It's All Souls Day once again. A day before that is of course All Saints Day. Souls and saints, why the close link? Perhaps the Church put the two events together to stress the need of souls for prayers. Saints are synonymous with prayers and the Church believes that prayers are the diet of the dead. Is there a better way to remind the laity that saints are needed by the souls?
Historically, the choice of November 2 as the day of souls is attributed to St. Odilo, an abbot of Cluny, a city in France, who in the seventh century thought it fitting to offer songs and prayers for their deceased community members a day after honoring the saints.
It is said that souls can no longer pray for themselves. However, saints can, perhaps because they are saints and therefore close to God. So souls need the saints very badly.
Having attained the Beatific vision, saints are called upon by the living to intercede for their dead who are presumed to be undergoing purification in Purgatory. That's why the highest of all prayers, the Holy Mass, is very much valued because this benefits those in a state of being purified. These benefits could be in the form of lessening their sufferings or shortening their stay in the place of torment.
But what is Purgatory? Some Catholics have a hazy idea of it; in fact, some are doubtful whether it exists. In his book, Read Me or Rue It, Father Paul O. Sullivan, O.P., says: "It is a prison of fire in which nearly all souls are plunged after death and in which they suffer the most intense pain". He quotes St. Thomas of Aquinas who says "that the fire of Purgatory is equal in intensity to the fire of Hell, and that the slightest contact with it is more dreadful than all the possible sufferings of this Earth".
St. Augustine says of Purgatory: "Though this fire is destined to cleanse and purify the souls still it is more acute than anything we could possibly endure on Earth".
A Catholic cannot help but believe in Purgatory since its existence is taught by the Church. These words of St. Thomas and St. Augustine were uttered not out of the figment of their imagination but from their saintly discernment. Reflecting on these one gets overwhelmed by the horror of it all, knowing that sooner or later he could end up there.
The good thing, however, is that something can be done by the living to the suffering souls in Purgatory. And that something is the Holy Mass. Father Paul in the same book recounts the story of a Polish Prince who one day came upon an old widow crying for want of money to have Masses said for her dead husband, the Prince's former servant. Touched by the woman's faithfulness, his majesty gave her some gold coins.
Some time later, the dead steward appeared before the Prince at night and said, "Prince, I come to thank you for my soul. Thanks to the saving blood of Christ, which was offered for me. I am now going to Heaven...."
That's a story, a reader might say, which could be fictitious. Yet how could the author, a Catholic priest, have the heart to mislead people? Anyway, here's a story told by a local priest during his homily at Sto. Rosario Church a few years ago.
A priest newly assigned in a Cebu parish was disturbed every night in his convent by mysterious footsteps. At first he disregarded these, but since the phenomenon occurred regularly, he tried to observe on what particular spot the sound was clearly audible. He noticed that the footsteps would start from the stairway, then continue towards the sala and end right where an old cabinet stood.
The following morning he had somebody force-opened the cabinet and tried to examine its contents. There were old books and folders which, to his surprise, contained a list of names labeled "para pamisa". Sensing that the list could be the reason for the strange happening, he had the names read before the Mass and announced that the Eucharistic celebration was an offering for the souls mentioned in the list. That evening the priest tried to listen to the mysterious footsteps, but there was only silence, and no such sound was heard ever again in that convent.
If anything, these stories remind us of the importance of praying for the dead especially those dear to us in life. On the day of saints and of souls such reminder becomes more urgent, more urgent really, than beatifying their resting place and placing flowers therein.
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