I REMEMBER years ago reading an essay by Virginia Woolf in which she stated that once a person we know dies, he or she is entirely gone and there is just a vast emptiness, with no communication possible. At the time, I thought she was probably right. I was atheistic in my thinking too. Now, I know this idea is false. The dead are far, but near. The dead are gone, but reachable. When my brother-in-law was dying, I remember the distinct moment when he crossed, while still living, a threshold and it suddenly seemed possible not only to pray for him, but to pray to him. Through the medium of prayer, we commune with and cherish the dead. We ask for their assistance too.

Today is All Souls’ Day, when Catholics pray that the departed rest in peace and that those who are being purified in Purgatory see their suffering end and ascend at last to eternal bliss. From the Preface in the Traditional Rite:

For unto thy faithful, O Lord, life is changed not taken away, and the abode of this earthly sojourn being dissolved, an eternal dwelling is prepared in heaven.

WhenI returned from Mass today, I read about Brittany Maynard, discussed at this site before. Rarely, perhaps never, has anyone committed suicide so publicly as this 29-year-old woman with brain cancer whose death has been used as a fundraising opportunity by the euphemistically-styled “Compassion and Choices,” formerly known as the Hemlock Society. The organization continues the appeal for funds with Maynard’s glowing obituary. Brittany played her part and came through at the end. Though many people begged her to reconsider, she took prescription pills and died in her bed.

To Brittany Maynard, the afterlife is, well, more of Brittany Maynard. It is an extension of her own self-absorbed existence. She planned to meet her mother after death in Peru or some other exciting vacation spot. When reading about Maynard, I am tempted to agree with Virginia Woolf, who also committed suicide. There is a sense of vast emptiness here. She died not in pharmaceutical bliss, but in anger.

We can pray on this holy day for all those, living out of the limelight, alone perhaps and with no one to care for them adequately, who are impatient and tempted to follow in the footsteps of this vulgar narcissist and end their lives too soon and without gratitude to the One who made existence and, in Brittany’s case, exciting trips to the Grand Canyon and Alaska, possible.

Goodbye, Brittany. Some of the dead we never talk to again.

— Comments —

Wit Wil writes:

The subject of ‘Catholics praying to the dead’ must have been covered many times over -so please excuse my ignorance- but how is it squared with the Scriptural prohibition in Deut 18:10 (equating necromancy to an abomination)? In the Dutch Statenvertaling the phrase is:”who asks the dead.” I presume this to include -as you put it-: “for their assistance too”.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing.

Catholics don’t pray to the dead in heaven to conjure their powers, but to ask for their prayers and petitions to God. The power of the saints consists in their proximity to God and the efficacy of their prayers.

Here is a lengthy excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia. It mostly applies to praying for the dead in Purgatory, but is relevant to praying to the dead in heaven:

Coming to the proof of this doctrine [of praying for the dead], we find, in the first place, that it is an integral part of the great general truth which we name the communion of saints. This truth is the counterpart in the supernatural order of the natural law of human solidarity. Men are not isolated units in the life of grace, any more than in domestic and civil life. As children in Christ’s Kingdom they are as one family under the lovingFatherhood of God; as members of Christ’s mystical body they are incorporated not only with Him, their common Head, but with one another, and this not merely by visible social bonds and external co-operation, but by the invisible bonds of mutual love and sympathy, and by effective co-operation in the inner life of grace. Each is in some degree the beneficiary of the spiritual activities of the others, of their prayers and good works, their merits and satisfactions; nor is this degree to be wholly measured by those indirect ways in which the law of solidarity works out in other cases, nor by the conscious and explicit altruistic intentions of individual agents. It is wider than this, and extends to the bounds of the mysterious. Now, as between the living, no Christian can deny the reality of this far-reaching spiritualcommunion; and since death, for those who die in faith and grace, does not sever the bonds of this communion, why should it interrupt its efficacy in the case of the dead, and shut them out from benefits of which they are capable and may be in need? Of very few can it be hoped that they have attained perfectholiness at death; and none but the perfectly holy are admitted to the vision of God. Of few, on the other hand, will they at least who love them admit the despairing thought that they are beyond the pale of grace and mercy, and condemned to eternal separation from God and from all who hope to be with God. On this ground alone it has been truly said that purgatory is a postulate of the Christian reason; and, granting the existence of the purgatorial state, it is equally a postulate of the Christian reason in the communion of saints, or, in other words, be helped by the prayers of their brethren on earth and in heaven. Christ is King in purgatory as well as in heaven and on earth, and He cannot be deaf to our prayers for our loved ones in that part of His Kingdom, whom he also loves while He chastises them. For our own consolation as well as for theirs we want to believe in this living intercourse of charity with our dead. We would believe it without explicit warrant of Revelation, on the strength of what is otherwise revealed and in obedience to the promptings of reason and natural affection.

Carole Avery writes:

I can’t remember the name of the evil man that started the Hemlock Society, only his visage on TV, with the hair growing out of his ears. He looked like a lesser demon. He was the one that harangued his then current wife into committing suicide. No one has mentioned that when the date grew closer for poor Brittany, she made the statement that she wasn’t ready to die on Nov. 1 and would sometime later when she was ready. Then the next thing you heard was, she was dead. I think the reality of it all hit her and she wasn’t ready, but the Hemlock Society, whatever-it’s-called-now, pressured her into carrying it through. I mean, for goodness sake, her husband was almost 20 years older, her mom (weak), step-dad, seventies!!!

She wasn’t even 30 and these elderly people in her life don’t want to be made uncomfortable by her suffering because it may presage their mortality?!!? She accomplished her bucket list on others’ dime with her family entourage in tow. They must have had an easy time of making her feel guilty. I can just hear it, “Look, Brittany, all these people donated this money so you could accomplish your bucket list. You can’t just not commit suicide now!” So sad! So tragic! God have Mercy on her soul and those who drove her to this.

Laura writes:

Derek Humphry started the Hemlock Society, which is now called “Compassion and Choices.”

Maynard’s husband was 14 years older and her mother was not elderly, but, yes, she seems to be a weak woman. Judging from the interviews with Maynard and family members, it is much more likely that Maynard led the way and her family ceded to her wishes. She was clearly a strong-willed person.