:./-i:',cr-;'. ■ ; 
 
 A 
 
 DOCTRINAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT REV. JAMES VINCENT CLEARY, S. T. D. 
 
 BISHOP OP I^IMGSItON 
 
 V 1 ► .. . OJNT TiiB 
 
 INDULGENCES AND MASSES FOR THE DEAD 
 
 Decreed by His Holiness Pope Leo Xni,for Sunday, 
 , , 30th September 1 888. 
 
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 CT-AuIMElS j^. S^DLIEIE?. 
 
 1069 Notre Dame St. 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 115 Church Street 
 TORONTO. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
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 Page 
 
 The Catholic Church the Communion of Saints 4 
 
 The Saviour's compassion for the souls in Purgatory 5 
 
 God's justice is most rigorous 7 
 
 The power of the Church to grant Indulgences 9 
 
 Indulgences for the Dead 13 
 
 Sacrifice is essential to true religion in the present as in all ages 15 
 The sacrifice of the Mass is propitiatory for the dead, as well 
 
 • • • ' '. • • • ■•"-', ■ ' , t '. . I 
 
 Summary of Ap^oStbli'c; Traiiiiiqn jorx .this jgoiibiti .'. , ; 21 
 
 
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JAMES YINCENT CLEARY, S/l.D. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 GEAOE OF GOD AND FAVOR OF THE APOSTOLIC SEE, 
 BISECOIP ODF" K:i2SrC3-STOlNr. 
 
 To the Reverend Clergy, Religious Communities and 
 faithful Laity of the Diocese, 
 
 By an Encyclical Letter, dated Easter Sunday, 1888, 
 Our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII, has decreed that 
 Sunday, 30th of next September, shall be a day of 
 solemn and universal commemoration of the Souls in 
 Purgatory. 
 
 1 . The Pope will celebrate Mass on that day for the 
 souls of the faithful departed ; and he enjoins on all 
 Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops to do likewise in 
 their Cathedral Churches, observing the rite prescribed 
 in the missal for All Souls' Day, and surrounding the 
 Mass with fullest solemnity. 
 
 2. His Holiness wishes the same to be done by all 
 priests in their respective churches : and to all who 
 shall celebrate Mass for the dead on that Sunday he 
 grants the indulgence of the Privileged Altar 
 
 3. The Holy Father earnestly exhorts the laity to 
 receive the Sacraments of Penance and the Blessed 
 
 5589<> 
 
Eucharist devoutly in suffrage for the dead ; and to all 
 who comply with this condition, he gives, by Apostolic 
 authority, a Plenary Indulgence for those suffering souls. 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church is declared in the 9th 
 ^article of the Apostles' Creed to be the ** Communion 
 of Saints." This is a sweet and most consoling doc- 
 trine of our holy religion. By it we who pursue our 
 pilgrimage through the desert of this sinful and weary 
 world, contending with the passions of corrupt nature, 
 the evil inHuences of manifold vicious example, and the 
 snares and assaults of the devil, are united in charity 
 and active sympathy with " the spirits of the just made 
 perfect" (Heb. xii), among whom are many of our own 
 dear relatives and friends. We rejoice with them for 
 their having attained the " unfading crown of glory ; " 
 whilst they, from their high place in heaven, look 
 down encouragingly upon us and, as a " great cloud of 
 witnesses over us" (Heb. xii, i), watch with eagerness 
 our successes and failures amid the trials of life, inter- 
 ceding for us all the while before the throne of grace. 
 On the other hand, we are moved with compassion for 
 those unglorified spirits, who, though they passed away 
 from this earthly scene in the charity of God, are still 
 indebted to His justice for venial faults unabsolved or 
 penance unfulfilled, and consequently are detained in 
 that prison beyond the portals of death, of which the 
 Saviour said with solemn adjuration, " Amen, I say to 
 thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou pay the 
 last farthing" (Matt, v, 26). It is the Church Militant, 
 the Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering ; all 
 three constituting by unity of life in the mystic body of 
 Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic Church, considered in 
 relation to the warfare of her children in the flesh, the 
 glories of her victorious heroes in heaven, and the 
 purgatorial pains through which many of her faithful 
 warriors are passing, who fell beside the standard of 
 
the Cross, breathing- loyalty to God and His Church in 
 their death-struggle, but are not yet sufficiendy purified 
 for admission to the Holy of Holies, of which it is 
 written, " Tliere shall not enter into it anything- defiled." 
 (Apoc. XII, 27.) 
 
 THE SAVIOUR S COMPASSION FOR THE SOULS LN PURGATORY. 
 
 When Our Blessed Lord had consummated the work 
 of Redemption in the last agonies of His crucifixion, 
 whereby lie made atonement superabundantly to His 
 Father for the " sins, offences and negligences " of all 
 men, both the living and the dead. His first thoughts 
 were directed towards the suffering souls in Purgatory. 
 To them He hastened instantly to announce the 
 accomplishment of long-expected Redemption and 
 impart to them, as the Fathers and Doctors of the 
 Church teach us, the first-fruits of His purchased grace 
 by a Plenary Indulgence, with a promise of particip- 
 ation in His triumph, when He would " lead captivity 
 captive" (Eph. iv, 8), on the day of His Ascension 
 into the glory of the heavens. So it had been predicted 
 by the prophet Zachary, apostrophizing the iMessiah 
 many ages before : " Thou also, by the Blood of thy 
 Testament, wilt send forth thy prisoners out of the pit 
 wherein is no water" (Zach. ix, 11), His dead body 
 was hanging yet warm upon tlie cross when His human 
 soul, subsisting indissolubly in the Divine Person, 
 " descended into hell," the abode of the dead, declared 
 by St. Paul to be in " the lower parts of the earth " 
 (Eph. IV, 9). " He came," says St. Peter, "and 
 preached to those spirits who were in prison ; who in 
 times past had been incredulous, when they waited for 
 the patience of God in the days of Noe " (i Pet, iii). 
 What an awful idea of the rigours of divine justice and 
 of the grave penalties that wait upon sin, even after 
 
