Praying for the Dead

the Rev. Peter C. Schellhase • November 2, 2022

Homily at the St. Michael’s Requiem Mass for All Souls, November 2, 2022

As some of you know, I grew up in an evangelical context. And while that was good for me in many ways—particularly in teaching me the importance of a lively and personal relationship with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and giving me a respect for the Scriptures as the inspired and infallible word of God—it also contributed certain other habits of mind which I have had to unlearn.



For one thing, one of the assumptions I used to have was that one of the reasons I came to church was to learn, or to put it more accurately, to hear something new that would change my perception in some way. Whereas what we actually do in church is to hear things that are old; things that we already know; things that we have heard before, but have not yet completed their work within us. More than that, we come to encounter Jesus in the scriptures, in the sacraments, and in the fellowship of the congregation.


But even that account leaves out one of the most important aspects of corporate worship: prayer. We come to pray, which does not directly do anything. We make our requests, but it is up to God to fulfill them. We offer praise, but to a God whose all-sufficiency means that he does not actually need anything from us, not even words of affirmation. Even our greatest prayer, the one that is most central to our worship, which we call the Eucharist, the great thanksgiving, or the Mass, does not do or cause anything directly in itself. It is a petition, a commemoration, a request that, through our feeble human and earthly means, God will give us the grace that we need. The sacraments are powerful because they come with a promise, that if we use them, God will offer us what he promises through them. Or in other words, while God is present and active everywhere at all times, we know for certain that in the sacrament of the Altar he is present to us in a particular way, just as in baptism we have the assurance of forgiveness and being born again.


What does this all have to do with All Souls' Day? Well, in the Eucharist we do not so much offer up a new prayer to God, as enter into a worship event which is already and eternally taking place. We join the angels, and for a moment are lifted spiritually into the holy and heavenly places. It is a foretaste of what is to come. But we believe that those who have died in faith—the "faithful departed"—are already there in the presence of God. Ordinarily they are not present to us. Their souls have left this world, and only what was mortal of them has been left behind. (This includes, of course, their bodily remains, but also perhaps their memory and influence. Who of us can hope to be remembered two hundred years hence, except as, perhaps, a name on someone's family tree, a story passed down, an official record somewhere? How little I remember even of my own grandparents!)


The promise of All Souls is that there is one who does remember, and whose remembering is not limited to sentiment or the recollection of past events, but is strong enough to hold the reality of those who have departed this life in the power of his own life. Thus the dead are said to "rest," but they do not cease to exist, because they are known of God, and in the resurrection they will be fully restored; not merely to what they were on earth—transient, frail, and fallen—but to their fullest potential as created beings who share the divine gift of eternal life.


Now, as a young evangelical I was taught and firmly believed in the persistence of our souls after death, in the reality of heaven and hell, and in the hope of the resurrection, just as I preach today. But I was also taught to view "prayers for the dead" as a superstition, incompatible with the supposedly biblical understanding that after a person dies their fate is fixed, and they go immediately to heaven or hell. I am not sure now that scripture is all that clear about the immediate fate of the dead, or whether they are in need of our prayers. It is a matter of some controversy, and I don't think we can settle it today. But what we can do is to reflect on the communion of the saints. If we believe in the communion of all the saints, those who are made holy by Christ, both in this world and in the world to come, then we continue to be bound to those who have died, insofar as we all, living or dead, participate in Christ. Just as in the Eucharist we pray "by him, and with him, and in him," both our own spiritual life and the life of those who have died is by Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ. We offer our prayers through Christ, and they are answered according to the merits of Christ, not our own worthiness.


So when we pray for the dead, we do not do it because we think that every prayer of ours grants them some amount of time out of purgatory, or some such thing. We pray for them because we know that, wherever they are, God's will for them is the same as his will for us: that they would grow in the knowledge and love of God, to be more fully conformed to his image and attuned to his love. And we pray that we too might persevere in faith, so that at the resurrection, when the dead in Christ are raised, we also will be among them, united forever, through Christ, in the eternal life and love of God.

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Sunday Sermon: Be Prepared!

