The Eternal Rest Prayer is a divine prayer of the Catholic belief. We pray for those who have passed away and request God’s love and mercy to grant them rest and eternal peace with Him in Heaven.
The Requiem Prayer
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
The Eternal Rest Prayer (Latin)
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat is. Fidelium animae, per misericordiam Dei, requiescant in pace. Amen
Prayer for “The Eternal Rest for the Dead” is a meaningful Roman Catholic Church prayer, requesting God release the souls of the faithful departed from Purgatory.
The “Prayer for the Poor Souls in Purgatory” is how we petition God’s help when a loved one has passed away.
The Perpetual Light – Meaning
Perpetual light relates to heaven, the glory of God, and Our Blessed Lord, Jesus is the “light of the world” (John 9:5). Therefore to have perpetual light shining on you means that you are in heaven and the presence of God.
Why Recite The Eternal Rest Prayer?
Christians repeat The Eternal Prayer after the death of a loved one as a way of requesting God to bless the departed, reduce the soul’s time in Purgatory, ensure their safe passage to heaven, and guarantee that they Rest in Peace.
When Is The Eternal Rest Prayer Recited?
On the feast of All Souls (November 2), millions of Catholics recite the Eternal Rest Prayer to remember all those who have died and pray for the souls in Purgatory.
It is a Catholic Burial tradition for the Priest to say the Eternal Rest Prayer during the Mass.
Any time a person remembers a deceased loved one they often pray for their soul’s release from Purgatory to Eternal Rest
Rest in Peace – Religious Meaning
The religious belief for “Rest In Peace” is those who died have found peace in death with God, and are now resting eternally with Him.
In today’s world, the phrase “Rest In Peace” is used when expressing your condolence to a grieving family or friend. Additionally, the expression is etched on many headstones, frequently shortened as “R.I.P.”
Related: Rest In Peace Quotes
What Does The Bible Say About Eternal Life?
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. – Hebrews 4:8
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. – Matthew 25:46
He enters into peace; They rest in their beds, each who walked in his upright way. – Isaiah 57:2
Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? – 1 Cor 15:55
Eternal Rest Quotes
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest. Edgar Allan Poe
As far as you can avoid it, do not give grief to anyone. Never inflict your rage on another. If you hope for eternal rest, feel the pain yourself; but don’t hurt others. – Omar Khayyam
Better a brief warfare and eternal rest than false peace and everlasting torment. – Alistair Begg
God’s eternal light is ready to show you your way; God’s eternal peace ready to give you peace. Do you feel yourself full of sins and faults? Then take heart; for God’s unchangeable will is, to take away those sins, and purge you from those faults. – Charles Kingsley
I have made a contract with my body. It has promised to accept harsh treatment from me on earth, and I have promised that it shall receive eternal rest in heaven. – Peter Of Alcantara
The Bible, as a revelation from God, was not designed to give us all the information we might desire, nor to solve all the questions about which the human soul is perplexed, but to impart enough to be a safe guide to the haven of eternal rest. – Albert Barnes
Eternal Rest Poems
The Eternal Rest Prayer has inspired many poets to create poems centered around the Eternal Rest vision. The following are a few of my favorite Eternal Rest Prayer inspired poems:
The City in the Sea
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
Outward Ode To The Earth
George Cabot Lodge – 1809-1849
Now spring from seaward blows, anon
The winds grow cold as one by one
They take the withering leaves,—thro’ storm and calm
Thy lips are flowing with the eternal psalm
Of’ moving seas, but still beneath the masque
Of seas and seasons in their tireless task
Thy mood is silence and thy gift is grace!
Tho’ endless years replenish and efface,
Thou art as one whose soul beneath the test
Of human agony and human strife,
This restless interlude of life,
Is conscious of eternal rest
In spheres whose very scope is peace!
Thou sayest that life shall never cease,
Yet now I dream that death has ceased to be
And life has ceased; Yea! Life appears to me
A bowl of Lethean wine whose margin’s curve
Is burned and bitter with the eager kiss
Of myriads tortured by the thirst they serve.
While in my dreams thy natural pieties
Seem as the phases of the soul that is
But neither lives nor dies!
The Creation Of Eve
Said God to man, “Thou art my own true son.
For I myself feel sorely malcontent
With mine own Godhood, with eternal rest.
With absolute perfection which remains
He knew that man and woman had to make
A Having of their own; they needs must work,
And struggle with the thistles and the thorns.
They would want children to console old age,
Children to carry on the work with vigor.
And then, wearied of life, would pass away
Into eternal, well-earned rest.
God knew – Life would be hard.
But was it not man’s will?
Had he not chosen this, his destiny?
Discourse on the Psalms – St. Augustine
If your love is without ceasing, you are
crying out always; if you always cry out,
you are always desiring; and if you desire,
you are calling to mind your eternal rest
in the Lord…. If the desire is there, then
the groaning is there as well. Even if
people fail to hear it, it never ceases to
sound in the hearing of God.
The Couch – Think in the long term.
One has gone here and there,
One has done this or that,
The heavy body must rest a bit.
O Man, thou seekst so thy comfort,
So that nothing is ever wanted,
Of thy desires and delights:
How necessary it was that the Soul,
Housed so long in the body,
Tired at the End of life,
And finally from the Battle of Death,
Out of the harsh time of distress,
When released from the flesh,
Came upon a soft Couch,
And experienced Unrest no longer.
Yet that important matter is forgotten,
And only the flesh is cared for; Alas!
Who knows on what hard place,
The poor Soul is then thrown!
O Man, be sure to consider this,
So that thou dost pursue Eternal Rest.
Of a Young Lady at Oxford, 1646
Lady Hester Pulter
When little infants’ new created souls
Do easily fly above or star, or poles,
And from their tender mother’s uberous breast
Do often fly to their eternal rest;
And thou, my soul, withered and worn with grief,
Think’st in this dunghill earth to find relief?
Believe it: terrene hopes are all but vain;
For thou must cast thy hackle once again
Before thou canst possess those endless joys,
Compared with which all worldly pomps are toys.
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