the remission of its mortal 8!''^'^^' 's liere suggested to 
 Christian minds by this brief sentence of the Prince of 
 the Apostles ! Those myriad spirits, throughout their 
 life-time upon earth, had sinned freely by indulgence 
 in the evil practices of an evil age. They " had been 
 incredulous," the Scripture says, insomuch as they 
 had refused credence to Noes denunciations of the 
 vengeance of heaven, on pretence that God was too 
 merciful to inflict the terrible punishment of universal 
 destruction upon the human race. But, being true 
 believers in the faith and hopes of the Patriarchs, many 
 of them t'lrned their hearts penitently to God and 
 cried for mercy in the name of the promised Messiah 
 when they saw themselves perishing between the 
 unlocked " fountains of the great deep and the cataracts 
 of heaven." Their cry of contrition reached the ears 
 of the God of mercy, and they were saved from eternal 
 damnation Nevertheless, when the Redeemer visited 
 them on that First Good Friday, two thousand and 
 four hundred years after their death, they were still 
 prisoners of justice. For, although the mortal guilt of 
 their criminal excesses had been expiated by their 
 penitential agony in the waters of the Deluge, and the 
 corresponding debt of eternal chastisement had been 
 forgiven, they had not " filled up the things that were 
 wanting of the sufferings of Christ in their flesli " 
 (Col. I, 24), by voluntary personal atonement in union 
 with that of the Saviour. Hence their penance was 
 incomplete ; and the satisfaction they had failed to 
 make to God on earth was exacted from them in the 
 other life by those long ages of incarceration in the 
 dark caverns of the subterranean " prison," — " the pit 
 wherein is no water." But now the day of redemption 
 had come for them : " For this cause was the Gospel 
 preached to the dead, that they might be judged indeed 
 according to men in the flesh, but may live according to 
 God in the spirit " (i Peter iv, 6v). The Gospel, or glad 
 
7 
 
 tidings, preached by the Lord Jesus in Purgatory to 
 those who had been condemned and punished before 
 men in the flesh, but had repented of their sins at 
 the hour of death, was the grace of full pardon and 
 admission to the liberty and tranquil repose of the 
 blessed, who were to ascend with the triumphant 
 Saviour into heaven, to " live according to God in the 
 spirit," for an endless eternity. Let us imitate the 
 charity of Christ by daily remembrance of the poor 
 prisoners of Purgatory in our prayers and masses, that 
 we may have a share in the work of hastening the day 
 of their liberation. Let us strive, by doing frequent 
 acts of piety and charity in their name, and by gaining 
 the Church's Indulgences as copiously as possible in 
 their favour, to mitigate the chastisement that presses 
 upon them, and which it may be our own lot to undergo 
 when we shall have departed chis life. 
 
 god's justice is most rigorous. 
 
 Let no Christian make light of the rigour of divine 
 justice in demanding personal satisfaction from sinners, 
 even from the absolved, either in this life or in the next. 
 The sanctity of God is too holy, the majesty of God is too 
 exalted, the omnipotence of God is too mighty and His 
 judgments are too just, to allow the released criminal 
 to hold himself free of all debt of reparation for his 
 grievous offences. King David repented of his sins 
 and confessed them to the prophet Nathan, and received 
 an absolute assurance in God's name that they were 
 from that moment and forever forgiven. But in the 
 very sentence of pardon a grave temporal punishment 
 was reserved against him : " The sword shall never 
 depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me ; 
 the child that is born to thee shall surely die" (ii 
 Kings xii). Therefore, did this penitent and pardoned 
 
8 
 
 king spend all the remaining days of his life in com- 
 punction of heart : he " did eat ashes like bread, and 
 mingled his drink with weeping," and he cried to God 
 continually, " If Thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities, O 
 Lord, who shall stand it ? " •' Wash me yet more and 
 more from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin " 
 (Ps. CI, cxxix, L.) Commenting on which example, 
 St. Augustine gives this admonition to all Christians : 
 — "Implore mercy, but lose not sight of justice. In 
 His mercy God pardons sin ; He punishes it in His 
 justice. What ? dost thou seek for mercy, and shall 
 sin remain unpunished ? Let David, let other sinners 
 answer : let them answer with David and say : " Lord, 
 my sin shall not remain unpunished ; but that Thou 
 mayest not punish it, I myself will' " (In Psalm l.) 
 