By Peter Schellhase • November 30, 2025
How was your Thanksgiving? For me, it was great to be with my family and close friends who gathered at my parents’ home to celebrate. My parents especially enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren, especially baby Jane who they’d hardly seen. At the same time, the difficulties and broken relationships within our family were felt through the absence of some. Four of my siblings and their families joined us in person, and two others who live far away tuned in through Zoom. But my youngest sibling was conspicuously absent. A cousin’s marriage, I learned, has fallen apart. Sadly, he wasn’t there, nor were other members of his family. Another older couple has celebrated Thanksgiving with us for several years after being shunned and cut off by their own adult children, boys I grew up with. We love these friends and are glad to have them with us, yet together we grieve these circumstances. So the holidays are a time when we experience both the joy of togetherness and the pain of loss and brokenness. They are also a time when it is easy to be caught up in frenetic consumer activities. A consumer survey (from Nerdwallet) reports that American gift-buyers expect to spend an average of $1,107 on holiday gifts this season, and those who journey for the holidays expect to spend an average of $2,586 on travel. All told, these shoppers and travelers will spend over $552 billion during the holidays. My generation, the Millennials, will spend the most, and Gen Z, the youngest generation of American adults, will spend the least. However, both younger generations are most likely to drink to excess at holiday parties, with Americans in general likely during the holiday season to imbibe twice the amount of alcoholic beverages they normally consume. I don't think anyone has published how much Americans are spending on inflatable Grinches, but judging from our neighborhood it must be a few billion at least! Christmas is a wonderful time, especially when we are able to keep the main thing—the birth of Jesus—in view. We can and should celebrate! But for many, holiday shopping, decorating, and partying may be less about remembering the Incarnation of our Lord, and more a way of coping with our feelings of pain and emptiness. A friend of mine put it like this: we’re stringing up artificial lights in the darkness of our lives. And today, God, through the Holy Scriptures, has a word for all of us: Wake up! The Lord is coming! Be prepared! First of all, this is a word of comfort and hope for those who have little else to hold on to. The prophet Isaiah directs our attention to the future state, when the Lord will have established his kingdom on earth. In this vision, the dwelling place of God will be exalted on earth, and all nations will be drawn there. We tend to think of “judgment” as a bad thing, and it often is, especially when sinful human beings attempt to wield it. But Isaiah shows us a future world in which people, all people, are attracted to the perfect judgment of God. They want it, they seek it, they need his law to make peace among the nations and peoples of the earth. In those days “nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” Think of it—a world in which nations not only seek to avoid conflict, but the arts of war are forgotten. “Neither shall they learn war anymore.” In one of the greenhouses attached to our church there is a little figurine on a pedestal, depicting a muscular figure hammering a sword into a plowshare. This is modeled on a statue of heroic proportions by Evgeny Vuchetich which stands at the United Nations, a gift from the USSR in 1959, a few years after this church was founded. It’s revealing how even that officially atheist regime could find no better emblem for its propaganda campaign than this striking image from the prophet Isaiah of a peace that comes about not by human effort but by divine rule. In the nearly 70 years since, neither Soviet collectivism nor American capitalism nor any other human agency has shown any ability to turn from making war to making peace. Ironically, in the ’80s the image and title of this sculpture was used as the badge of a Christian pacifist youth movement in East Germany. They were of course persecuted by the Stasi. Witness the contradictions of the regime that promoted “peace movements” abroad but hounded the children of peace at home! Yet in the days prophesied by Isaiah, God’s people will be honored by all the nations of the earth because the Lord will make his dwelling-place among them. His justice and his rule will go forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Though this future state is not something they can bring about themselves, Isaiah encourages his people to “walk in the light of the Lord” in hope and expectation of that day, and as witnesses of what is to come. If they walk in God’s light, God will be present with them as Lord and lawgiver, and many peoples will be attracted by the holiness and the power of God that is manifested among them. But the final day of peace and justice will not come but through tribulation. It is, after all, the day of judgment. Jesus himself teaches his disciples to soberly expect this day—though not to fear it. He says that the final day will come much as came the flood upon Noah's unwary neighbors who had refused to see or hear his witness to the righteousness of God. And if we're not careful, we may find ourselves in that same condition. To help us make ready, the Church gives us this season of Advent. While all around us it is a time for shopping, partying, traveling, getting ready—although people hardly know what it is they are supposed to be getting ready for—we are to conduct ourselves differently. “Stay awake,” Jesus tells us, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Advent is the season for preparing, not so much for the celebration of our Lord’s Incarnation, as for his second and final appearing at the end of days. How do we prepare? St. Paul says, in unison with Isaiah and our Lord, that it’s time to wake up and walk in the light. The world is dark both symbolically and literally; nights are growing longer and days shorter. Yet the eternal day is coming; Christians are to live now as if the day of God has come; we are to live as those who belong to that kingdom which has yet to be revealed on earth. Christ’s judgment and his gracious law of love is manifested here and now, not in the world at large, but in and through his Church. Where the world practices carousing and drunkenness, we are to be sober, self-controlled, and filled with his Holy Spirit. While people in the world are divided and alienated from one another by fighting and envy, we are to love our neighbor as our own selves and forgive as we have been forgiven. While the world pursues personal gratification no matter the cost, we are to be faithful, chaste, and content with our lot in life, knowing that we await the inheritance of the redeemed, washed in the Savior's blood. In short, as Paul says, we are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” the whole and perfect Man who does away in us all that is unworthy of him. May his gracious judgment purge us of all that is unworthy, and his law of love be written forever on our hearts!

