When we die we have two destinations after our particular judgment, heaven or hell. However, since nothing impure can be in the presence of God, there is a purification step for those souls destined for heaven but who still have outstanding debts.
Where do these offenses come from that have not deserved hell and why if Christ has cleansed us with His blood and His passion, there is still some offense. Doesn’t Christ cleanse us perfectly?
The answer is YES, Christ cleanses us perfectly but cleanses us from sin against God, that is, against offenses against God, but we still have offenses against men, that is, only the offended can forgive us and if they do not forgive us who we have done wrong in Life, despite not deserving hell, the infinite justice of God cannot let it pass and we must pay for this evil.
And there is a second element to clean, it must be borne in mind that for God’s forgiveness to be effective, one must repent of the offense committed.
There are small offenses to God that we do not repent of, we do not even consider offenses, the Church calls them venial sins, a venial sin is not serious enough to condemn you to hell but the fact of not repenting of it means that it was not washed by Christ and therefore it is a stain that we carry after we die so that even if destiny is heaven it must be purified.
The third stain we carry has to do with repentance, there is the perfect repentance called contrition. But if our repentance is not perfect, if we take it lightly, we do not repair the offense, it is another stain that we must purify.
While we are on earth, it is the time of grace, that is, we have the opportunity to repair, atone, reconcile, and make merits, but once dead is the time of justice, you can no longer ask for forgiveness, you only have to purify yourself in pain and suffering.
Releasing Souls from Purgatory
If you ask the souls in purgatory who could relieve them, the answer is us.
We who are still on earth and in the time of grace can not only settle our debts but also pay the debts of those who are purifying themselves in Purgatory.
For this we can both pray and make sacrifices and perform those works that the animas who are in purgatory should have done to pay their debts:
The mass
Indulgences
The Rosary for the Souls in Purgatory
100 Requiems Prayer
Way of the Cross for the Souls in Purgatory
Chaplet of Divine Mercy
The Hours of Passion
Prayers for the Souls in Purgatory
Year of Saint Joseph
Download the Releasing Souls From Purgatory from Google Play to have these prayers or pray on your mobile or cell phone without having to be connected to the Internet or carry a book with the advantage that alerts you with alarm the day you can earn a plenary indulgence.
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Heroic Act of Charity
Every good work we do in the state of grace has a triple value: It has meritorious, imperative, and satisfying power. The meritorious value of our good works indicates their ability to earn an increase in merit, which is a right to heavenly reward. Therefore, every good gift wins the one who performs it an increase in heavenly glory. Our merits are incommunicable: we cannot pass them on to others.
The imperatives and satisfactions, on the other hand, do apply to others. The imperative value of our good gifts indicates their power to obtain a little of His grace from God. As with any prayer, we can offer our imperatives for others. Similarly, the satisfying value of our good works, which is the power they possess to atone for the temporal punishment due to sin, can be applied to souls in purgatory, or they can be used for our own benefit.
Suffrage is a word used to include both imperations and satisfactions: the double value of our good deeds that can be applied to others. Souls in purgatory cannot pray for themselves or gain indulgences, they cannot attend mass or receive the sacraments. They cannot but suffer to atone for the temporal punishment due to their sins. Through our suffrages, we can relieve them of their sufferings and satisfy for their sins. Christian charity inspires us, as members of the militant Church, to do all we can for these our brothers in the purging Church.
The heroic act for the blessed souls in Purgatory is precisely the total donation to the souls in purgatory of everything we can give them to relieve them and, if possible, liberate them. Both the acts in life as the prayers and suffrages directed to us in our death.
Although the decision of whom to apply one can be left to the Virgin Mary can direct them towards a certain group of preference. However, leaving them in the hands of the mother of God is a guarantee that they will be better used.
Heroic Act Formula
Oh holy and adorable Trinity, wishing to cooperate in the liberation of souls in purgatory, and to testify my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, I yield and renounce in favor of those holy souls all the satisfactory part of my works, and all the suffrages that they can be given to me after my death, and I entrust them entirely in the hands of the Blessed Virgin, so that I can apply them as it pleases to those souls of the faithful deceased who wish to free them from their sufferings. Please, God, accept and bless this offering that I make for you at this time. Amen.
This formula is not a vote so one can voluntarily renounce delivery and take advantage of it for oneself, nor is the formula mandatory, only the will to do it is enough.
Objections to this devotion
All the objections raised against this devotion revolve around the fear that, by performing it, the salvation of one’s soul is put at risk. Certain kind-hearted Christians fear that because of such perfect renunciation they will be left without the necessary help for salvation. They also fear that, having sacrificed all their sufferings, they will be condemned to death in purgatory for an indefinite time, perhaps until the end of the world.
Father Mumford, as Father Shouppe quotes him in Purgatory, speaks of Christians who make this total donation of all the fruit of their good works that are at their disposal in favor of poor souls. He says: “I do not think they can make better use of them, since they make them more meritorious and more effective, both to obtain divine grace and to atone for their own sins and shorten their stay in purgatory, or even to acquire total expiation of they ”(pp. 206-7).
Finally, let us not think that we will undergo a long and frightful purgatory with this transfer of our suffrages in favor of the deceased. While it is true that, in essence, this practice implies a willingness to face the terrible penalties of purgatory for the love of neighbor, it is inconceivable that such a generous soul is abandoned to a long purgatory. To think in this way, as Saint Louis Marie de Montfort says, is to think unworthily of Jesus and Mary.
This fact is demonstrated with a story of Saint Gertrude told by Fr. Shouppe. The saint, being at the hour of death and considering the sins of her life, feared that, having done so much for souls in purgatory, she had already exhausted her satisfactions and would be left to suffer greatly in purgatory. Our Lord deigned to appear to her in order to comfort her with these words: “The generous donation that you have made of all your works for the holy souls has pleased me singularly; and to give you proof of this, I declare that all the penalties that you would have had to endure in the afterlife are forgiven; furthermore, as a reward for your generous charity, in such a way I will enhance the value of the merits of your works that will increase the glory in heaven ”(p. 208).