Author Topic: Praying for the souls in purgatory not necessary (Read 54074 times)

poche · « **Reply #50 on:** April 28, 2015, 10:54:11 PM »

For your practical resolutions, the following is suggested:

1) Get into the habit of making a Perfect Act of Contrition every night before you retire.

2) Recite the “Prayer for Daily Neglects”, remembering how A Poor Clare Nun, who had just died, appeared to her Abbess who was praying for her and told her: "I went straight to Heaven, for, by means of this prayer, recited every evening, I paid all of my debts."

3) Perform little Acts of Supererogation, This is how you can create a good habit for a change! This is a great “secret” of some of the Saints! Anyone can perform a little act - it does not have to be a big act (big acts bring with them the possibility of the sin of pride, or at least the shadow of pride, and would therefore be counter-productive) - of supererogation, of being generous with God. Opportunities abound everywhere, e.g. in the parking lot of a grocery store, find an empty shopping cart (some call it a “basket”) and take it into the store with you. When you return to your vehicle and after you unload the shopping cart, put the shopping cart into the special stall or area designated for shopping carts. Do this little act of supererogation, an act of generosity to God, for the love of God and simultaneously as a little penance for the Poor, Suffering Souls in Purgatory.

4) Every time you say the Our Father, put a special emphasis and fervor on these two sentences:

a) “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”
b) “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

These are the very words of God Himself and repeated frequently and fervently will certainly help us to obtain humility by uniting and conforming our wills with God’s Holy Will and will also obtain for us the spirit of charity and forgiveness towards our neighbors.

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poche · « **Reply #51 on:** April 29, 2015, 11:01:45 PM »

The Second Means: Penance

The Second Means of avoiding Purgatory is to satisfy for our sins in this life by doing penance. "Do penance or you shall all likewise perish" Do penance, or you will burn long years in Purgatory, is a fact rom which there is no getting away.

This is a terrifying thought and one that makes the bravest man shudder. Which of us does not tremble when he thinks of those who have been burnt to death in a slow fire? What fear would not be ours if we had to face a similar death? Yet their suffering was of relatively short duration. The incomparably fiercer fire of Purgatory, which we may have to face, may last 20, or 50 or 100 years, or even more?!

Many people have such a horror of penance that they never even dream of practicing it. It is like the fear that children have of ghosts, a very great but a very unfounded fear. Their idea is that penance is something awful They think perhaps of the severe penances of the great Saints and of course are afraid to attempt anything of a like kind.

God does not ask us, as a rule, to do what is heroic. When He does, He gives us the special Grace necessary, called “Heroic Grace” or “Heroic Virtue”. He asks each one to do a little. If we are afraid of doing much, and it is only natural that some should be, let us do at least a little. No one but a coward is afraid to do a little, especially if he gets much in exchange.

The easy road to Heaven of Saint Theresa, the Little Flower, is to do many little things, the little Acts of Supererogation you read about in the previous chapter. God was infinitely pleased with the widow's mite; He will be equally pleased with our little penances.

As a result of little mortifications, we can deliver ourselves from the awful fires of Purgatory and amass rich merits for Heaven. To go into the matter further, there is not much difficulty about mortification or penance, notwithstanding the absurd fear that people have of it.

Penance is not only easy, it is useful and necessary, and it will bring us very great happiness. Not to do penance is the greatest penance of all. As a matter of fact, every man of the world naturally, spontaneously mortifies himself. The first principle, for instance, of politeness and good breeding is to sacrifice our whims and tastes for the sake of others. The selfish man is a boor; the generous man is the idol of all, especially if he is also humble and meek.

Again, the only way of securing good health is to eschew the most appetizing viands when they do us harm and to make use of plain foods when they do us good. Overeating is one of the causes of illness and sometimes of a premature death.

The secret of success is strenuous, methodical, regular work. Now generosity, self-denial, method, regularity are other forms of very genuine but practical mortification. Yet no man can do much without them. To insist on our own likes and dislikes, to do only as we please, is to lead a life bristling with difficulties, in which every duty is a burden, every good act an effort and a labor.

Boy scouts and girl scouts are bound to do a kind act every day, even though it costs them a big effort. Catholics can do more than this, e.g. daily acts of self-restraint, of patience with others, of kindness to others, the exact fulfilment of duty are splendid penances and a great aid to happiness.

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donkath · « **Reply #52 on:** April 30, 2015, 10:22:19 PM »

Malleus quoted:

Quote

Chapter 13:
And if pious offerings be made for them by persons in this world, they cannot now note them with satisfaction, unless, indeed, in reference to the will of God and the balance of his justice, leaving to him the ordering of the whole, who repays himself as best pleases his infinite goodness. Could they regard these alms apart from the divine will concerning them, this would be a return to self, which would shut from their view the will of God, and that would be to them like hell. Therefore they are unmoved by whatever God gives them, whether it be pleasure or pain, nor can they ever again revert to self.

