PRAYER FOR THE SOULS IN PURGATORY

Friday, March 04, 2011 

Monthly Office of the Dead, and Mass

Night Office Hymn Prayer Reading

Prayer:  

For Brethren, Relatives and Benefactors

Lord God,
as you are the fount of mercy and wish all men to be saved:
have mercy then on our
deceased brethren, relatives and benefactors.
Through the intercession of Blessed Mary ever-virgin,
and of all your saints,
bring them to the fellowship of eternal joy. Amen

A Reading about Praying for the Dead.

There are many instances in the Old Testament of God forgiving sins yet demanding that reparation be made by those who have offended him. Thus, although God, as the Book of Wisdom says, "brought man out of his first disobedience and gave him power to govern all things" (10,2) he still condemned him to "eat his bread in the sweat of his brow" until he returned to the dust from which he was made. Again, when Moses and Aaron doubted his word, he forgave their sins but kept them from the land of promise (Num. 20, 12). David's sin was forgiven but the life of the child was declared forfeit because David had made the enemies of God blaspheme (II Kings 12, 13-14).

In the New Testament we are bidden "yield the acceptable fruit of repentance" (Matt, 3,8). The whole penitential system of the Church is clear evidence of the traditional belief in the necessity of self-denial to atone for forgiven sins and for the conviction that unless atonement is made during this life, it will have to be made after death.

St Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen are all perfectly clear in their evidence that it was just taken for granted in their day that the departed faithful were in a condition in which they could be helped by their brethren still on earth. In fact, the practice of praying for the dead soon passed into the official liturgy of the Church, and it is as clear in the fourth century as it is today in the twentieth.

In a famous passage in his 'Confessions', St Augustine writes this of his mother, St Monica: "Lay this body anywhere, she says: let not the care of it in any way disturb you. Only this do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you are."

This is the Faith by Francis J. Ripley
(Print Origination Press, Liverpool, 1973, pp. 285, 287.) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aV5ol4-jKw&feature=player_detailpage   

Our Lord dictated the following prayer to St. Gertrude the Great to release 1,000 Souls from Purgatory each time it is said.

"Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen."

http://christtotheworld.blogspot.com/2009/10/pray-for-souls-in-purgatory.html

To help the Holy Souls in Purgatory

1. Have Masses offered for them.
2. Pray the Rosary and and the Chaplet for the Holy Souls.
3. Pray the Stations of the Cross.
4. Offer up little sacrifices and fast.
5. Spread devotion to them.
6. Attend Eucharistic Adoration and pray for them.