"It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for
the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (2nd Machabees 12:46)
Purgatory is real and our prayers can aid the souls in
purgatory by lessening their time there. Purgatory is a gift because as the
Gospels state, nothing undefiled can enter Heaven (Revelation 21:27). Purgatory
is the process of purifying a soul to make it worthy for Heaven. And our
prayers, works, joys, sufferings, etc. offered up to God for the intentions of
the Holy Souls can ease their detention in purification.
Here is a Novena for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, which
was written by Daniel Lord, S.J:
Our Lady, Mother Mary, has
said that more souls are released from Purgatory on Christmas than any other
day in the year. So, today is time to start a Novena for the Holy Souls in
Purgatory.
Day 1
Sin is the one thing that
holds back the progress of man's ascent to God. Only sin blocks his path. Vice
and crime throw human beings back to animal levels when they should be mounting
toward the angels. Death in mortal sin means the complete failure that is hell.
It flings a man, who is destined for eternal happiness, into eternal loss and
pain. Death in venial sin or with the punishment due to sin still on the soul
means a halt in the progress toward heaven. The poor soul---poor indeed in his
eagerness to reach God and the tedious, painful delay that keeps him from God---must
linger in God's prisonhouse. This is the sad land of purgatory. It is a place
of anxious, almost impatient waiting. Since there are in purgatory relatives we
loved and friends we knew and thousands of others who call to us for help, we
pause and say:
The Prayer for the Holy
Souls
O God, the Creator and
Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids
departed, the remission of all their sins; that through pious supplications
they may obtain the pardon they have always desired. Who livest and reignest with
God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Day 2
Nothing else is humanly harder to bear than painful
waiting. All the souls in purgatory are sure one day to reach heaven. They know
how wonderful heaven is and how desirable is God. But they cannot follow the
violent impulse that drives them toward their happiness. They must hunger for
God and still be withheld from the possession of Him. In hell there is only
bleak and hopeless despair. In purgatory there is hope and certainty and love
and eagerness---and long periods of waiting.... waiting... waiting....
There is suffering too in purgatory, the suffering that
washes away in flame the stains of guilt and cleanses as with fire the soul
that will eventually enter into the presence of the spotless God. But the real
pain of purgatory is that awful eagerness for God, who is just out of reach,
and that longing to go home to heaven, which is almost seen but as yet
unattainable. Nothing defiled can enter heaven; that we know. So purgatory is
the place where defilement is removed, where the souls that are destined for
glory are prepared by punishment and tedious delay for their glorious
homecoming with God.
For the love we bear our friends in purgatory we pray:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
O God, the Creater and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all
their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they
have always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity
of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen
Day 3
This life on earth is, as we have heard a thousand times,
a time of merit. When through the Church's indulgences we avail ourselves of
the merits of Christ and of the saints, we can wipe away the guilt of forgiven
sins and eliminate the punishment due to venial sins, as we can also do through
penance and deeds of charity.
But once the soul enters purgatory, the time for that
soul to gain merit is ended. When we suffer on earth, we can offer our
suffering to God, increasing thereby our future happiness in heaven and
canceling out the pains of purgatory. When a soul suffers in purgatory, he
slowly and tediously cancels the debts of sins; he gains no further merit for
heaven. Nor are there indulgences in purgatory, nor fresh use of the merits of
Christ, of His Mother, and of the saints.
Thanks however to our union in the Mystical Body of
Christ, thanks to the communion of the saints, we can gain merit for the suffering
souls. We can win indulgences and apply them to the period of waiting of these
souls. We can cut their sufferings and speed their entry into heaven by
whatever of good that we offer for them on earth.
In all generosity we say for these souls who depend on
us:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
O God, the Creater and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all
their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they have
always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the
Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Day 4
Swiftly the memory even of the dear dead seems to pass
from human minds. Memory is like the tears upon a coffin, swiftly evaporated,
quickly dried. The rush of the days fills the minds and hands of the living.
The press of old associations and the establishment of new friends helps
supplant and elbow into the dusty corners of our minds the friends now hidden
in God's penitentiary. But these prisoners do not forget us.
In the slow, painful dragging of the days they have time
to remember. They are so hungry for God that they have little heart for new
companions. They are made sensitive---to memory, to neglect, to hope for deliverance,
to the knowledge that those who once cried aloud their love have so swiftly
forgotten.
With gratitude do they think of those who do remember
them. With sadness they think of those who have so swiftly dropped them. They
pray to God, who loves them even in their exile, for the thoughtful and the
mindful. They beg that those who have pushed them away for the near and the
living will drop into their prison house a thought, a prayer, a good deed in
ransom.
Remembering our own dear dead, we pray for them:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all
their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they
have always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity
of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Day 5
These in purgatory are the friends of God. These are the
souls who will in a short time be glorious and powerful saints in heaven. Their
souls are saved. Their crowns are awaiting them. Their thrones are prepared,
and their mansions are ready. God loves them deeply, as He loves all those
faithful sons and daughters who fought the good fight. Their prayers for others
come straight to His throne.
