The Eternal Rest Prayer asks God to receive the faithful departed into His light and peace. It is the short Catholic prayer for funerals, graveside visits, anniversaries, and daily remembrance of those who have died.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.
May the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God,
rest in peace. Amen.
Pietà, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1876). Public domain.
Eternal rest grant unto him/her, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon him/her.
May he/she rest in peace. Amen.
Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine,
et lux perpétua lúceat eis.
Requiéscant in pace. Amen.
The Latin is the Church’s own text, used in the Requiem Mass and in the Office of the Dead.
Pray it whenever someone dies, at a funeral or burial, on the anniversary of a death, and when visiting a cemetery. Many families add it to night prayer or say it after grace, especially in November, the month the Church dedicates to the faithful departed. Each decade of the Rosary may also close with it.
The Church grants indulgences for certain prayers and works offered for the departed: a partial indulgence for visiting a cemetery and praying for the dead, which becomes plenary on each day from November 1 through 8, and a plenary indulgence for visiting a church or oratory on All Souls’ Day, under the usual conditions (see the Enchiridion of Indulgences).
“Eternal rest” asks God to bring the departed into the peace of heaven, where suffering and death have ended. The words come from the entrance antiphon of the Requiem Mass, drawn from the Book of Esdras (4 Esdras 2:34–35), and echo the Christian hope that those who die in God’s grace will live with Him forever.
Perpetual light is the unending light of God’s presence. When Catholics pray that this light will shine upon the dead, they entrust their loved ones to Christ, who called Himself the light of the world (John 8:12).
Catholics pray for the dead because the Church remains united across death. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that prayer for the dead is an ancient Christian practice and that the faithful may help those being purified through prayer, almsgiving, indulgences and works of penance, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice (CCC 1032).
