NOVEMBER 2015: MONTH OF SOULS IN PURGATORY

November, the month of Souls in Purgatory, is dedicated to all the souls who have died, but have not yet been admitted into Heaven.  Jesus' Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, allowed for admittance into Heaven, but because of "free will" every person can chose whether they want to be with God.  Every moment in life is the opportunity to say yes or no to this.  When someone dies, Jesus looks at his/her life and sees how much they loved Him. If they didn't love Him, He lets them continue in that choice and allows them to go to Hell. If they loved Him perfectly, He allows them to abide in Heaven. If they loved Him, but imperfectly, in His Mercy He allows them to enter Purgatory where the imperfect love is made perfect through purging. Purgatory is a tempory state and will pass away. It is a place of Mercy. more...

Jesus asks that His disciples to “pray unceasingly.” (Luke 21:36) This is a hard command and requires great discipline in both the mind and body. Essentially to pray unceasingly is to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” (Matt 5:48) for it is constantly keeping at the forefront of one’s mind and heart the twofold commandment: “love God and your neighbor.” (Luke 10:27) Prayer is putting these commandments into action.

To aid in a personal and perpetual active relationship with God, the Church has Mass offered daily; this is the highest form of prayer. Additionally, the Church has laid out holy hours to bring her members into prayer all throughout the day and night. These moments are called the “holy hours” or “Divine Office". These hourly prayers are divided into four categories: morning (lauds, terce), daytime (sext, none), evening (vespers, compline) and night prayers (matins).

“From ancient times the Church has had the custom of celebrating each day the liturgy of the hours. In this way the Church fulfills the Lord’s precept to pray without ceasing, at once offering its praise to God the Father and interceding for the salvation of the world.” – Office of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship. more...

The Stations of the Cross are traditionally used during Lent (especially on Fridays) as a way to go deeper into the mystery of the passion, death and burial of Jesus Christ. It looks both at Mary’s journey on the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrow)— where the Passion actually occurred, and at the major events as recorded by the Apostles in the Gospels.

“Behind the house, at a little distance up the hill, the Blessed Virgin had made a kind of Way of the Cross. When she was living in Jerusalem, she had never failed, ever since Our Lord's death, to follow His path to Calvary with tears of compassion. She had paced out and measured all the distances between the Stations of that Via Crucis, and her love for her Son made her unable to live without this constant contemplation of His sufferings . . . At first she went by herself, measuring the number of steps, so often counted by her, which separated the places of Our Lord's different sufferings. At each of these places she put up a stone, or, if there was already a tree there, she made a mark upon it. . . . Afterwards she arranged the Stations better, and I saw her inscribing on the stones the meaning of each Station, the number of paces and so forth. . . . At that time I saw no picture and no fixed cross to designate the Stations, nothing but plain memorial stones with inscriptions, but afterwards, as the result of constant visits and attention, I saw the place becoming increasingly beautiful and easy of approach. After the Blessed Virgin's death I saw this Way of the Cross being visited by Christians, who threw themselves down and kissed the ground.” (The Life Of The 
Blessed Virgin Mary From The Visions Of 
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich,) more...

Prayer is a formal word for a simple action: “conversation with God”. If you wake up in the morning and say, “Hi God,” your greeting is a prayer. Prayer is simply an acknowledgement of God’s existence and His presence in our lives.

“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy!” – St. Therese of Lisieux, Manuscrits and autobiographiques

We converse with those around us —either strengthening or weakening our relationships (depending on how we communicate)— and the same is true with God; it is just as easy to interact with Him.

Since God is perfect, and never erring, He never pushes us away, nor does He ever ignore us, etc.,. Ever patient, He always listens and always answers. He answers in three ways: “yes”; “in time”; or “I have something better for you”. more...