Pray for Him

Leslie Ray Charping needs prayers.  He recently died and from the brutal, mean obituary that was reported in the newspapers, no one will miss him, let alone pray for him.

Sometimes the people who need love the most, and the hardest to love.

 Requiescat in pace Leslie Ray Charping.

Have Souls in Purgatory Visited?

Have souls in Purgatory visited people on earth?: Vatican City, Nov 4, 2016 CNA/EWTN News.- Nestled in Rome just outside the Vatican, a small unassuming museum dedicated to the souls in Purgatory displays simple items such as prayer books and clothing supposedly from deceased souls begging for prayers.



In 1869, Father Victor Jouet founded the Association for the Suffrage of the Sacred Souls in Purgatory. The chapel the Association met in, caught fire in 1869.  Father Jouet rushed in to see what could be saved and saw the face of a very sad man burned in the wall.

"After this occurrence, the priest decided to create a museum dedicated to the artifacts of other appearances of souls in Purgatory. He travelled around Europe and Italy collecting the items and testimonies.

Each piece in the museum was collected by Fr. Jouët from the same person who experienced the vision. The image of the man from the chapel can also be found there.

While he travelled around, Fr. Jouët also asked for money to build a church on the site of the chapel, which he had received a message to build in a dream.

Other artifacts in the museum include the print of a hand and a cross left on a the wooden table of Venerable Clara Isabel Fornari, abbess of the Poor Clares of the Monastery of St. Francis in Todi, Italy, by the deceased Fr. Panzini, on Nov. 1, 1731.

There is also a copy of an Italian 10 lira banknote, one of 30 notes left at the Monastery of St. Leonardo in Montefalco by a deceased priest between Aug. 18 and Nov. 9, 1919.

Catholic teaching on the afterlife is that there are three places for a soul to go after death: Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, those who go to Heaven are “(t)hose who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ.”

Those souls that go to Hell are those who have freely chosen through mortal sin “exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.”

Purgatory is a place where the souls go who die in friendship with God but are still imperfectly purified. Purgatory is where “after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” These souls are ensured eventual entrance into Heaven, once they are purified.

The Church teaches that souls in Purgatory rely on the prayers of souls still on Earth to relieve some of their temporal suffering and speed their journey to Heaven. In return, the souls in Purgatory can also pray for those on earth.

On Nov. 2, the Feast of All Souls, Pope Francis offered Mass for all the departed in Flaminio Cemetery in Rome. Speaking about the sadness of losing a loved one, the Pope said that “in this sadness we bring flowers as a sign of hope, and also, I dare to say, of celebration – not now, but in the future.”

“All of us will make this journey,” he said. “Sooner or later, but everyone. With pain, some more some less, but all. But with the flower of hope, with that strong thread of hope that is anchored in the hereafter.” 

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Flaminio Cemetery

Credit:Catholic News Agency picture which credits  L'Osservatore Romano.

This morning's article in Catholic News Agency, November 3, caught my eye.  It's a picture of Pope Francis walking through an aisle of ... of ... (I don't know)... flowers in boxes.  I read the article to learn what was going on.  The article is by Hannah Brockhaus and titled, Pope Francis at Cemetery: Christ gives us hope -- even in death.  The picture is of Pope Francis walking through a cemetery.

Yes, the aisle the pope is walking through are the graves.  The cemetery is Flaminio Cemetery, also known as Prima Porta Cemetery.  Roads travel right through for daily commuters. There are buildings housing the graves surrounding the roads.  It's a new concept for cemeteries.  What do you think?

I don't know what I think.  Death is part of life, so this arrangement makes death seem very ordinary.  I mean if you commuted to work twice a day through Flaminio, you'd forget that it's a cemetery.  But on second thought, do you want to forget your dead?

Would it be acceptable to post signs?  Caution--grieving people crossing.  Pray!  Slow--respect the dead.

Praying to Saints

Hubby and I were touring Newport, RI, yesterday.  We visited museums, a synagogue, and Trinity Church.  Trinity Church's steeple is a landmark.  You can see it from the ocean, and it's a famous, well-known site of recognition.  Of course, we had to go there.  

