Today's news: let's spread devotion to the souls of Purgatory

The purging souls sometimes had the power of the Lord to communicate with the living for very wise ends; but especially to ask for the help of their prayers. There have been many demonstrations, although it is convenient and it is necessary to watch carefully both not to believe everything and not to reject them all, as if they were all inventions or fantasies. But in general purging souls are forced to suffer without letting us hear their voice. They suffer in their place of pain ignored and forgotten. Who can say how many have been kept there without help for centuries! and their invocation is lost in the glacial silence of the living. They need apostles, who you speak to, plead their cause. Let us therefore spread the devotion of the souls of Purgatory.

The Gospel has a fact suitable for us to understand these thoughts.
«Being a feast of the Jews, Jesus went to Jerusalem. Here is the probatic swimming pool, in Hebrew Bethsaida, which has five porches. In these lay large quantities of the sick, blind, lame and paralyzed, waiting for the movement of the water. An Angel of the Lord, in fact, occasionally went down into the swimming pool and the water was agitated by it. And whoever dived for the first after the movement of the water, recovered from whatever illness was oppressed. There was a man who had been ill for thirty eight years. Jesus, seeing him lying down and knowing that he had been in that condition for a long time, said to him: Do you want to be healed? Sir, said the sick man, I have no one to put me in the tub when the water is rough; and when I approach, another has already descended before me. Jesus said to him, Get up, take your bed and walk. And in the instant, the man recovered and, having taken the bed, began to walk "[Jn 5,1-9].
This is the lament of the purging souls: "We have no one who thinks of us"! Who loves those souls make their echo, indeed repeat and be their own voice. "Shout, don't stop!"
Who should zeal this devotion?
First of all the Priest: he is in fact by vocation and by office the savior of souls. "I have chosen you, says the Lord, so that you may go and save souls, and your fruit will remain forever" [Jn 15,16:XNUMX]. The priest must confess, preach, pray to save souls. He regenerates them to God in Holy Baptism; it grows with Eucharistic Food; enlightens them with gospel wisdom; he supports them with vigilant concern; he resurrects them with Penance; puts them on the safe path to death! But his task does not end yet: when by now they are already on the threshold of heaven, when he no longer holds back any imperfections, he courageously takes the key to heaven; and open it to them. The key to heaven, that is, the power of suffrage which is placed in his hands. Do his office: save, save many souls. And now that his great work is about to be accomplished, you double your zeal.

Particularly the parish priest; for he, also for justice, is responsible for the office and duty to save his spiritual children, the parishioners. He does not have the general care of Christians, but has the particular care of that small flock which is a parish. To it he must say: "I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and they know me and listen to my voice. I love them to the point of giving all the days of my life, all my time, my goods for them. Who is not a shepherd, but a simple mercenary, leaves souls in danger and pain, nor does he think about saving them, freeing them, consoling them. I am the good Shepherd: and I save them from sin, I save them from hell, I save them from Purgatory. I do not give myself peace, I do not rest until I doubt that even one can be in pain, in the flames of Purgatory ». Thus spoke a very zealous parish priest.
In addition: Catechists and elementary teachers. The thought of purgatory is religiously and civilly educational, formative, enlightening: "holy and healthy to want to support the deceased". And in fact it incites Christian perfection, moves away from sin, educates to thoughts of goodness and charity, recalls the very new. Catechists will find it easy to induce children to pray for their dead; civil society, from citizens who fear sin, even venial, has nothing to gain. Carefree citizens and a youth thirsting for earthly pleasures are a continuous moral danger for civil society. The parents. They are naturally obliged to educate; and the good heart inclined to mercy must be formed by them with patient concern. This will develop in the children that feeling of gratitude, love, pity towards benefactors, the deceased family, acquaintances, which will show itself in its time. In fact, parents in this way assure themselves of the suffrages for after their death. For the children will support their parents, as they have seen their parents support their grandparents and inculcate their good and grateful memory.

Pious souls spread the devotion to Purgatory. Do they love Jesus? Well, remember the divine thirst of Jesus for those souls. Do they have a sensitive heart? Well, they feel that those souls are calling for help. Do they want to do themselves good? And then think that supporting the purging souls is the exercise of all works of mercy and charity.
St. Francis de Sales says: «With pity for the dead we quench the hunger and quench the thirst of those souls; by paying their debts, we come as if to strip ourselves of our spiritual treasures to clothe them; we free them from a harsher slavery than any captivity; we give hospitality to those pilgrims in the very house of God, heaven. Coming the day of judgment, a chorus of voices will rise that will justify ourselves. For the liberated souls will cry out: This priest, this person has rescued us, freed us; we were in Purgatory and it descended there, it extinguished the flames, with its hand it raised us; with suffrages the door of heaven has opened for us ».

B. Cottolengo supported as much as he could the purging souls, particularly those of his penitents and hospitalized in the Little House. Griefing for not being able to do more and wanting souls to assist him in his work of charity. he established a family of religious entirely consecrated to suffrage. He wanted prayers, good works and sufferings to be offered to the Lord as suffrages in that family.

Bourdaloue says in a sermon: "We admire those apostolic men who sail the seas and go to the barbarian countries in search of the infidels to earn them for God. But let us be convinced that a new and easy zeal is needed to spread the devotion to the purging souls: not it is less meritorious, it is not less necessary, it is not less pleasing to God ». St. Alfonso, when he spoke of Purgatory, everything was inflamed, and he also composed a devout novena of prayers, with which we can very effectively support those souls for nine days.

