November, the last month of the Church’s year, is when we pray for the dead. This baffles the secular minded and scandalises even other Christians – it was one of the great divid- ing lines between Catholics and Protestants at the Reformation. Yet the practice is fundamental to Catholic belief, for it is an axiom of faith that the communion of the Church is not limited to those alive at any given time but is, rather, a great body com- posed of the living and the departed. And the dead, at least in purgatory, can be helped by our prayers. The kindliest aspect of November’s devotions is that they extend beyond our own dead family and friends, to take in all the souls in purgatory as well.