 Men may contrive to forget their sinful past, relying 
 over-much on the rectitude of their renewed life. But 
 it is written "there are just men, and wise men, and 
 their works are in the hand of God : and yet man 
 knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred." 
 (Ecli. IX, i). The attribute of justice in God is com- 
 prehended in all its relations by Himself alone. The 
 examples above cited, and others recorded in Holy 
 Writ, terrible though they are, give us but an inade- 
 quate idea of it. Let us, therefore. " in fear and 
 trembling work out our salvation" (Phil, ii), that 
 whensoever death shall seize us (and it may come un- 
 expectedly) we may be prepared to meet the Sovereign 
 Judge, who, "will judge justices " and " search the reins 
 and hearts " of men ; and who has announced before- 
 hand the extreme severity of His scrutiny into our 
 lives : " I say to you, that every idle word that men 
 shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the 
 Day of Judgment " (Ps. lxxiv ; Apoc. ii, 23 ; Matt, xii, 
 36). An idle word, a petty vanity, a passing emotion 
 
of impatience, may appear to some minds undcservinq- 
 of chastisement ; but in reference to these and like 
 venial faults, which St. Paul compares to "wood, hay 
 and stubble" mixed with "gold, silver and precious 
 stones" in the building up of our lives, he declares the 
 Christian, in whose life-work such unsolid, worthless 
 matter shall be found at the tribunal of God, must pass 
 through fire in order to be saved : " The day of the 
 Lord shall be revealed in fire ; and the fire shall try 
 every man's work, of what sort it is If any man's work 
 burn, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself shall be saved ; 
 yet so as by fire " (i Cor. in). Oh ! How few they are 
 who shall pass unscathed through this ordeal of fire ! 
 
 THE POWER OF THE CHURCH TO GRANT INDULGENCES. 
 
 The spirits visited by Christ in prison were but a 
 type of the many millions of believers who die in every 
 age without having fully satisfied God's justice for their 
 sins by works of penance. The Saviour compassionates 
 them all. But He has gone, body and soul, to heaven, 
 to enjoy His eternal triumph at the right hand of His 
 Father, and has left the administration of His Church 
 and the agencies of salvation unto men in the hands of 
 His representatives on earth. The power to exercise 
 clemency towards penitent sinners in the ilesh and the 
 suffering saints in Purgatory by means of Indulgence, 
 or remission of their debt of temporary punishment, is 
 one of those manifold spiritual agencies intrusted by 
 Our Divine Lord to the Bishops of His Church, more 
 particularly to St. Peter and his successors. Every 
 prerogative of the Man-God, as head and ruler of His 
 kingdom on this earth, is vested in the Apostolic 
 hierarchy, to whom lie delivered the supreme and un- 
 limited commission, " Amen, I say to you, whatsoever 
 ye shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: 
 
10 
 
 and whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed 
 also in heaven" (Matt. xvi). "As the Father hath 
 send me, I also send you" (John, xx, 21). " All power 
 is given to me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, there- 
 fore Behold I am with you all days." (Matt. 
 
 xxiii.) All whatsoever " binds " the souls of men, and 
 prevents their entrance into heaven, is consequently in 
 the power of the hierarchy to " loose " by virtue of 
 the plenitude of Christ's spiritual authority commu- 
 nicated to them. They may therefore remit, wholly 
 or in part, the spiritual debts of the living, and 
 may effect the release of souls from Purgatory by 
 application of the superabundant and inexhaustible 
 merits and satisfactions of Jesus Christ, our sole 
 Atoner, and of His Blessed Mother and the martyrs 
 and confessors, whose superabounding patience and 
 charity derived all their merit and satisfactive value 
 from His grace. 
 
 A striking example of the exercise of the power to 
 grant Indulgences is recorded in Holy Writ. St. Paul 
 '• in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ " inflicted grave 
 punishment on a certain incestuous man in Corinth. 
 The punishment was medicinal, that the man's " spirit 
 may be saved in the day of Our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 It was not merely an ecclesiastical penalty, directed to 
 the preservation of external discipline ; it was to have 
 its effect in the siglit of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 was to weigh favorably in the balance for the sinner's 
 account on the day of judgment, as the text declares. 
 It was therefore a truly satisfactive penance imposed 
 by ecclesiastical authority for reparation to God. Before 
 the completion of the prescribed term of chastisement, 
 the Apostle, having lieard of the man's sincere and 
 heartfelt contrition, remitted to him what remained 
 of the imposed penalty, thus tempering justice with 
 clemency ; and this he did, as he says, " in the person 
 
IT 
 
 of Christ." The abridgment of the measure of satis- 
 faction for sin was therefore valid in the sight of Christ, 
 and must have been no less available to the penitent 
 sinner for his soul's welfare than would have been the 
 fulfilment of the remainder of the prescribed course of 
 penance, whereby his " spirit would be saved in the 
 day of Our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor. c. v, II Cor. c. ii). 
 This was exactly an Indulgence, that is a relaxation 
 of the penance ordered by the Church to be performed 
 in satisfaction of God's justice. It pre-supposes the 
 sinner's true conversion to God, followed by self- 
 chastisement in some degree, by way of personal 
 atonement for guilty deeds. It is granted "in the 
 person of Christ," by those whom He has invested with 
 the power of " binding" and "loosing" the shackles of 
 the soul, and in whom it resides as a permanent and 
 ordinary hierarchical prerogative, which St. Paul allowed 
 to belong alao to those who ruled the Church in 
 Corinth, and the Bishops in every age have regarded 
 as an inherent right of their office. 
 
