Fidélium, Deus, ómnium cónditor et redémptor: animábus famulórum famularúmque tuárum remissiónem cunctórum tríbue peccatórum; ut indulgéntiam, quam semper optavérunt, piis supplicatiónibus consequántur. Qui vivis et regnas in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.
✦O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of Thy servants and handmaids the remission of all their sins, that, through the help of pious supplications, they may obtain the pardon they have always desired. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.
This is the Fidelium Deus — the Church's own ancient collect for all the faithful departed. Short and comprehensive, it asks of God, "the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful," the remission of every sin for the souls of His servants, that through the prayers of the living they may obtain at last the pardon they have always desired. It is the oration the Church places at the heart of her Masses and Office for the dead, and it may be prayed by any of the faithful for the souls in Purgatory.
Behind the prayer stands a defined doctrine of the Catholic faith. The Church teaches that those who die in God's grace, but not yet perfectly purified, undergo a purification — Purgatory — before they can enter the joy of heaven. This truth was solemnly professed at the Council of Florence (1439) and defined against the Reformers at the Council of Trent (1563). Such souls are the Church Suffering: they are saved and certain of heaven, yet they can no longer merit for themselves.
But what they cannot do for themselves, the living can do for them. "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins," says the Second Book of Machabees (12:46). The Church helps the Holy Souls by prayer, by almsgiving, by indulgences, and above all by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in which the merits of Christ's Passion are applied to them. St. Paul's words that a man may be "saved, yet so as by fire" (1 Corinthians 3:15) were long understood by the Fathers of this purifying state.
So the Church keeps the memory of her dead with tenderness. She dedicates the whole month of November to the Holy Souls, beginning with All Souls' Day on 2 November. She encourages the Heroic Act of Charity — by which a soul offers to the Holy Souls all the satisfactory value of its good works — and enriches prayer for the dead with indulgences. To pray this collect is to join that unbroken work of mercy, remembering that we too shall one day depend on the prayers of those who remain.
O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of Thy servants and handmaids
the remission of all their sins,
that, through the help of pious supplications,
they may obtain the pardon they have always desired.
Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.
Fidélium, Deus, ómnium cónditor et redémptor:
animábus famulórum famularúmque tuárum
remissiónem cunctórum tríbue peccatórum;
ut indulgéntiam, quam semper optavérunt,
piis supplicatiónibus consequántur.
Qui vivis et regnas in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.
O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of Thy servants and handmaids
the remission of all their sins,
that, through the help of pious supplications,
they may obtain the pardon they have always desired.
Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.