Between Heaven, "the place of refreshment, light and peace."
and Hell the abode of eternal torment,
there is, till the day of general judgement, a middle state, called Purgatory,
for those Souls that depart this life justified, but still in need of final purification.
In this place of punishment and purification, of justice and mercy,
dwell the Souls that have venial sins to expiate,
or temporal punishment to undergo, or both.
From the diary of a young Polish nun, a special devotion
began spreading throughout the world in the 1930s. The
message is nothing new, but is a reminder of what the
Church has always taught through scripture and tradition:
that God is merciful and forgiving and that we, too, must
show mercy and forgiveness. But in the Divine Mercy
devotion, the message takes on a powerful new focus,
calling people to a deeper understanding that God’s love is
unlimited and available to everyone — especially the
greatest sinners.
The message and devotion to Jesus as The Divine Mercy
is based on the writings of Saint Faustina Kowalska, an
uneducated Polish nun who, in obedience to her spiritual
director, wrote a diary of about 600 pages recording the
revelations she received about God’s mercy. Even before
her death in 1938, the devotion to The Divine Mercy had
begun to spread.
The message of mercy is that God loves us — all of us —
no matter how great our sins. He wants us to recognize that
His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon
Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to
others. Thus, all will come to share His joy. It is a message
we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC.
A — Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach
Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and
asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon
the whole world.
B — Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy
and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to
extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does
to us.
C — Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know
that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our
trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will
receive.
A prayer to release many souls from Purgatory each time it is said and which was extended to include living sinners as well.
Eternal Father, I offer You 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, for those in my own home and in my family. Amen.
Gregorian Masses are a series of Holy Masses traditionally offered on 30 consecutive days as soon as possible after a person’s death. They are offered for one individual soul.
The custom of offering Gregorian Masses for a particular soul recognizes that few people are immediately ready for heaven after death, and that, through the infinite intercessory power of Christ’s sacrifice, made present in Holy Mass, a soul can be continually perfected in grace and enabled to enter finally into the union with the Most Holy Trinity – our God, Who is Love Itself.
We will send you or the person you designate a certificate announcing the Gregorian Masses.
History of Gregorian Masses
Gregorian Masses take their name from Saint Gregory the Great, who was sovereign Pontiff from 590 to 604. St. Gregory the Great contributed to the spread of the pious practice of having these Masses celebrated for the deliverance of the souls from purgatory. In his Dialogues, he tells us that he had Masses on thirty consecutive days offered for the repose of the soul of Justus, a monk who had died in the convent of St. Andrew in Rome. At the end of the thirtieth Mass, the deceased appeared to one of his fellow monks and announced that he had been delivered from the flames of Purgatory.
Saint Gertrude had a deep
empathy for the Church suffering, the
Holy
Souls in Purgatory. At every Holy Communion she beseeched Jesus for His
mercy to be bestowed on them. During one Holy Communion she experienced
the descent into Purgatory with Our Lord. She heard Him say: "At Holy
Communion I will permit thee to draw forth all to whom the fragrance of
thy prayers penetrates." After Holy Communion Our Lord customarily
delivered more Souls than she had dared to ask for. More
Note: In conformity with the decrees of Pope Urban VIII, the author formally declares that the preternatural or seemingly supernatural facts recorded in this historical narrative rest on purely human authority, and consequently he does not in any way intend to pronounce a final judgment, or to anticipate any future decision of lawful Church authority as to their nature.
Introduction
At the expressed desire of the Directors of the Bulletin "Notre Dame de la Bonne Mort," this pamphlet is published with all the reservations ordered by the Church in the decree of Urban VIII, and as a purely historical document.
It was sent to that periodical by a zealous and devout missionary and is a pious document based on alleged conversations between a nun and a soul in Purgatory. Read online
This title is somewhat startling. Yet, Dear Reader, if you peruse this little book, you will see for yourself how well deserved it is. The book tells us how to save ourselves and how to save others from untold suffering. Some books are good and may be read with profit. Others are better and should be read without fail.
There are, however, books of such sterling worth by reason of the counsels they suggest, the conviction they carry with them, the urge to action they give us that it would be sheer folly not to read them.
Read Me or Rue It belongs to this class. It is for your best interest, Dear Friend, to read it and reread it, to ponder well and deeply on its contents. You will never regret it; rather, great and poignant will be your regret if you fail to study its few but pregnant pages.
HELP, HELP, THEY SUFFER SO MUCH!
I. We can never understand too clearly that every alms, small or great, which we give to the poor we give to God.
He accepts it and rewards it as given to Himself. Therefore, all we do for the Holy Souls, God accepts as done to Himself. It is as if we had relieved or released Him from Purgatory. What a thought! How He will repay us!