Sunday Sermon: All Saints Day

By Peter Schellhase • November 2, 2025
Daniel was born a prince of Jerusalem, but went into captivity after the Babylonian conquest, probably as a teenager, and lived as an exile in a foreign land for the rest of his life. Daniel rose to high influence when Nebuchadnezzar the king had a troubled night. None of his soothsayers could tell him what his dream was or what it meant. Daniel did both. He described the king’s vision as a great image of a man, made of a series of materials that grew more and more base as it progressed from head to foot. Finally, a stone struck the image and blew it to smithereens, and the stone became a mountain that filled the whole earth. This, Daniel said, was a vision of the kingdoms of men, of which the finest was Nebuchadnezzar's own, which would be followed by a succession of various empires until finally the God of heaven would “set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan. 2:31-44) Nebuchadnezzar raised Daniel to a high position and relied on him to help govern the empire. But after the king died, his son, Belshazzar, ascended the throne, and Daniel was put out to pasture. Now Daniel himself receives a vision. The things depicted in the vision is very different, but its ultimate meaning is the same as in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. It is not sent to a Babylonian king drunk on his own power. It is sent to an old and worried man, an exile whose influence has waned in the new administration. This time, no golden statue. Instead, four rough and gruesome beasts. Unlike in the vision of the giant statue it is very clear these beasts are not glorious but brutal and bestial. The vision evokes the turmoil and chaos of the world as the churning waters of an angry sea from which these beasts emerge. Our reading today skips a bunch of verses that talk about their fearsome appearance and blasphemous deeds. Yet in the end, these great powers are subdued under the reign of “one like a son of man,” “the ancient of days.” Who can this be but Jesus, the eternal Word of the Father, who is both “eternally begotten of the Father,” and who for our sake “was made man,” according to the creed, and who will come again in glory. The consequence of his triumph over these powers is glory and exaltation for his holy ones. “The saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, for ever and ever,” the interpreter tells Daniel, the repetition emphasizing the finality of these eternal victory. Daniel is especially disturbed the vision of the fourth beast the one with ten blasphemous horns, which is greater and more terrible than all the others, and the vision is recounted and interpreted a second time. Notwithstanding these things, he is told, this fourth beast will be utterly destroyed and the Lord will reign forever. And now for something completely different. For our offertory hymn today we’ll sing that fun little children's hymn, “I sing a song of the saints of God.” I have a love-hate relationship with this song. It’s so English—so early 20th-century English—that it seems maybe a little too cute or even inaccessible to our culture: “You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea.” Of course, that's also its charm. Go ahead and smirk. I do. Just don't let the smirk distract you from the very serious point this cute little song is making: The saints of God are are indeed ordinary, everyday people, people like you and me. In fact, they are you and me. By faith, we are to receive this sainthood as our true identity and vocation: men, women, and children called to be saints to the glory of God. St. Paul puts it like this: “In him” (Jesus), “according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” What a great promise this is. What do we bring to the table here? Hardly much. Only that the Word of God has come to us, the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and we have believed in Jesus as the fulfillment of all God’s promises. In this faith we are sealed, marked with the gift of the Holy Spirit, who enfolds us in the reciprocal love of the Father and the Son. This is as much a present reality as it is a future hope. It is true both now and to eternal ages. That doesn't mean that life for the saints is all cottage gardens and cream teas with the Vicar. Again, that cute Sunday-school hymn goes pretty hard: “Who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew.” And then in the next verse: “And one was a doctor and one was a priest and one was slain by a fierce wild beast”—probably a reference to St. Ignatius who was thrown to the lions, but could just as easily refer to thousands of Christian martyrs throughout the centuries. But what about that cheerful, jaunty tune? The music is actually very well matched with the text, because these hardships in no way diminish the tone of celebration. To suffer for the sake of Christ, even to die, is to participate with him in his conquest of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Well may the Psalmist declare: “Let the faithful rejoice in triumph; let them be joyful on their beds. Let the praises of God be in their throat, and a two-edged sword in their hand.” That sword, of course, is not the human weapons of war but the word of truth that proceeds from the mouth of God. So today, on the Feast of All Saints, we can hardly do better than to remember and celebrate all those saints of God who follow in his triumphal procession, singing his victory chants, raising his cross as their standard, clothed in the seamless garment of his righteousness.