"May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesphorus...may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day!" [2 Timothy 1 - reading for today in the Treasury]
Here is probably the sole NT instance of a prayer for the dead and, surprise!, it is a plea for mercy. So the Church on pilgrimage remembers also the Church at rest and asks for all our sisters and brothers whose bodies sleep in the dust and whose souls are in the hands of the Lord, the gift of mercy on the Last Day, when we shall all - body and soul - be raised in incorruption. Kyrie eleison - it's our constant prayer, our ever-fitting plea. "Give to your whole Church, in heaven and on earth, Your light and Your peace..."
Since it's petitions 2 and 3 week in confirmation class around these parts, I think we can rightly understand this prayer for mercy in those terms, or perhaps better in the vocabulary of the 4th - "God certainly will give mercy on the Last Day to all believers without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive mercy/salvation with thanksgiving."
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