 It is in a special degree the prerogative of the Pope, 
 the Vicar of Christ. For to him, in the person of 
 blessed Peter, was given singularly, and apart from all 
 others, the supreme commission to bind and loose all 
 spiritual bonds, in the self-same form of words in which 
 it was given to the whole Apostolic College with Peter 
 at their head (Matt. xvi). It belongs to the hierarchy 
 with Peter : it belongs to Peter preeminendy. To 
 emphasize more distinctly the individual sovereignty 
 of St. Peter and his successors in the exercise of this 
 prerogative, Our Lord was pleased to bestow it on 
 Simon Peter by the significant symbol of the keys of 
 tlie kingdom of heaven, delivered to him solely and 
 exclusively. " Thou art Peter," said He to Simon in 
 presence of the other Apostles ; " I will give to thee 
 the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatsoever 
 
12 
 
 tJiou shalt bind," etc. Thus the power to dispense 
 indulgences, and all whatsoever else of jurisdiction, 
 authority, or prerogative belongs to the corporate 
 hierarchy, belong singularly and preeminently to him 
 who for the time being is Christ's Vicar, that is, to 
 Peter or his legitimate successor in the chair of supreme 
 
 government. 
 
 In the fulness of compassionate charity for those 
 dear children of the Church who died the death of the 
 just, but are undergoing painful purgation preparatory 
 to their entrance into eternal rest, Our Holy Father, 
 the Pope, has decreed to use this unlimited power of 
 the " Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven " and unlock 
 the treasury of spiritual graces in their behalf. The 
 year of his sacerdotal Jubilee has not yet expired. In 
 every nation under the sun there has been rejoicing 
 among the faithful ; solemn acts of homage have been 
 rendered in all tongues to the common father of all ; 
 and exquisite gifts, exceeding in value thirty millions 
 of dollars, have been laid at his feet by pilgrims from 
 the various nationalities. In return he has dispensed 
 paternal blessings lavishly, and prayed fervently for his 
 children at the altar, and has bestowed Plenary Indul- 
 gence and manifold favors on the faithful everywhere. 
 The blessed citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem beyond 
 the skies have been made participants in the festivities 
 of his golden Jubilee by those surpassingly grand 
 and majestic rites of canonization and beatification in St. 
 Peter's Roman Basilica, whereby ten Christi Ji heroes 
 were duly awarded the honors proper to God's saints 
 in the public worship of the Church, and others were 
 declared " Blessed " before God and men, and entitled 
 to public religious honours, by reason of the transcen- 
 dant virtues and heavenly favors illustrated in their 
 lives. And now, to crown the work of Jubilee celebra- 
 tion and give the spheie of festivity its fullest Catholic 
 
13 
 
 extension, Pope Leo XIII has ordained that Sunday, 
 30th inst., shall be a universal holiday on Earth, in 
 Purgatory and in Heaven. On that day the Church 
 Militant shall gather around her altars in every diocese 
 and every paiish all over the globe, and offer the 
 " clean oblation " of the Lamb of God in suffrage for 
 the souls of the faithful departed : the Church Suffcring 
 shall be visited by angels from before the throne of the 
 Most High bearing the glad message of amnesty and 
 immediate deliverance from captivity, in response to the 
 supplications sent up from the earth : and the Church 
 Triumphant shall exult and rejoice at the sight of 
 millions of their, exiled brethren received up into the 
 new Jerusalem with songs of jubilation, and conducted 
 by their Angels Guardian to the throne of the Great 
 King, to receive the crown of everlasting glory and be 
 the companions of their bliss for ever and ever. It will 
 indeed be a day of jubilee. Let us prepare to celebrate 
 it worthily and with profit to as many as possible of the 
 suffering souls by devout reception of the Sacraments, 
 in fulfilment of the conditions requisite for gaining the 
 Plenary Indulgence in their favor. 
 
 INDULGENCES FOR THE DEAD. 
 
 An indulgence granted to the living is an act of 
 jurisdiction, whereby the penitent sinner is absolved 
 from the debt of temporary punishment lying against 
 him in God's account, the merits and satisfactions of 
 Christ being offered to God by the Church in lieu of 
 the personal satisfactions thus remitted to the sinner. 
 Being a juridical absolution, its effect is always assured, 
 unless the penitent be indisposed for such grace by 
 attachment to sin. The souls of the faithful departed, 
 altiiough they are members of the Church, bound to 
 her in charity by the communion of saints, are outside 
 
14 
 
 tlie sphere of her jurisdiction. They are " in the hands 
 of God " (Wisdom iii), for execution of the sentence, 
 all-just and all-holy, pronounced upon them at the 
 particular judgment in the moment of death ; and con- 
 sequently are m^t subject direcdy to the ' binding- and 
 loosing" authority of the Church's tribunals for plenary 
 or partial remission of their sentence. But though she 
 cannot impart Indulgences to the dead, as to the living, 
 by a judicial sentence of absolution, she can effectually 
 relieve them througli her interposition with God in 
 their favor by way of suffrage, or impetratlon. Our 
 prayers, fasts alms deeds, the oblation of holy mass 
 and other pious works, when offered to God in satis- 
 faction for their venial faults or unperformed penances, 
 are so many forms of suffrage for the dead, and are 
 declared by the Church to be, in general, salutary to 
 them. So also Indulgences are applicable in their 
 favor, as sjiffrages, according to the traditional teaching 
 and practice of the Catholic Church They are, 
 however, applied to the dead indirectly only, that is, 
 through the living, who, being in the state of grace, 
 fulfil the prescribed works of piety and other requisite 
 conditions for gaining the promised indulgence, and 
 offer this to God, by way of suffrage, for the souls of 
 the deceased holy ones. An indulgence, applied thus 
 to the souls in Purgatory, differs in two important res- 
 pects from the private suffrages of the faithful in their 
 behalf. First, it is a formal petition of Holy Church 
 herself to God for mercy to those individual souls whom 
 she recommends to the divine favor through our special 
 intentions ; and we are confident that her pleadings for 
 her suffering children will always find acceptance at 
 the throne of mercy. Second, her indulgences are 
 not merely prayers and pleadings for them, but are, 
 moreover, her rightful and authorized offering of the 
 superabundant satisfactions of Christ, the Blessed 
 Virgin and the Saints, in solution of the debt lying 
 
