Can someone in hell be saved through our prayers?

It is true that Jesus, alone, is our savior. It is also true that He allows us to participate in His saving work. One important way that we do this is by praying for one another.

In scripture are found countless examples of individuals praying for one another and asking for prayers because, as we read in James, “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16). What’s more, the fruitfulness of our prayer is not limited to the living. In the Apostles’ Creed, we profess our faith in the “Communion of Saints” which is, to quote Pope Saint Paul VI, “all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified [in purgatory], and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion, the merciful love of God and his saints is always [attentive] to our prayers” (CCC 962).

This reminds us that the Church is bigger than we see on Sunday in the pews. The saints in heaven, and those in purgatory, are part of it as well. And within the Church, we share spiritual goods among these states. The saints pray to God in heaven for those of us on earth. Here on earth, we pray for one another who still live and for the dead in purgatory.

Purgatory, we should recall, is the state after death wherein any imperfections, any guilt of venial sin, is purged away, that we may achieve the holiness required to enter the joys of heaven. It is a place of suffering, but one of hope, because the suffering is remedial and temporary. Every moment of it leads to heaven, which is assured for every soul in purgatory.

God has so configured this reality that we, here and now, through the sharing of spiritual goods, can aid the souls in purgatory on their journey to heaven. This is why people “have Masses said” for their deceased loved ones. It’s why we visit cemeteries. It’s why we have funeral Masses instead of mere “celebrations of life.” The souls in purgatory rely on our prayers and beg us for them. When these souls find themselves in heaven, they will be grateful to us and remember us in their own prayers.

But what about those in hell? Can our prayers aid them? As the Catechism explains, “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God is called ‘hell’” (CCC 1033). We may say that God does not damn people to hell so much as they choose it for themselves by preferring some lesser good to the greatest good, God himself. And at death, that choice is fixed forever.

Why is it fixed? Here is one simple explanation. If we hate someone, we cannot stand to be in their presence. Those in hell despise God. They can’t stand to be near him. Despite the fact that they suffer horribly in damnation, they prefer it to God. God still loves them. If he did not, they would not exist at all. But the souls in hell reject that love.

This calls to mind the story of a young woman who died in a car accident in 1937. A friend of the deceased had been praying for her soul when God allowed the soul to appear to her living friend. The woman told her former friend to stop praying for her, as she was in hell. She explained that she had repeatedly rejected God’s graces in life and, at the end, had this to say: “Repent? Never! Be ashamed? Never! But any less could I endure it being under the eyes of the God I had rejected. So only one thing was left: to flee.” The poor soul did not want the prayers of her pious friend. She did not want to be near God. 

Because hell is permanent, praying for the salvation of souls who reside there will do no good. Such souls, it seems, do not want such prayers.

Having said this, it should be pointed out that, excepting some private revelation, we do not know for certain if any individual human soul is in hell. The Church canonizes saints, but not the damned. We can, and should, always pray for the souls of the dead, hoping they find themselves at least in purgatory.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace! Amen.

Fr. Signalness is pastor of Queen of the Most Holy Rosary in Stanley and St. Ann in Berthhold. If you have a question you were afraid to ask, now is the time to ask it! Simply email your question to info@bismarckdiocese.com with the “Question Afraid to Ask” in the subject line.