Month of the Souls in Purgatory
November 2
The Doctrine Of Purgatory — John A. Hardon, S.J.
How To Argue the Existence of Purgatory — Jason Evert
A Most Reasonable Doctrine — James Buckley
Praying
for the Dead and Gaining Indulgences During November
— Jennifer Gregory Miller
Purgatory: Service Shop for Heaven — Fr. Anthony Zimmerman, STD
The month of November (Overview - Calendar) is dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory. The Church commemorates all her faithful children who have departed from this life, but have not yet attained the joys of heaven. St. Paul warns us that we must not be ignorant concerning the dead, nor sorrowful, "even as others who have no hope ... For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven ... and the dead who are in Christ shall rise.
The Church has always taught us to pray for those who have gone into eternity. Even in the Old Testament prayers and alms were offered for the souls of the dead by those who thought "well and religiously concerning the resurrection." It was believed that "they who had fallen asleep with godliness had great grace laid up for them" and that "it is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." We know that a defiled soul cannot enter into heaven.
Excerpted from Liturgical Meditations, The Sisters of St. Dominic
Purgatory
is not eternal. Its duration varies according to the sentence pronounced
at each particular judgment. It may be prolonged for centuries in
the case of the more guilty souls, or of those who, being excluded
from the Catholic communion, are deprived of the suffrages of the
Church, although by the divine mercy they have escaped hell. But
the end of the world, which will be also the end of time, will close
for ever the place of temporary expiation. God will know how to
reconcile His justice and His goodness in the purification of the
last members of the human race, and to supply by the intensity of
the expiatory suffering what may be wanting in duration. But, whereas
a favourable sentence at the particular judgment admits of eternal
beatitude being suspended and postponed, and leaves the bodies of
the elect to the same fate as those of the reprobate; at the universal
judgment, every sentence, whether for heaven or for hell, will be
absolute, and will be executed immediately and completely.
The Church Suffering and the Church Militant constitute in their relations
a second circle of most vital activities. Having entered into the
night "wherein no man can work," the Suffering Church
cannot ripen to its final blessedness by any efforts of its own,
but only through the help of others—through the intercessory
prayers and sacrifices (suffragia) of those living members
of the Body of Christ who being still in this world are able in
the grace of Christ to perform expiatory works. The Church has from
the earliest times faithfully guarded the words of Scripture that
it is a holy and a wholesome thing to pray for the dead that they
may be loosed from their sins. [2 Macab. 12, 43] The suppliant cry
of her liturgy: "Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let
perpetual light shine upon them," can be heard already in the
Acts of the martyrdom of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas (A.D. 203) and
is represented in numerous sepulchral inscriptions of the most ancient
period, while theologians and Fathers of the Church, beginning with
Tertullian, have supplied its substantial proof. . . . So fundamental
indeed and so natural to man's hope and desire and love is this
belief, that historians of religion have discovered it among almost
all non-Christian civilized peoples: a striking illustration of
Tertullian's saying that the human soul is naturally Christian.
The Catholic, therefore, is jealous to expiate and suffer for the "poor souls," especially by offering the Eucharistic Sacrifice, wherein Christ's infinite expiation on the Cross is sacramentally represented, and stimulating and joining itself with the expiatory works of the faithful, passes to the Church Suffering according to the measure determined by God's wisdom and mercy.
— Karl Adam
By
the practice of Indulgences, the Church places at the charitable
disposal of the faithful the inexhaustible treasure accumulated,
from age to age, by the superabundant satisfactions of the saints,
added to those of the martyrs, and united to those of our Blessed
Lady and the infinite residue of our Lord's sufferings. These remissions
of punishment she grants to the living by her own direct power;
but she nearly always approves of and permits their application
to the dead by way of suffrage, that is to say, in the manner in
which, as we have seen, each of the faithful may offer to God who
accepts it, for another, the suffrage or succour of his own satisfactions.
— The Liturgical Year, Abbot Gueranger O.S.B.
A partial indulgence can be obtained by devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the departed, even if the prayer is only mental. One can gain a plenary indulgence visiting a cemetery each day between November 1 and November 8. These indulgences are applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory.
A plenary indulgence, again applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory, is also granted when the faithful piously visit a church or a public oratory on November 2. In visiting the church or oratory, it is required, that one Our Father and the Creed be recited.
A partial indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory, can be obtained when the Eternal Rest (Requiem aeternam) is prayed. This is a good prayer to recite especially during the month of November:
Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
