The Liturgical Year, XV, Book VI, Abbot Gueranger O.S.B., Pages 93-96 &143
‘We will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that
are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope.’
(I Thess. 4:13) The Church today has the same desire as the apostle thus
expressed to the first Christians. The truth concerning the dead not only
proves admirably the union between God’s justice and His goodness; it
also inspires a charitable pity which the hardest heart cannot resist, and at
the same time offers to the mourners the sweetest consolation. If faith
teaches us the existence of a purgatory where our loved ones may be
detained by unexpiated sin, it is also of faith that we are able to assist
them; and theology assures us that their more or less speedy deliverance
lies in our power..
Let us make use of our treasures, and exercise mercy towards the
poor suffering souls. Is any condition more pitiable than theirs? So great
is their anguish, that no distress on earth can approach to it…All heaven
cannot help them, for there is no merit to be gained there. God Himself,
though most merciful, owes it to His justice not to deliver them until they
have paid the whole debt that they carried with them beyond the world of
trial. The debt was contracted perhaps through our fault, and in our
company; and it is to us they turn for help, to us who are still dreaming
of nothing but pleasure, while they are burning, and we could so easily
shorten their torments!
Whether it be that purgatory is now more than ever overflowing
with the multitudes daily sent thither through the worldliness of the age,
or that the last and universal judgment is approaching—the Holy Ghost
is no longer satisfied with keeping up the zeal of ancient confraternities
devoted to the service of the departed. He raises up new associations,
and even religious families, whose one aim is to promote, by every
possible means, the deliverance or the solace of the suffering souls.
From the very beginning the Church has always prayed for the
dead, as did even the Synagogue before her (2 Mach. 12:46)…Thus, as
St. Augustine remarks, those who had no relatives and friends on earth
were henceforth not deprived of suffrages; for, to make up for their
abandonment, they had the tender compassion of the common
mother…The holy souls had the gift of faith, and did the works of faith
while on earth; their eternal reward is therefore secured, and God
mercifully accept the offerings we make for them…