for each one than if it were offered for one only.
If the value of suffrages be considered according as it is derived from the virtue of charity that unites the members of the Church together, suffrages offered for several persons avail each one as much as if they were offered for one alone, because charity is not diminished if its effect be divided among many; in fact, it is increased. And in like manner joy increases through being shared by many, as Augustine says. . . .
On the other hand . . . the suffrage for some person in particular avails him more than that which is offered for him in common with many others, for in this case the effect of the suffrages is divided in virtue of the divine justice (S71, 13).
If the suffrages offered for a person do not profit all indifferently but those chiefly for whom they are offered, then there is no doubt that general and special suffrages together avail a person more than general suffrages alone (S71, 14).
St. Thomas, very reasonably, eliminates the first horn of our dilemma by noting that the Church does pray for specific named individuals. If prayers for many or for all were as effective as prayers for one, this would squander spiritual goods.
Though prayer is not material, nor can its power be measured mathematically, yet like all creaturely acts it and its power are finite, unlike God, and therefore divisible, unlike God. (The Trinity is not God divided into three parts!)
What increases or decreases the power of a prayer is not the number of persons prayed for but the amount of faith, hope, and above all charity that motivates it.
This means that when charity is multiplied by multiplying the number of persons prayed for, the prayer’s power is multiplied; and when the charity is divided by multiplying the number, the prayer’s power is divided.
Prayer addresses us in the same way that both human love and God’s love addresses us: both individually and as a community. It is, as usual, both / and rather than either / or.