We must follow the example of the Church, an incomparable teacher of zeal for all the souls that Jesus Christ entrusted to her. We cannot say what cure it had for its dead children, at all times and in all places. It has a whole special liturgy for the dead. This liturgy is made up of Vespers, Compline, Mattutino, Lodi, Prima, Terza, Sesta, Nona. It is a complete office that puts on the lips of its priests. In addition: it has the ritual of burials: to which it attaches special importance. Every time one of his children has passed to eternity, the announcement is made with the bells; and with the bells the faithful are invited to the funeral accompaniment, so that many faithful come to pray with her. The rite is touching, solemn and pious. In every office recited by priests, the Church wants seven times to repeat herself on the day: "May the souls of the faithful, by God's mercy, rest in peace".
The Church also has a special rite for the blessing of the Camposanto.
Again: for the Dead there are three SS. Masses: and recently the Preface proper to the Dead was approved for them. The Church approves that third, seventh, trigesth, funeral celebrations from the death of the faithful are celebrated.
Almost in every parish, chapter, seminary, religious institute, masses are established for the dead. During the year, a significant part of the SS. Masses that are celebrated are applied to the dead. How many indulgences, brotherhoods, altars for purging souls! The number of prayers, books, sermons on the dead is countless. Now, if the Church exercises so much zeal to make people pray for the dead, doesn't that mean that we too must ignite with equal zeal? Church children must work according to their mother's example.

The Servant of God Maria Villani, Dominican, night and day practiced good works in favor of the Dead. One day, that of the Memorial of the Dead, she was ordered to work around manuscripts and spend the day writing. He felt a marked repugnance for it, as he would have liked to spend the whole day in prayers for the Dead. He somewhat forgot that obedience is the best suffrage and the most acceptable sacrifice to God. The Lord wanted to teach her better; therefore he deigned to appear to her and said to her: «Obey willingly, my daughter; do the work that was ordered to you and offer it for souls; every line that you write today with this spirit of obedience and charity, will obtain the liberation of a soul ».

Means
a) Disseminate books on Purgatory.
Philothea for the Dead is a book that contains all the practices that generally enlightened and Church-led Christians believe.
Let us pray for the Dead, it is a small manual that instead contains the main and also most common prayers and practices. Purgatory according to the revelations of the Saints, of the Ab. Louvet, is a book of instructions and meditations, suitable for all kinds of people and also full of holy anointing. It is needed for the month of November.
The Dogma of Purgatory, by Fr Schoupe, can be compared to the previous one. They can be obtained from the Pious Society of St. Paul - Alba.

b) Talk about Purgatory.
In schools the Masters have frequent occasions: they have occasion since the anniversaries of the war or the death of the Sovereigns; from the death of some boy or parents of school children; from the day of the dead or from the autumn season. In catechisms, teachers explain well the thought and teaching of the Church on Purgatory, punishments and suffrages by means of images, pictures, fixed or mobile projections, altars, functions, facts, examples.
In sermons, priests have the most beautiful and frequent occasions to exhort the faithful to suffrage: not only in the commemoration of the dead, but throughout the novena of the saints, on the octave of the dead, in the entire month of November. In parochial life then the Shepherd of souls frequently has sick people, burials, Masses or funerals of parishioners; the zealous parish priest knows everything to profit to remember the dead. The superiors of institutions, the parents in the family can talk about their grandparents, uncles and other deceased to their young people; and while they remember dear things, they inculcate the duty of gratitude, affection, prayer.

c) Praying.
Most of all it is good to exercise the devotion of Purgatory. In the parish there is a well-kept and often visited cemetery. There is the Compagnia del Carmine and also some other company in which the purchase of indulgences is easy. Attention should be given to the funeral accompaniment: that it be decorous and always devoted; while using distinctions of degree. Masses from requiemed funerals are that devout and pious sadness that is fitting. On the day of the dead it is very good that a general communion is promoted, that one goes processionally to the cemetery praying, that the purchase of the indulgence toties quoties is promoted, making the visits in a collective, or at least orderly way.
Portraits of ancestors should also be kept in families; let the pious practice of De profundis be taken in the evening; you want to keep, not only the commitment of the suffrages left by testament, but also the care to have SS. Masses for the dead of the family.
On the first Monday or Tuesday of the month they are for the Dead; Communion from the whole family on the anniversary; use all the care so that there are more prayers in the various occurrences than external parades.

PRACTICE: It is useful to educate children, and in general youth, in sacred chant: for requiem Masses, for the officiating of the dead, for burials.

GIACULATORIA: «Sweet Jesus, do not be for me Judge, but Savior».
50-day indulgence each time. Plenary on the feast of St. Jerome Emiliani, 20 July (Pius IX, 29 November 1853).

FRUIT
Most beloved Redeemer and our Lord Jesus Christ, who with your tenderness for Lazarus and your predilection for John sanctified all the bonds of earthly friendships, so that all tended towards common sanctification, granted the supplications that we present to your throne for all our relatives, friends and benefactors, who groan under the lash of your paternal justice in Purgatory. The affection they nourished for you, the help they gave us in our various needs, and the many benefits that they did to us out of love only for you, also deserve for us the most industrious gratitude. But how can one fulfill such a sacred duty towards them if they find themselves locked in a prison of fire of which you alone have the keys? You therefore, who are the common Mediator, the Father of all consolations; You, who with the application of the smallest part of your merits can ensure the remission of the greatest debts in the world, embellish in your mercy the little good that we do for the release of these unhappy ones, and make our prayers effective so that they will be raised soon from their penis. Say on each of them, as on the grave of your friend: "Lazarus, come out", and admit them, as St. John already does, to the delights that can be enjoyed by resting on your breast: and let them glorify you, obtain we all had the grace of being close to them for all centuries up in Heaven, as if by natural bonds, by friendly affections and by the work of holy charity, they were always very close to us above the earth.
Three Requiem.
For our dead. Of Blessed James Alberione