This sounds exactly a description of the 'Dark Night of the Soul' which many experience on earth, that is, before death. Summarising the fruit of much reading - a soul seems to come to the end of its natural capacity to pray effectively....such as when it experiences dryness. Enduring this patiently is like what is described above. It is a gift from God inviting it to enter into being purged, now. In our ignorance we try to escape and seek out consolation in worldly distractions but if it is accepted as a true gift from God, then the soul enters into it willingly.

Another reason for the gift of dryness is to teach the soul the correct things to pray for...that is, not worldly things, but to pray for the virtues to be written on the heart which scripture tells us is made of stone.

When the soul surrenders to this grace it allows God to pin it down so it cannot move from the pain of having its state of sin experienced. When experienced it seems timeless, seemingly to be endured without end. It is as if God takes the soul away apart from the world yet it manages to live on in this purgatorial state.

It is like one of those tape-recorders where you have two reels that record sounds etc. Our souls have a lot of worldliness recorded on them, so stage one of the purgation has to eliminate what is already taped. When it is formatted, God writes his own Words on the heart that can never be removed. So the soul goes through this seeminly endless night. It is in the desert with Our Lord.

It does end at some stage when the soul begins to speak of its faith from the heart.

Quote

31Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: 32Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord. 33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the greatest, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:34

It is Jeremiah's feastday today. Is it not fitting that this prophecy of his is relevant to our confusing times when as Catholics, accustomed to leaving it to the Pope and priests to tell us what to do, must now think for ourselves and stand on our own feet? Stand side-by-side with faithful priests? All those who hear only the voice of the true Shepherd gravitate together creating a Church made of flesh and blood. It is in the gravitating that we can willingly suffer, nay seek, this purgation because the hardest thing for us to do is to 'love one another as Christ loved us.' We have to let Our Lord get to work on our egos for a start.

______________________________________

So much more becomes evident when considering Mary's role as Mediatrix of all graces. Without mercy there is no salvation. Without mercy there is no forgiveness. Without being aware that God desires to give mercy who would know to seek it? Having to face God's judgement one day Our Lady's intercession for mercy is the only way to receive Her Son's advocacy before the Father.

Up till the moment of judgement a soul has been kept out of the pit by the intercession of the saints/martyrs until it can stand on its own feet. Our saints extended the sufferings of Christ in their own bodies to keep visible the Passion of Christ in the world. Receiving the Sacraments, the pewsitter, through their merits, continues to receive the direct outpouring of Our Lord's salvific sacrifice into the soul because they carried on as other Christs on the way to Calvary. They extend Our Lord's visible life on earth with divine Charity. Purgatory then remains the final aid to union in and with Christ in eternity.

After all, one must do something for oneself!

It seems that one can do purgatory on earth. This is where the devil can be of great assistance. Justly accusing the sinner of his sins before the throne of His Majesty, Our Lord permits said sinner to make answer.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" He is asked.
Trembling in his shoes with the Fear of God* he has no defence. He can only beg for for mercy since he is guilty as charged.

"Would you like to do something about that before you die?" He is asked
"Yes, I would, but I want to do it for love of Thee, not because I am terrified of Thee."

"For that you must have the divine gift of Charity."
"Yes please."

"Well, keep up your devotion to my Mother, and She will help you."

Begging the intercession of Mary to guide the poor soul through this period the devil is permitted to accuse it directly. Let it defend itself under these now controlled circuмstances. Having invoked God's mercy, obtained only through Mary, the poor soul is now armed with an unassailable weapon. Submitting to the trial he is permitted to experience the true state of his soul. Without mercy no man can bear this knowledge. If the need for mercy is ignored too long a soul despairs unable to bear the sight of its own sinful state where no flicker of grace remains. Unable to offer any justification for its sins Mercy alone turns the tables. Lucifer now becomes the instrument used by God for the soul's redemption. With the conviction of God's mercy the soul is enabled to fight back - to stand on its own feet.

Through varying degrees of interior suffering according to the extent it seeks out its sins, and uses the gift of divine Charity, the soul submits willingly to its just punishment, being further graced with a deeper knowledge and understanding of the price Our Lord paid for its salvation>true contrition>true sorrow>full redemption.

Pacing itself, the grace of perseverance, when sought, converts sinners into saints. In the end the great saints achieved eternal peace because the devil's just accusations had no value when the soul was fully submerged in the redeeming action of Mercy through Our Lady's continuous intercession. They overcame the devil's accusations, fully redeemed by the sufferings of Our Lord transforming them....for if God forgives who can condemn? It is this latter information that the angel of darkness tries desperately to block the soul from contemplating. After Christ's crucifixion, when it was too late, he knows better than any sinner that God is indeed merciful to the repentant heart - that he has no leg to stand on if the soul were to believe this. So the trials endured are Lucifer's attempts to frighten and panic. Permitted to experience and endure these trials purges the soul with the result that, bit by painful bit, the soul is delivered of its sinful state at the same time growing in grace and Charity.