II. As there is no hunger, no thirst, no poverty, no need, no pain, no suffering to compare with what the Souls in Purgatory endure, so there is no alms more deserving, none more pleasing to God, none more meritorious for us than the alms, the prayers, the Masses we give to the Holy Souls.
III. It is very possible that some of our own nearest and dearest ones are still suffering the excruciating pains of Purgatory and calling on us piteously for help and relief.
Is it not dreadful that we are so hardened as not to think more about them, that we are so cruel as to deliberately forget them!
For the dear Christ's sake, let us do all, but all, we can for them.
Every Catholic ought to join the Association of the Holy Souls.
While St. Gertrude was bewailing her negligence in that she had never served the Mother of Jesus with due reverence, and was beseeching our Lord to supply her lack of service, she seemed to see the King of Glory arise and present his deific Heart to His Mother, and therewith to make amends for all her negligence. To obtain a like grace, recite the following prayer:
O SWEETEST Jesus, by that love wherewith Thou didst deign to take our flesh of the most pure Virgin and of her to be born, that Thou mightest satisfy the desires of the poor and the wants of the needy,
I beseech Thee that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to make amends to Thy ever- virgin Mother, with Thine Own sweetest Heart, for all the manifold defects which through my own negligence and ingratitude have tainted and marred my service and honour of so gentle and loving a Mother, whose gracious succour has never failed me in any danger or necessity.
Do thou, O most tender Jesus, present to her Thy sweetest Heart, overflowing with ineffable blessedness, in reparation of this my neglect.
Let her see therein all the Divine love whereby Thou didst from all eternity freely elect her to be Thy Mother, didst preserve her from all taint of Original Sin, and incomparably adorn her with all graces and all virtues.
Let her see therein all the tenderness wherewith Thou didst cling to her when she cherished Thee, her Child, in her bosom; all the constant unfailing love with which, during the whole time of Thy sojourn on earth,
Thou, Who art the Ruler of Heaven and of earth, didst obey her as a son his mother and especially in the hour of Thy death, when, as though forgetting Thine Own intolerable anguish, and touched to the heart by her desolation, Thou didst provide for her a guardian and a son.
Let her see therein that love beyond thought with which Thou didst show her how precious she is in Thy sight, when on the day of her most joyous Assumption Thou didst exalt her high above all the choirs of Angels, and crown her Lady and Queen of Heaven and earth.
And thus, O good Jesus, may she be still to me a loving and long-suffering Mother, and both in life and in death my compassionate advocate and most gracious patroness. Amen.
THANKSGIVING FOR THE GRACES BESTOWED ON THE BLESSED VIRGIN
When St. Gertrude had recited this short prayer, she saw in vision the Mother of Divine grace arise and beseech the Blessed Trinity to grant her as large a measure of grace as the heart of man can receive in this life. Then the most glorious Trinity turned towards the Saint, and filled her soul with unutterable grace and benediction.
BLESSED be the ineffable, ever-adorable omnipotence of God the Father; and blessed the wondrous and manifold wisdom of God the Son; and blessed the amazing and most tender goodness of the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete; for that the ever-glorious Trinity hath deigned to decree from eternity, to create in time, and to bestow on us as our most effectual help and succour, the Virgin so full of all grace, in order that He might communicate to her His Own Divine and superabounding beatitude. Amen.
The Prayer of Saint Francis is a Catholic Christian prayer. Widely but erroneously attributed to the thirteenth-century saint Francis of Assisi, the prayer in its present form cannot be traced back further than 1912, when it was printed in Paris in French, in a small spiritual magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell), published by La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The Holy Mass League). The author's name was not given, although it may have been the founder of La Ligue, Fr. Esther Bouquerel.
A professor at the University of Orleans in France, Dr. Christian Renoux, published a study of the prayer and its history in French in 2001.
The prayer has been known in the United States since 1927 when its first known translation in English appeared in January of that year in the Quaker magazine Friends' Intelligencer (Philadelphia), where it was attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. Cardinal Francis Spellman and Senator Albert W. Hawkes distributed millions of copies of the prayer during and just after World War II. from wikipedia
Make me a channel of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love, Where there is injury, Your pardon Lord, And where there's doubt, true faith in You
Make me a channel of your peace, Where there's despair in life let me bring hope, Where there is darkness - only light, And where there's sadness, ever joy
Oh Master, grant that I may never seek, So much to be consoled as to console, To be understood, as to understand, To be loved, as to love with all my soul
Make me a channel of your peace, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, In giving to all men that we receive, And in dying that we're born to eternal life
Make me a channel of your peace, Gods gifts have come to you, Now the sin has gone and cleared, Jesus is living life on the cross
Oh master grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with al my soul.
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
[John 16:33]