15 
 
 a<T"ainst the sufferine^ souls. For this purpose she em- 
 ploys the keys of the spiritual treasury delivered to 
 her by our Divine Lord, and acts with divine authority 
 in distributing its riches according to her discretion. 
 God, who bestowed this power upon her, will not des- 
 pise her suffrage presented to Him in this form. When 
 she grants her indulgences in connection with the holy 
 Sacrifice of the Mass, we must regard them as the 
 surest of all forms of suffrage for the relief of thef^iithful 
 departed, not only in general, but in regard of the in- 
 dividual souls to whom she allows us to apply them by 
 our special intentions. 
 
 SACRIFICE IS ESSENTIAL TO TRUE RELIGION' IN THE I'RESEXT 
 
 AS IN ALL AGES. 
 
 Sacrifice is " the first and most necessary act of reli- 
 gion," <MS we are taught in our Catechism. From the 
 beginning of the world it has been practised. Even 
 among the scattered races, who gradually forgot the 
 true God and his primitive revelation in regard of most 
 other truths, the Patriarchal tradition concerning sacri- 
 fice, as a divinely ordained means of appeasing God's 
 anger and propitiating His mercy, was preserved gene- 
 rally, although mixed up with various national and racial 
 superstitions. The People of God in every Dispensa- 
 tion, from Abel to Noe, from Noe to Abraham from 
 Abraham to Aaron and from Aaron to Christ, offered 
 their sacrifices through faith in the promised Redeemer. 
 It was only as types and figures foreshadov.ang the 
 future sacrifice of the Messiah, and in virtue solely of 
 His merits and power with God in heaven, that those 
 multiform typical sacrifices possessed their propitiatory 
 efficacy. To correct the contrary error, which in later 
 times possessed the Jewish vulgar mind, St. Paul put 
 forth this fundamental dogma. "It is impossible that 
 
i6 
 
 with the blood of oxen and goats sin should be taken 
 away" (Heb xxxi). Obviously there is no natural 
 relation between the spilling- of animal blood and the 
 spiritual effect of purgation of the soul from the stain of 
 sin. Wherefore the annual sacrifice of expiation offered 
 by the High Priest of the Old Law in the temple of 
 Jerusalem, and the other sacrifices prescribed in Leviti- 
 cus for the remission of sin ; likewise the sacrifices of the 
 blessed Patriarchs of the Hebrew race, and of Job and 
 Melchisedech ai,d other faithful priests among the Gen- 
 tiles, availed to insure divine mercy towards sinners, not 
 by any intrinsic virtue of their own. but solely tlirough 
 the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, whose 
 immolation of himself on Mt. Calvary was prefigured 
 and accepted in faith by means of those divers sacrifices. 
 Of this also did St. Paul deem it necessary to remind 
 the Jews of his day in these words : '' Christ is the me- 
 diator of the New Testament ; that by means of His 
 death, for the Redemption of those transgressions which 
 were under the Former Testamc?it, they who are called 
 may receive the promise of eternal inheritance " (Heb. 
 IX, 15). -Whence Jesus Christ is represented in the Apo- 
 calypse (xiii. 8) "as the Lamb which was slain(typically) 
 from the beginning of the world." 
 
 Sacrifice is as necessary in the nineteenth century as 
 in any former age for the application of the merits of 
 Calvary to men s souls The belief in the Messiah's uni- 
 versal atonement did not suffice unto salvation for men 
 throughout the four thousand years that preceded that 
 great central event of the history of God's dealings with 
 the human race. Sacrifice and Sacraments were needed 
 to bring the Blood of the Saviour's wounds to individual 
 souls for their healing in faith. God so ordained, and 
 men so believed and practised. The same rule holds 
 good for mankind in the ages posterior to the consum- 
 mation of the central sacrifice of atonement, common to 
 
17 
 
 the past and the future. Without incUvidual application 
 through channels prescribed by faith, the soul- saving- 
 merits of Christ's passion would be now, as formerly, of 
 no avail to men in the ordinary course of God's Provi- 
 dence. The blood of Redemption would be a sealed 
 fountain, a locked treasure. The Gospel woulci be a 
 noble poem, rich in wisdom and sweet lessons of charity, 
 but fruitless of cfrace unto salvation for us. 
 
 It is a primary dogma of Catholic belief that the 
 bloody sacrifice offered by the Man-God, the true 'Lamb 
 of God that taketh away the sins of the world (John i, 
 2i), is the one and sole and all-sufficient source of grace 
 for mankind in every generation, past, present and 
 future. " By one oblation he had perfected forever them 
 that are sanctified " (Heb. x, 14). We want no other 
 sacrifice of atonement. We can have no other redeemer. 
 " There is no other name under heaven given to men, 
 whereby we must be saved " (Acts iv, 12). His blood is 
 the full and perennial fountain of grace and mercy that 
 flowed down from Calvary's heights on true believers, 
 Jew and Gentile, in the pre-Christian era of the world's 
 existence, through divers channels, but chiefly through 
 the channel of sacrifice offered in faith. Similarly in the 
 Christian Dispensation, wherein the typical ordinances 
 of the Old Law must be verified in the fulness of reality 
 the same blood of Calvary shall flow down, and shall 
 continue forever to flow, upon the souls of men, and shall 
 be applied to individuals through faith illuminating their 
 minds and directing them to the proper channels ordained 
 by the Saviour Himself for distribution of His graces 
 according to each one's requirements. It shall flow more 
 copiously ; and its conduits shall be more readily discer- 
 nible, and more easy of access, and more simple in cha- 
 racter, and more sure and effective in agency than under 
 the former Testament — " When the way into the sanc- 
 tuary was not yet made manifest " ( Heb. ix, 8). Through 
 