They can no longer pray for themselves; their time to
merit is over. They can pray and they do pray for those on earth whom they
love. That loving mother in purgatory is interceding for her children.... That
devoted father is now more devoted.... Those friends have not forgotten the
value of their friendship.... Those relatives are bound to us with ties much
closer than blood.
Most of all the holy souls pray for their benefactors.
Our slight remembering of them wins for us a great measure of intercession from
them. We pray thoughtlessly; they pray with the intensity of souls who are
coming ever closer to God. We ask for deliverance for them; they beg God for a
thousand blessings for us.
In sheer wisdom and to our own advantage we say:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all
their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they
have always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity
of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Day 6
Our souls hunger for God with far more intensity than
ever a starving body hungers for food. Here in this world we are distracted by
the pressure of the life about us. In purgatory there are no distractions.
Their eyes are fixed on the closed gates of heaven, the holy souls long for
God, yearn for God, hunger and thirst for God. The terms of their sentence ring
in their ears: "Thus and thus long shall you remain separated from your
joy, until these sins and these misdeeds and these blemishes and these stains
have been atoned for."
Balanced against their consuming hunger for God is their
certainty that they would not dare enter His Presence with the slightest stain
upon them. They almost wish that the fires burned more fiercely and more
rapidly so that the pain could be at once more intense and more cleansing.
Imagine then their gratitude for every prayer or good
deed by which we help them cleanse their souls and speed them on their way to
God. Imagine the leaping with joy with which they welcome any act by which we
cut their sentence, shorten their stay in purgatory, and hasten their entrance
into heaven.
We can give joy to these holy souls here and now as we
say:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all
their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they
have always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity
of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Day 7
What food is to a starving man.... What drink is to the
parched sailor riding the tropic seas on a raft.... What light is to the man
long blind.... What restored health is to the patient invalid.... What freedom
is to the prisoner.... All this and far, far more is release from purgatory to
a holy soul. And when food... light... health... freedom come suddenly,
unexpectedly, the human heart leaps and bounds, and the soul knows the sharp
ecstacy of joy.
So it is with each prayer that we say for the beseeching
souls in purgatory. Our prayer is bread and water and light and health; it is a
reprieve and a release and freedom and a homecoming. It is the cutting of
bonds, the lessening of weary waiting, the termination of exile, the sudden
glorious lift that picks them up and seems almost to shoot them toward the
center of their joy, God Himself.
For us that prayer is an almost careless gesture. For us
a routine act of charity... Prayer, an alms, a bit of fasting, a good deed
done... forgotten in the doing. For them something beyond price and measure,
something for which they can repay us only in the immortal coin of eternity.
Such a good deed we perform as we pray:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
O God, the Creater and Redeemer of all the faithful,
grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all
their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they
have always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity
of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Day 8
Then on a happy day, release comes. Perhaps for souls whose friends on earth forgot them and for whom because of valid reasons God showed no special consideration that release comes only at the end of long and bitter centuries. Perhaps it comes far sooner than they dared to hope. Their friends have remembered them. Prayers have poured in upon them. God has accepted these in part or in full payment of their debt. But late or soon the release comes, the sentence is finished, the grim gates of purgatory swing open. Ahead are the white and shining portals of the eternal city. Like the rush of light the released soul sweeps upward toward God. Fierce winds have not the fierce intensity that marks this flight of a soul from exile to the happiness for which God destined it.
Then in the presence of God there is the moment of triumph, the welcome by the Trinity, the entrance into the heavenly mansion... the enthronement of another saint. As that moment shall begin for that soul, an eternity of bliss and incomparable happiness that shall be without flaw, never to be marred by uncertainty or disillusionment. For then, the soul shall possess God for all eternity.
We can have part in that swift flight to joy if we pray:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
O God, the Creater and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they have always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Day 9
Joy does not cause the souls in heaven to forget. On the contrary joy makes them more alive to memory. The soul that has entered into bliss does not for a second forget the generous friends on earth who helped him reach God and glory. Now a saint in heaven, he uses to the full his power of intercession.
He prays God to be merciful and generous to the generous. By name he mentions to Christ and to Mary those who mentioned his name when he was helpless to help himself. He speaks to the Trinity about his friends.
He becomes in effect a mighty benefactor, persuasively beseeching God to extend mercy and grant favors to those who remembered him in purgatory. He prays with the fervor of new-found joy that their passage through life will be safe, their stay in purgatory brief, their entrance into heaven swift and triumphant. He prays that one day they too might behold the beatific vision and see God, Face to face through the endlessness of eternity. It is their unselfish urge to share so great a bliss that we ask them to send us.
To help insure for ourselves a shortened purgatory, we pray:
The Prayer for the Holy Souls
