Pray for the souls in Purgatory

 Deacon Kevin Gingras

Oct 26th, 2025

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111625.cfm

Malachi 3:19-20a  Psalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9

2 Thessalonians 3:7-12    Luke 21:5-19

Today, I wanted to walk up and down the sidewalk outside the church, carrying a sandwich board that read: “Repent for the end is near!” but I thought better of that.  Today’s homily does have that fire and brimstone feel to it:

See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he,' and 'The time has come.' Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for such things must happen first… Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place… they will seize and persecute you,

Scary stuff, right?  This teaching is what probably got the Thessalonians to think Jesus was coming back and really soon.  So soon, some of them had just stopped working to wait.  St. Paul had to set them straight in his letter.  We don’t know the time or the hour; we just know some day the time will come, and we will get to our particular judgment.  This occurs at the moment of death, where each individual is judged based on the life they led according to God’s rules.  Our death is merely an end to our life here on Earth.

Gandalf the wizard from Tolkien’s book The Return of the King said about death:

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take.

Jesus, in today’s Gospel, gives us hope when he tells us:

Not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance, you will secure your lives.

And that is certainly good news, isn’t it! I recently started setting up for a baptism by placing the Easter candle front and center before the altar, and then the baptismal font just in front of that.  This is how our life in the church begins, by our baptism.  When our journey on earth has ended, the candle is in the same spot, and it is our casket that is in front.  The casket is sprinkled with holy water to remind us of our beginning.

Ok, back to our particular judgment that happens right at our death.  Three destinations await - Heaven for those who die fully in God’s grace, Purgatory for those who die in God’s love, but we still need some purification before we can be with God for eternity, and third is Hell for those who have died with mortal sin still on their souls and have rejected God’s love.

CCC 1030:

“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”

Why bring all this up now?  Because November is the month to remember all the souls in Purgatory.  We begin with All Saints’ Day (those who have died and are now in Heaven) and then have All Souls’ Day (those who have died and are in Purgatory).  The Church encourages us to pray for the dead, visit cemeteries, and attend Masses to pray for the dead.

A while back, there was a woman I knew very well who knew she was dying.  I asked her how she was doing, and she replied that she was fine.  I told her not to lie, I asked how she is really doing, and what I can do to help her.  Her response surprised me.  She said that when she dies, she wants me to make sure that people don’t saintify her - in other words, correct people who say she is in Heaven now.  She made me promise that I would tell those people to instead pray for her soul and not make that assumption.  Our prayers can help those who have gone before us attain Heaven.  In Purgatory, souls cannot pray for themselves.  When you lose a family member or somebody close to you, you now have a job to do!  That job is to pray for them, to help their souls get to Heaven from Purgatory!  Especially in November, but also in all other months.  Your prayer for a loved one today could be exactly what they need to attain entry into Heaven!

St. Gertrude’s had a great prayer for this:

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.

This week I’ll end with two saint quotes, it’s that important!

Saint Padre Pio says

"We must empty Purgatory with our prayers."

And Saint John Paul II

“Praying for the souls in purgatory is the highest act of supernatural charity”

Pray for your spouse/future spouse

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

October 15, 2023

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101523.cfm

Is 25:6-10a     Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6

Phil 4:12-14, 19-20     Mt 22:1-14

Scripture is full of analogies comparing Heaven to a wedding feast.  St. Paul often calls Christ the bridegroom of the Church.  We see this in today’s readings from sacred scripture.  Jesus’ first miracle occurred at a wedding banquet, emphasizing the sanctity of marriage that the Catholic Church holds tight to.

Last month I mentioned Confession as a forgotten sacrament. We could easily include marriage as a forgotten sacrament as well.  Last year we only had one single sacramental marriage at Holy Family Church - just one. But why have a Sacramental marriage?  I hope to explain that now.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say:

God himself is the author of marriage." The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. 

The Sacrament of marriage is written on our souls by our creator!  If that’s not reason enough I don’t know what is.

Let’s take a trip back to October of 1984.  It’s when I started dating the girl I would marry.  She was a Junior in High School and I was a Freshman at Bridgewater State.  I was working at St. Thomas Aquinas in Bridgewater MA.  It’s where Allison and I met, she was teaching religious ed and I was out mowing the lawns.  Even though I was an all-knowing teenager at the time the Holy Spirit was there, invisibly guiding me along.  Skip ahead about 5 years and we began to plan our wedding and decided we should get married at St. Thomas.  This was one of those unseen nudges from the Holy Spirit also as neither of us were practicing our faith at the time but we went ahead and set up a meeting with the priest anyway. St. Thomas was where we met and where I worked for eight years so we had that nostalgia driving us there too.  From that first meeting with the priest at the rectory we had all the priests at the rectory, four of them, praying for us.  At our rehearsal the night before the wedding Fr. Ed Serena suggested we go to confession.  We did and to be honest, I was truly penitent and glad we went!

We were going to have a full mass and he reminded us we should be in a state of grace not only for the full efficacy of the sacrament of marriage but also to receive Jesus in the eucharist.  The wedding was beautiful and moving.  Our second reading today reminds me of the wedding vows as St. Paul:

I know how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance … I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.

For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.  St Paul also reminds us that it is God who will fully supply whatever we need.