i8 
 
 the seven sacraments of the New Law. the whole order 
 of Christian life shall be sanctified, from the cradle to 
 the grave, by agencies so elementary and so practically 
 effective, that none shall fail to derive the requisite 
 measure of grace from them, except those who wilfully 
 and of their own malice place obstacles in the way of 
 their salutary operation. And the mystic sacrifice of 
 the new and eternal Testament, wherein all the purpose 
 and virtue of the various sacrifices of former dispensa- 
 tions shall be concentrated, as types in their prototype, 
 and shadows in their substance, shall so abundantly 
 communicate the lifegiving streams of grace from Cal- 
 vary to " every tribe and tongue and people and nation," 
 to every continent of the main land and every island of 
 the sea, to every village and hill-side, that the waters of 
 salvation shall be plentiful in every corner of the earth ; 
 and propitiation and mercy from heaven shall be nearer 
 to the humblest Christian in his home, even at the ut- 
 termost bounds of the world, than it was to the wor- 
 shippers in the temple of Jerusalem, and the High Priest 
 within the Holy of Holies on the annual feast of expia- 
 tory sacrifice. For this is the prophecy and the promise 
 uttered by God — " from the rising of the sun even to 
 the going down thereof, my name is great among the 
 Gentiles ; and in every place there is sacrifice, and there 
 is offered to my name a clean oblation ; for my name is 
 great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of Hosts " 
 (^Mal. lo). 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS IS PROPITIATOKV FOR THE 
 DEAD AS WELL AS THE LIVING. 
 
 Sacrifice for the dead was acceptable to God under 
 the ancient Dispensations The testimony of Sacred 
 Scripture is most explicit on this subject. It is related 
 (H Macch. xii) in terms of praise that Judas, the brave 
 
19 
 
 commander of the army of Israel, " made a collection 
 and sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jeru- 
 salem for sacrifice, to be offered for the sins of the 
 dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resur- 
 rection. For if he had not hoped that they who were 
 slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous 
 and vain to pray for the dead. It is, therefore, a holy 
 and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they 
 may be loosed from their sins." Were the writer of this 
 passage to be regarded merely as an historical witness 
 of the great public event here recorded, his testimony 
 would be conclusive of the common belief of the Hebrew 
 people in his time, respecting the efficacy of sacrifices 
 offered in the temple of Jerusalem for the souls of the 
 faithful departed. And this belief must have been de- 
 rived from the teaching and practice of their forefathers, 
 even in the ages antecedent tc ihe Mosaic Law. The 
 introduction in any later age of sacrifices ordained to 
 any end, such as the relief of departed souls, for which 
 there is no prescription in Leviticus, would have been 
 met by the ready opposition of the Prophets and of all 
 true Israelites, not to mention the Scribes and Pharisees, 
 who boasted of more than ordinary zeal for Moses and 
 the Law. Therefore, the oblation of sacrifice for the 
 dead nmong the Jews historically implies the existence 
 and authentic sanction of such religious usage in the pa- 
 triarchal times, from which many other truths of faith 
 and practices of piety, unrecorded by Moses and uncon- 
 demned by the Prophets, passed down likewise through 
 the successive generations of the people of God. Now, 
 however the narrator of this solemn public profession of 
 Israel's belief in the efficacy of sacrifice for the dead, 
 is the Holy Ghost Himself, the author of all Scripture. 
 It is He who has written His approval of the action of 
 Judas Macchabeus and his army, and of the faith and 
 hope that prompted it ; and His divine words shall be 
 remembered and lovingly repeated by true believers to 
 
20 
 
 the end of lime — " It is a holy and wholesome thouq-ht 
 to pray for the dead that ihey may be loosed from their 
 
 sms." 
 
 If this spiritual efficacy belonq-ed to sacrifices that 
 have been abolished because of their imperfection, much 
 more does it belonq- to the sacrifice of the " better 
 Testament," offered daily by the Eternal IViest accord- 
 ino- to the order of Melchisedech. throusfh his Vicarious 
 priests, appointed to use His Name and His power at 
 His holy Altar. To this end you, dear Reverend Fa- 
 thers, have been made partakers of Christ's priesthood 
 through the Sacramental words addressed to each of 
 you at your ordination by the officiating- Bishop on de- 
 livery of the sacred vessels into your hands, with the 
 sacrificial elements of bread and wine, " Receive the 
 power to offer sacrifice and to celebrate masses, both 
 for tlie living and for the dead, in the name of the Lord. 
 Amen." It is the power given by Our Divine l^ord to 
 His twelve disciples, and through them to their succes- 
 sors forever, when, having completed the tiucharistic 
 sacrifice after His last supper, he constituted them 
 priests to do ministerially the self-same sacrificial 
 work wliich they had just seen him do : " Do ye this 
 in commemoration of me." He had offered His own 
 Body and Blood to His Father under the species of 
 bread and wine, in conformity witli the unbloody rite 
 of Melchisedech (Gen. xiv, i8) He had expressly 
 declared it to be a sacrifice, a mystic immolation of 
 ilimself by Himself, wherein His true and real Body and 
 His true and real Blood were offered to the eternal Father 
 by two distinct acts of oblation vividly representative 
 of His death, lie moreover had declared it to be a 
 sacrifice remissive of sin, the liquid in the chalice being, 
 as St. Luke distinctlv relates Our Lord's affirmation, 
 the very Blood whereby the sins of men are washed 
 away. All which momentous declarations are contained 
 