The power of Mercy is boundless; the power of Mary is boundless. As already stated, without Mercy we remain in our sins - unredeemed and destined for hell. One cannot cease contemplating the Wisdom of our God for if Lucifer had known that one can only be redeemed through Mary's intercession, then would he not have targetted our Blessed Mother for crucifixion?

'...[Mary] merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world, ...Dispensatrix of all the gifts that Our Savior purchased by His Death and His Blood... (and) it has been allowed to the august Virgin to be the most powerful mediatrix and advocate of the whole world with Her Divine Son' (Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus)." 3 Hence, St. Pius X continues, "far from attributing to the Mother of God a productive power of grace --- a power which belongs to God alone, yet... She merits 'de congruo' what Jesus Christ merits for us 'de condigno', and She is the supreme minister of the distribution of graces. Jesus 'sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high' (Hebrews 1:3). Mary sitteth at the right hand of Her Son --- a refuge so secure and a help so trusty against all dangers that we have nothing to fear or to despair under Her guidance, Her patronage, Her protection. (Pius IX, in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus)." (An extract from : Only She Can Help You)

* Should sinner be fortunate to have received the gifts of the Holy Spirit through Baptism and Confirmation.

poche · « **Reply #53 on:** May 01, 2015, 10:33:55 PM »

The Most Perfect Penance

But the most perfect penance of all is to unite and conform your finite will to the infinite Holy Will of God. It is the most perfect penance because it is void of all pride. Pride can sneak in when one performs other kinds of penance, no matter how big or small they are. But the penance of uniting and conforming one’s will to God’s Holy Will is not only an act of the Virtues of Humility and Meekness, but an exercise of Wisdom, one of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost.

In what does the sanctification and spiritual perfection of a person consist? Saint Francis DeSales [b. at Thorens, in the Duchy of Savoy, 21 August 21, 1567 A.D. - d. at Lyons, France on December 28, 1622 A.D.], Bishop of Geneva, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church,. says that “some place it in austerity, others in giving to a charity, others in frequenting the Sacraments, others in prayer. But for my part, I know of no other perfection than loving God with all one's heart. Without this love all of the virtues are only a heap of stones.”

In the same way that virtue is ennobled and perfected by the love of God, “so likewise”, says Rodriguez, following Saint John Chrysostom, “the highest, purest and most excellent part of this love is absolute conformity to the Divine Will and having in all things no other will but God’s.”

“Whoever makes a habit of prayer should think only of doing everything to conform his will to God’s. Be assured that In this conformity consists the highest perfection we can attain and those who practice it with the greatest care will be favored by God's greatest Gifts and will make the quickest progress in the interior [Spiritual] life. Do not imagine there are other secrets. All our good consists in this” (Saint Teresa of Avila, Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada [b. at Avila, Old Castile, Spain on Sunday, March 28, 1515 A.D. - d. at Alba de Tormes on Monday, October 4, 1582 A.D.]; emphasis added).

Blessed Stephanie of Soncino, a Dominican Nun, was taken in spirit to Heaven one day where she saw among the Seraphim several persons she had known before their deaths. Having asked why these souls were raised to such a high degree of glory, she was told that it was because of the conformity and perfect union of their will with God's Holy Will while they lived on earth.

Therefore, conformity and uniformity to the Divine Will shall raise one while on earth to the highest degree of Grace and on it is founded the highest perfection anyone can attain in this life. Whoever practices entire and complete submission to God's Holy Will lays up inestimable treasures at every moment and amasses more riches in a few days than others are able to acquire in many years and with great labor and horrendously severe corporal penances. This means that a person must remain indifferent to good fortune or to adversity by accepting all of it from the Hand of God without questioning; not to ask for things to be done as we would like them to be, but rather as God wishes.

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poche · « **Reply #54 on:** May 02, 2015, 10:54:09 PM »

For your practical resolutions, the following is suggested:

1) Pray for the Graces necessary to develop the habit of uniting and conforming your will with God’s Holy Will.

2) Every morning when you arise for the day, perform this simple devotion with these very brief prayers of uniformity and conformity to God’s Holy Will:

Prayer of Uniformity and Conformity to God's Holy Will

Kiss the feet of your Crucifix and lay it upon your pillow,
after you have made your bed in the morning, saying:

I freely and joyfully pick up the Cross which Thou hast given me to carry today, O Merciful God. Permit me to carry it today for Thy Greater Honor and Glory so that by this, my Cross, Thy Most Holy Will may be done fully in me and by me. Let not prosperity lift me up nor adversity cast me down.

Uniformity and Conformity to the Divine Will
Most Holy Trinity please give me today each and everyone of those things which Thou, O Most Holy Trinity, has willed to give me today from all eternity. Amen.

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