ay for
us and bring help to our perishable race, and if I may so speak, take
up arms alongside of it" (Contra Celsum viii. 64).

St. Gregory Nazianzen is preaching the funeral sermon of St. Basil.
"He still prays for the people," he says, "for he did not so leave us
as to have left us altogether." And in his funeral sermon over his own
father, "I am satisfied that he accomplishes there now by his prayers
more than he ever did by his teaching just in proportion as he
approaches nearer to God after having shaken off the fetters of his
body."

St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical lectures, and St.
Chrysostom in several of his homilies speak of the help we get through
the prayers of departed holy men.

St. Ambrose in his great grief at his brother's death, says: "What
other consolation is left me but this that I hope to come to thee my
brother speedily, that thy departure will not entail a long separation
between us, and that power may be granted me by thy intercessions that
thou mayest summon me who long to join thee more speedily."

St. Jerome, who gave us the Vulgate, the great Revised Bible of the
Western Church, is comforting a mother who has lost a daughter. "She
entreats the Lord for thee and begs for me the pardon of my sins."
Again to another friend, Heliodorus, he speaks of the life after death.
"There you will be made a fellow burgher with St. Paul. There also you
will seek for your parents the rights of the same citizenship. There
too you will pray for me who spurred you on to victory." Again he
vigorously disputes with Vigilantius who asserts that prayers and
intercessions must cease after death. "If the apostles and martyrs
while still in the body are able to pray for others ... how much more
may they do so now.... One man, Moses, obtains from God pardon for
600,000 men in arms; and Stephen, the imitator of his Lord, begs
forgiveness for his persecutors; shall their power be less after they
have begun to be with Christ?"[2]

Section 3

But sympathy and prayer must not be on one side only. It must be
mutual in the Communion of Saints. They remembering and loving, and
thinking about us. We remembering and loving, and thinking about them.
They asking from their Lord blessing for us. We asking from Him
blessing for them. For surely they are not above wanting His blessings
still--not even the best of them though safe with Him, though forgiven
their sins, they are still imperfect