21 
 
 in the words of Eucharistic institution accordinfr 
 to the original text : — " This is my body which is 
 given y^r you; do ye this in commemoration of me. 
 This chah'ce is the new Testament in 7ny blood, which 
 (chalice) is poured owl for you " (Luke xviii.). " This 
 chalice is the new Testament in my blood : do ye this, 
 as often as you shall drink it, for the commemoration of 
 me " (I Cor. xi). " This is my blood of the new Testa- 
 ment which is poured out for many unto t/ie remission of 
 sins'' (Matt. xxvi). 
 
 The remission of sins through the blood in the chalic 
 is not limited by Our Lord. The promise is absolute • 
 and extends to all sin, its guilt and its punishment, where- 
 soever remission is needed. The victims offered by the 
 Levitical priesthood were beneficial to the faithful dead ; 
 much more efficacious shall be the adorable Victim 
 offered by the divine Priest of the New Testament to 
 propitiate God's mercy in hehalf of the suffering saints. 
 On this subject the Holy Council of Trent defines the 
 Catholic doctrine as follows : — "The Catholic Church, 
 instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, from the Sacred 
 Writings and the ancient traditions of the Fathers, taught 
 in sacred Councils that there is a Purgatory ; and that 
 the souls there detained are relieved by the suffrages 
 of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable sacrifice 
 of the altar." — " If any one saith, that the sacrifice of 
 the mass is not a propitiatory sacrifice, and that it ought 
 not to be offered for the living and for the dead, for 
 sins, penalties, satisfactions and other necessities ; let 
 him be anathema." (Sess. xxv, xxii Canon 3). 
 
 SUMMARY OF APOSTOLIC TRADITION ON THIS POINT. ■ 
 
 What the Apostles had heard from the mouth of 
 Jesus Christ, they gave to the Church, to be preserved 
 
by her, and devoutly practised, and transmitted to all 
 future generations of her children. Such apostolic teach- 
 ings, whether committed to paper or proclaimed by the 
 living voice of the Church through her authorized pas- 
 tors and doctors, are the word of God, of which St. Paul 
 writes to the faithful, " Brethen, stand firm, and hold the 
 traditions, which you have learned, whether by word or 
 by our Epistle" (II Thess. ii). The dogmatic teach- 
 ing of the Church determines the faith of Cliristians on 
 all articles of the Creed equally, as the Saviour has or- 
 dained ; and her judgments are equally infallible in the 
 nineteenth century as in the first. At the same time our 
 religious feeling is quickened and invigorated by the 
 voice of antiquity ringing out clear through the centuries 
 in consonance with Catholic belief and practice. Thus 
 we learn that the rule of anniversary masses for deceased 
 relatives and friends, which is religiously observed by us, 
 was obligatory in the age immediately following that of 
 the Apostles, as Tertullian, a 'renowned Christian Apol- 
 ogist and the oldest of the Fathers of the Latin Church, 
 who was born about fifty years after the death of Saint 
 John the Evangelist, testifies : — " A widow should pray 
 for the soul of her departed husband, entreating repose 
 for him, and making 'oblations' (Mass-offerings) for him 
 on the anniversary day of his death ; which, if she ne- 
 glect, it may be truly said that she has divorced her 
 husband" (De Monog. cap. x). Half a century later, 
 St. Cyprian, the learned Bishop of Carthage, and 
 glorious martyr of the faith, writes that a certain law 
 of discipline regarding last wills had been prudently 
 enacted by previous Bishops, for violation of which the 
 prescribed penalty was," that no oblation should be made 
 for the offender, nor sacrifice offered for his repose : " 
 and accordingly, on the death of a certain person, named 
 Yutor^ who had contumaciously infringed this law, he 
 (St. Cyprian) "had ordered that the name of the said 
 Victor should not be mentioned at the altar, that no 
 
^;> 
 
 oblation slioulcl be made for liis repose, nor the custom- 
 ary prayers of the Church be offered in his behalf" (Kp. 
 l). St. Ephrem, of Edessa, wliose sanctity and erudition 
 edified the Eastern world from the end of the third 
 to near the close of the fourth century, and who 
 was the most illustrious of all the Doctors that have 
 adorned the Syriac Church, bears frequent witness to 
 the same belief and practice, but most particularly in 
 his last will, wherein he provides for the month's mind 
 and masses for his soul : " My brethren, come to me, and 
 prepare me for my departure, for my strength is wholly 
 g-one. Go along with me in psalms and in your prayers ; 
 and please constantly to make 'oblations' for me. When 
 the thirtieth day shall be completed, then remember 
 me; for the dead are helped by the offerings of the 
 living " — If they (the Maccabees), who celebrated their 
 feasts in figure only, could by their offerings cleanse 
 those from guilt who fell in battle, how much more shall 
 the priests of Christ aid the dead by their oblations and 
 prayers ? " St. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the middle 
 of the fourth century, explains the passage in the Li- 
 turgy that commemorates the dead : — " Then we pray 
 for the holy Fathers and Bishops that are dead, and, in 
 short, for all those who have departed this life in our 
 communion ; believing that the souls of those for wliom 
 the prayers are offered receive very great relief while 
 this holy and tremendous victim lies upon the altar " 
 (Catech. v). Eusebius, Archbishop of Caesarae, known 
 to the world of letters as the Father of Christian His- 
 tory, preached the funernl oration on the Emperor Con- 
 stantine the Great, in the year 337, and in the following 
 year published a biography of that Emperor. Herein he 
 relates with what ardor " the people, together with the 
 priests of God, offered prayers for the Emperor's soul " : 
 and how happily the deceased Emperor's most eager 
 wish was satisfied by his being buried in the porch of 
 the Church of the Twelve Apostles, which he had se- 
 