The guide gave us a wonderful tour of the church.  Hubby just had to have a picture taken of him sitting in the same box that George Washington and Queen Elizabeth II prayed in.  Many famous people worshiped there.  We met their new priest, The Rev. Canon Anne Marie Richards.

Our tour guide happened to say that it was so nice to have a lady priest.  She went on to say that she never felt part of the church until the Canon Anne Marie came.

I bit my tongue.

The church had some beautiful stained glass windows.  I learned the difference between painted glass and the stained glass pieces that Tiffany made.  Big difference!

The stained glass windows depicted Mary, and some saints, and some famous parishioners.  Our guide said, "Of course, being High Church Episcopalian, we do not worship saints like Catholics do..."

I just had to speak up, no many how many kicks in the ankle hubby was giving me.

I asked her to pray for me.  She looked askance, but she said, "OK."   Then I said, "Why do you not think it odd, or wrong, to pray for others, yet you think it odd, or wrong, that Catholics pray to saints?"  Then I pointed to the Apostle Creed that was on a plaque.  I quoted, "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS..."  What do you think the communion of saints means?

It means the spiritual solidarity among those living and those that are dead.  Thomas Aquinas* tells us that we participate in this mystical body exchange of  the same faith, prayers, merits, veneration, etc.
Hence, it's praying to the dead, not worshiping, but asking intercession, as we join together in prayer, just as I ask a living person to pray for me.  I'm not worshiping that person. I'm asking for intercession to God.

The tour came to an abrupt close.

I did better on the tour to the synagogue.

*Summa Theologica III: 8:4.

Anniversary of Deceased OPs

Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P.
Apostle of Prisons

The Church has always connected the feast of All Saints, with that of All Souls, to emphasize the communion of saints.  So does the family of the Order of Preachers.  Accordingly, since yesterday was the Dominican Order's All Saints Day, today, the following day, we Dominicans remember our brothers and sisters who have gone before us with the sign of faith, into the guiding arms of St. Dominic, who lead them to Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.  Therefore, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

To die with Christ is to conquer the apathy of existence, to put aside greed, to abstain from fickleness, to dismiss levity of mind, to reject what is useless and what is done for appearances' sake, and to choose the gospel with sincerity and faithfully cling to it.

To die with Christ is to free oneself from riches and human glory, and to moderate one's life for the kingdom of God.

To die with Christ is to accept the risk of human love which demands the denial of self, or to accept the danger of witnessing to truth and justice before others, or to experience the difficulty of holding steadfastly to the faith one has received.

To die with Christ concerns those things which in our daily lives are austerities, or to sustain difficulties and accept change which brings about the renewal of fidelity.

To die with Christ is to accept one's own death as a sacrifice and a trusting burying of self in God, and also to accept in hope the deaths of our brothers, sisters and friends.

To die with Christ is to bear with a serene spirit the process of aging, the rejections, the losses -- even in apostolic labors.

To die with Christ is to be freed from egoism and self-absorption through the various incentives to love, to share, to sympathize with and to be reconciled with others.

To die with Christ is to experience at times the darkness of faith and courageously to endure it.

To every Dominican, friars, sisters, nuns, and laity, in whatever time in which they lived, may they receive the Holy Spirit and rest in peace and joy.  May our loving and all merciful Lord, receive with joy all our dead, today.  And may they intercede for us, forever.      Amen.

From the writings of fr. Pierre Andre Liege, O.P. "To die together with Christ."

Praying for the Dead

While hiking this afternoon, we came upon this interesting cemetery.  Hubby and I walked around and read these old tombstones.  At first I was puzzled by the war some of these veteran graves marked.  The Ray War was noted on a few tombstones.  They were the oldest in the cemetery.  Then one of the grave markings was clearer than the others.  It didn't say Ray War.  It said Rev. War.

OH!

Revolution 

Yes, we prayed for them all.

Into your hands, Lord, I commend their spirits.
Into your hands, Lord, I commend their spirits.

You have redeemed us, Lord God of truth.
I commend their spirits.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Into your hands, Lord, I commend their spirits.

Your word has been fulfilled.