The Broken Halo: Praying for Loved Ones Who Missed the Mark

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In literary criticism, there is a term describing people who are essentially good persons but who have a gnawing trait that eats away at their goodness and sometimes emerges as the fatal flaw ending in tragedy. Think of Shakespeare’s Othello, a good man who is easily corrupted into a jealous rage about his beloved wife and gives into murder while she was innocent of the charge, he believed she was guilty of. Literature, and history, are replete with characters who could not control their major weakness that only brought on more suffering and tragedy. Good people doing wrong. Good people mired in the fatal flaw that unravels their goodness. Theorists say when people give into the fatal flaw, they are guilty of what the Greek philosophers called, hamartia, meaning ‘missing the target.’ In the Greek sport of archery, you only need to miss the mark by the minutest of measurement, but you score no point; you have missed the central, all-important mark—the target. Great Greek tragedies in drama are based on this human failing. When such a person gives into his or her weakness, all their goodness seems to disappear. They become memorable for their one fatal flaw of missing the mark. You cannot have a great tragedy with a bad person as protagonist; it has to be a good person with the fatal flaw. In his final soliloquy, Shakespeare’s Othello, laments over his wife’s body after he has killed her saying that he would be remembered as “One who loved not wisely but too well.” (Act V, Scene II, line 345)

Othello had not learned from his love; he never saw that trust is an essential part of love and without it, love will erode into malicious acts.

We all know people who ‘miss the mark.’ It is challenging to know loving persons like this, but it seems more challenging, even hurtful to know some who have died never having faced their hamartia or perhaps who died because of it. Say for instance, there is a loved one in your life who refuses to see a doctor and you are aware medical attention is needed immediately. They have missed the mark when an illness that could have been prevented takes its final toll. Their illness and death bring on suffering among survivors. Or maybe someone lives with the guilt of never forgiving someone else for a transgression. Or dies without making peace with a family member. Not facing something unresolved is ‘missing the mark.’

During this month of November, we recall and pray for the deceased, and chances are that we are thinking of those we have loved who may have missed the mark through some flaw in their otherwise very good souls. I say these souls have a broken halo, but halo, nonetheless. The halo still holds, and the soul is in a very peaceful unimaginable existence. According to Karl Rahner, the Jesuit theologian, we first have to believe that death is an act. The dying makes a decision – even in a sudden death – to leave, to go with God. If you are present at a person’s dying moment, it is wise to pray for them so that a decision can be made to accept God, that faith may be realized. At such moments we are accompanying the soul and perhaps they recognize the things unsaid, undone, the ‘missing of the mark’ and they realize where they have been wrong, but they know God is merciful and forgiving and you have prayed for this.

Rahner then says we need to let God judge; we cannot do this. How can we know everything that went into living with one’s fatal flaw? All of death and the afterlife is mysterious. We can only make arguments and assumptions about it from theology, the insights of scholars who work from the framework of reason and faith. From them, you and I are encouraged to pray for our beloved deceased. We can’t get caught up in their fatal flaws; we can only pray for their happiness and be grateful that their goodness was once a part of our lives. We cannot dwell on the broken halo. This is the reason for praying for the souls in purgatory. I will not explain purgatory, but it seems reasonable that the deceased enter a realm of continuing bliss in the pursuit of God. Perhaps they need us to accompany them in this pursuit. That might be why we pray for them. Remember, they are very happy—they have acknowledged their fatal flaw, their broken halo drives them further and deeper into God’s love. And we are with them in prayer.  

Reflection

When we pray for the deceased, Rahner says, we meet the dead as they are now before God “we meet the living dead, when we open our hearts to the silent calm of God himself in which they live, not by calling them back to where we are, but by descending into the silent eternity of our own hearts…” All of those who have left us, saints and folks with broken halos, exist in a dimension we cannot comprehend but our prayers are taken for them, and grace is returned to us. 

Try to remember this as you pray for your loved ones this holy month of remembrance. 

Take time in a quiet place to open your heart in silence. You don’t need words. Just think of your deceased loved ones. Unite your heart with their spirit heart by praying that their happiness is increased as their halos are repaired! 

Do this every day of the month. You will find more peace and love for the people who have left you and for the God who holds them. Why not share your thoughts on praying for loved ones, especially those you feel whose broken halos need more prayer. Do they really? What are your thoughts?

Quotes and thoughts from Karl Rahner are taken from Theological Investigations Vol. IV, Chapter 14, “The Life of the Dead” pp. 347-354