24 
 
 lected for his resting place, " that he might deserve to 
 enjoy the benefit of the mystical sacrifice, and the com- 
 munion of devout prayers." Who more qualified than 
 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Philosopher, Statesman, 
 Doctor and Saint, to attest the traditional belief and 
 usage of the fourth century ? This he does more clearly 
 in his funeral orations on the emperors Valentinian the 
 Second and Theodosius, and his brother Satyrus. In 
 that delivered at the funeral of the Emperor Theodosius 
 he says : " Lately we deplored together his death ; and 
 now, while Prince Honorius is present before our altars, 
 we celebrate the fortieth day. Some observe the third 
 and thirtieth days, others the seventh and fortieth. Give, 
 
 Lord, rest to thy servant Theodosius. I loved him, 
 therefore will I follow him to the land of the living : I 
 will not leave him, till, by my prayers and lamentations, 
 he shall be admitted to the holy mountain of the Lord." 
 St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the 
 fourth century, explaining the Apostolic traditions 
 writes — " It was not without good reason ordained by 
 the Apostles that mention should be made of the dead 
 in the tremendous mysteries, because they knew well 
 that these would receive good benefit from it." (In cap. 
 
 1 Phil.). One more testimony out of the countless num- 
 ber that might be adduced, shall be that of St. Augus- 
 tine, whose name is the synonyme of orthodox learning 
 and zeal in the cause of divine truth. In his Enchiridion, 
 or Manual of religion, he writes — " Through the pray- 
 ers and sacrifices of the Church and alms-deeds, God 
 deals more mercifully with the departed than their sins 
 deserve : " and again, " When we offer the sacrifice of 
 the altar, or give alms for the faithful departed, they are 
 acts of thanksgiving for those who are perfectly good ; 
 they are propitiations for those who are not very bad ; 
 and, though they are no benefit to the very bad, they 
 are a consolation to the living." A most touching pas- 
 sage in his Confessions is that which records his mother's 
 
25 
 
 dying request to him, " Remember me at the altar of 
 God ; " and this duty he says he performed " to obtain 
 the pardon of her sins." Testimonies, such as these, 
 abound more and more as the ages advanced and nations 
 were added to the domain of the Church in the West. 
 Who that reads them in sincerity of spirit, and weighs 
 the character of the witnesses — their learning, their holi- 
 ness of life, their prominent position and responsibility 
 as Christian Apologists, Historians, Bishops and Doctors 
 of the Church, authorized expositors of the faith to the 
 world of belief and unbelief — can seriously doubt that 
 they truly represent to us the faith of Christian society, 
 as it was publicly professed in their times, and had come 
 down to them with the unquestioned sanction of the 
 one, two or three generations that connected them with 
 the Apostolic age ? 
 
 Our desire to treat the several cognate subjects of 
 this Pastoral Instruction in a manner becoming their 
 gravity and comprehensiveness, shall. We hope, excuse 
 Us for writing at such length. Before concluding, how- 
 ever, We must add this remark — that all the Liturgies, 
 or Mass-books, without exception, that have heen in 
 use from the beginning in the Eastern or Western 
 Church, among which that of St. James, the " brother 
 of Our Lord," has been most common in the East, con- 
 tain forms of prayer for the dead in the celebration of 
 Mass, similar to those we recite every day from the 
 Roman Missal, as handed down to us from St. Peter. 
 Moreover all the sects of professing Christians of Asia 
 and Eastern Africa — the Copts, Armenians, Syrians, 
 i^thiopians, Jacobites, &c. — and the Nestorians dwel- 
 ling on the Malabar coast of India, although separated 
 from Catholicism since the earliest times, pray for the 
 dead in their sacrifice of the Mass, and profess to have 
 derived this ordinance from the Apostles of Christ. 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 • ■ . • • • »» 
 
26 
 
 Let us stir up our faith on this most solemn and ex- 
 ception lal occasion presented to the Catholics of the 
 whole world by Pope Leo XIII ; and let Bishop, priests 
 and people unite, heart and soul, in preparation for the 
 great act of charity towards the prisoners of Purgatory 
 prescribed for Sunday, 30th inst. Let each Pastor hold 
 a triduum of devotions in his church, and invite other 
 priests to assist in hearing the confessions of the laity, 
 that all may communicate worthily and devoitly in favor 
 of the departed souls on that day, and thus make sure 
 of the Plenary Indulgence decreed to each one by the 
 Holy Father, for application to the holy dead. 
 
 May the souls of the faithful departed, through the 
 mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. 
 
 Given from St. Mary's Cathedral, Kingston, this 
 fourth day of September, in the year of Our Lord, one 
 thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight. 
 
 t James Vincent Cleary, S. T. D., 
 
 Bishop of Kingston. 
 
 By order of His Lordship, 
 
 Thomas Kelly, Secretary. 
 
 ■ 'I * * • • • •