Meditations on the Poor Souls in Purgatory

November 29th

How to help the Holy Souls in Purgatory


We should make it our practice to offer each day some special prayer or work for the Holy Souls. We may not do much, but by constancy in laboring on their behalf we shall gradually accumulate a treasure for their benefit. We should never miss saying a de Profundis for them every night, and we should offer up Holy Communion for them from time to time. In our morning oblation, we should pray that God may accept our labors, our sufferings, our penances for them.

We should also be careful to say as many Indulgenced Prayers as we can for them. Every prayer offered for them benefits them; every Indulgenced Prayer has a double efficacy. It has a satisfactory value in itself, and has a further power to obtain relief for them by reason of the Indulgence attached to it. In this way how much we may do for the Holy Souls!

There are some whom God inspires to make what is called the Heroic Act, by which they offer up the satisfaction of all their works, of the prayers and Masses said for them, and the Indulgences gained for them after their own death, to be bestowed on the Holy Souls according to our Lady's pleasure. This supreme act of self-sacrifice is indeed heroic, for it includes a willingness to remain in Purgatory as long as God shall please for the sake of helping others. What a great reward this will obtain in Heaven! What gratitude it will earn from the Holy Souls! Think how many souls need your help.


by the Rev. R.F. Clarke, S.J.


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