He descended into Hell

 Growing up Protestant, it bothered me when I would say in the Apostles’ Creed, “He descended into Hell”.  As a Catholic, though, I’ve grown in my appreciation of this.

You see, “hell” in English doesn’t here mean the Lake of Fire. This is a reference to 1 Peter 3:19-20 - “He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey”. 

Jesus said, “but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matt 12:31).  Forgiven in the age to come? 

Jews in Jesus’s day prayed for the dead. Chapter 12 of 2  Maccabees commends prayers for the dead.  This commendation is part of the reason that the Reformers rejected the Deuterocanonical, or Apocryphal, books. Yet, the fact is that Jews then and now prayed for the dead, and Jesus never spoke against the practice.

So, the question becomes, why pray for the dead? 2 Macc 12:45 says “Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin”.  Is that not consistent with our Lord’s implication that there can be forgiveness of sin in the age to come?

This is precisely what Catholics believe about Purgatory. 

So, how do we pray for those in Purgatory? There are a number of suggestions given in The Pieta Prayer Book.

Or, you can pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the deceased.