Twenty-Eighth Day: They have Great Reason to Fear Who Show no Mercy towards the Souls Departed.
by VP
Posted on Friday November 28, 2025 at 04:00AM in Purgatory Month Meditations
"With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matt. VII. 2. ) It will be readily seen that these words of the Divine Savior are applicable also to the assistance we should render the souls departed. The learned Cardinal Cajetan says: "Those who in this life forget the departed, will hereafter, in my opinion, be deprived in Purgatory of all participation in good works and devout prayers, though ever so many be offered for them by others; for Divine Justice is wont in this manner to punish their cruelty and hardness of heart." Hence, he who shows no mercy towards the suffering souls, and remains cold and indifferent to their pains, will even though his souls may have escaped eternal damnation, languish in the flames of Purgatory without relief and consolation and look in vain for friends and intercessors. And the faithful who do not forget the suffering souls completely, but seldom think of them, will not be deprived of friends and intercessors entirely, but will derive very little help and comfort, and their complaints will be answered by the words of St. Paul: "He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly." (2 Cor. IX. 6).
Prayer: O God, whose goodness and mercy are infinite, have pity on the souls of those, who on account of their want of charity are undeserving of Thy bounty, and accept our fervent prayers in reparation for their faults, that they may not suffer without consolation. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Prayer for Priests in Purgatory: My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine Agony in the Garden, in Thy Scourging and Crowning with thorns, in the Way to Calvary, in Thy Crucifixion and Death, have mercy on the souls of priests in Purgatory, especially those most forgotten and who have no one else to pray for them. I wish to remember all those priests who ministered to me, the priests my heart has never forgotten, and for those that I no longer recall due to my frailty of memory. Do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them and admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in Paradise.
Pope Saint Pius X and Saint John Vianney, pray for us and especially for our priests. Amen
Special Intercession: Pray for the souls who suffer for their want of charity.
Lord grant them eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. (Three times)
Invocation: My Jesus, mercy!
Source: Manual of the Purgatorian Society, Redemptorist Fathers. 1907St. Stephen the Younger, MARTYR, A.D. 764.
by VP
Posted on Friday November 28, 2025 at 03:00AM in Saints
"HAVING lived from his youth in a solitude, and by his perfect life invited many to place themselves under his conduct, at the age of forty he renounced this charge, and shut himself up in a small cell without any roof, where, under the weight of many chains, he raised up his soul to God by prayer and penance. He used to say to such as desired him to be more moderate: Believe me, children, strait is the way, and narrow is the gate that leads to life. This was at the time when the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, resolving to destroy all holy images, and all who approved them, sent to this holy hermit to subscribe to their condemnation. But he answering freely, that he would give his blood, rather than dishonour the picture of Jesus Christ, his master, he was taken out of his cell, kept six days without any thing to eat, had false crimes forged against him, was banished, then recalled and dragged from place to place. Afterwards he was cast into prison, with above three hundred religious, for the same cause, and at length ordered to be beaten through the streets of Constantinople. This was executed with such cruelty, that he died under their hands, in the eighth century; and his fellow-prisoners were all put to death on the same account.
You behold a variety of martyrs in Christ's Church. Some suffer all torments, rather than worship idols, and give God's honour to stocks; others suffer the same torments, rather than dishonour the images of Christ. You see in this your duty: not to give God's honour to any thing created; and yet to have an honour for whatever belongs to God. Avoid therefore both extremes, of Idolatry and profaneness. Be not your own idol, by immoderate self-love and pride; let not the world, nor riches, nor pleasure be your idol, by giving your heart to them, which God demands to himself. Never profane God's holy name, nor his house, by any unbecoming behaviour in that holy place, nor any thing holy, by raillery or disrespect: but let God be in earnest a God to you. To Him be all honour, praise, and glory, from all his creatures. Amen." The Catholic Year by Fr. John Gother
