"Our pains, they reply, are beyond description. When separated from our body, we saw the face of God, our Supreme Good, the Infinite Perfection.  Then would we rush into His bosom, but we were driven back by His Justice, we were banished!" ~ Second Day: Pains of Purgatory

 

We often mourn for our loved ones to the point of never being the same person we once were. We find ourselves constantly unbraiding our thoughts: wishing that we had been better disposed toward them while they were still alive. We look for relief in anything our minds and hands can grasp and it sometimes proves to be a tenuous process. 

 

Rev. J. F. Durin reminds us that though, as mentioned in II Maccabees, it is a holy and wholesome thing to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins, this act of charity is also profitable to the living. Our departed ones eagerly pray for us in response to our intercession and their petitions are heard by God.

 

The Novena for The Relief of The Poor Souls in Purgatory creates a formidable manner for us to offer our thoughts and prayers for the deliverance of the suffering souls and for their admission to the joys of heaven. Each day of the nine day Novena contains a profound meditation, a suggested opportunity to enact what we have learnt, a proposed act of resolution and a guided prayer for the faithful departed. It is our hope that these prayers from our lips will descend into purgatory and put an end to the sufferings of the poor souls.  

 

The Novena is made suitable for personal and family intercessory prayers. Most of all, as St Thomas Aquinas has said, praying for the poor souls grants us the platform to offer to God the most estimable and acceptable form of prayer as it contains all the works of charity, both corporal and spiritual. Therefore, let us commit ourselves today to a fervent devotion in favour of the souls in purgatory.