Sadly, at that time our faith was like the seed that fell on the rocky ground, sprang up at once but was soon scorched and withered for lack of roots.  We again stopped going to church soon after our wedding.

It wasn’t until four years later when we decided that we wanted children after all that we came back.  We came back with a passion knowing we had lost time to make up for.  We were asked to be lectors, and Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, sang in the choir (no, not me, only Allison!!), were youth ministers, helped organize Vacation Bible School, and taught religious education and other things at St. Ann’s in Raynham.

Now I’m not saying all this to brag but to illustrate what the Holy Spirit knew far before that all-knowing teenager that I was.  Without that sacramental marriage, we wouldn’t have done all that, we wouldn’t have gone to China to adopt, and I certainly would not be preaching to you today as a deacon.  None of this would have happened, in fact, we might not even still be married today calling it quits during the tougher godless times we went through.

But what can we do now?  We can certainly pray for an increase in the vocation of Catholic marriages.  If you are grandparents or great-grandparents pray for your grandchildren and for their future spouses.  As parents, you should also pray for your children and their future spouses if they are not married.  If you are single start praying immediately for your future spouse, God already knows who they are, ask Him for guidance!  If you are much younger and still think boys or girls still have cooties, well, someday that will change, you can and should pray for your future spouse as well however gross that may sound to you!

Pray often and deeply for a return of the sacrament of marriage - it can save our church, our community, and even our society!

I’ll leave you with these thoughts from St. Josemaría Escrivá: 

“Marriage is to help married people sanctify themselves and others. For this reason, they receive a special grace in the sacrament which Jesus instituted. Those who are called to the married state will, with the grace of God, find within their state everything they need to be holy.”

Pray humbly and persistantly

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

August 20th, 2023

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082023.cfm

Is 56:1, 6-7    Ps 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8

Rom 11:13-15, 29-32   Mt 15:21-28

God is love.  Jesus is love.  When we hear today’s Gospel it doesn’t sound like that’s true, Jesus is using harsh language talking to the Canaanite woman.   As a parent, I love my kids but when they are constantly asking me for things, I can get a little irritated.

We were in bible study many years ago, talking about sin and someone said “Well, when we sin and we are in good company because even Jesus sinned.”  Let me pause to add a VERY important Side note here: Jesus NEVER sinned.  My friend was referring to the time Jesus flipped the money changers table.  That was righteous anger and certainly not a sin.  Let me reiterate, Jesus NEVER sinned.  We have to dig deeper into these questionable parts of scripture.

Let’s do that with today’s Gospel.   A demon is tormenting this poor Canaanite woman’s daughter and Jesus appears to brush her off, even seemingly insulting her so let’s analyze this more.  Let’s take some of the important lines and dig right in.

#1 Then Jesus went from that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon

Tyre and Sidon are important as these are Gentile cities in the southern part of Phoenicia bordering the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.  Jewish people didn’t live there.  Keep that in mind: Jewish people didn’t live there!

#2 And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.”

A Canaanite woman would be a Gentile, someone who is not Jewish and whose daughter is in a terrible situation.  She seems to know that Jesus can do something to help and even calls him “Lord, Son of David.”  The title she uses is an earthly title of power so she’s not fully there yet with who Jesus really is.  Neither are Jesus’ disciples for that matter!  She persists with her pleas and the disciples seem to get aggravated that this Gentile woman is bugging them asking Jesus to send her away.

#3 Jesus said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

All throughout the Old Testament it’s about the Israelites, God’s chosen nation.  Now God has sent His only begotten Son to the lost sheep of Israel - the Jewish people - they are the lost sheep;  NOT the Gentiles!  Yet the woman persists.  “Lord help me!”  Jump back to #1 and remember, Jesus is in a Gentile city.  He knew what he was doing.

#4 Jesus said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

There it is, the line we hardly expect from Jesus!  Remember, Jesus is in a Gentile area.  Who did He expect to encounter here, Jews?  No - Gentiles!  

Jesus didn’t come here to reprimand this woman and tell her He didn’t come to help her because she isn’t Jewish.  No, it’s the exact opposite!  Jesus was teaching His disciples that the ministry is going to open up to far more than the lost sheep of Israel!  The ministry will be for everyone eventually.  He intentionally came to a Gentile area, He knew He would encounter Gentiles!  We see that in our second reading today when Paul tells the Romans how he wants to make his race, the Jewish people jealous:

I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I glory in my ministry in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them.

Much like the Woman at the Well, this was an expected encounter of Jesus with the Canaanite woman.  

#5  Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And the woman's daughter was healed from that hour.

The teaching moment for his disciples is over and Jesus does as the woman requests, he heals her daughter.

Ok, so the disciples were supposed to learn Jesus came down from Heaven for everyone on Earth.  As St. Paul said today:

For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.

Now what can we learn from this?  Let us focus on the Canaanite woman.  The definition of a gentile is “not Jewish.”  That’s us, so what can she teach us?

She can teach us faith:

"Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters."

Her faith is so strong that she knows that she doesn’t need the whole Jesus but just a scrap will be enough to help her.

She can teach us to be humble and persistent when we pray: 

But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, "Lord, help me."

She got on her knees in the dust and dirt and gave Jesus the respect and honor he is worthy of.  When we pray are we humble or do we think Jesus owes us what we are asking?  We need to remain humble and realize it’s Jesus who’s in charge, not us.  That’s where the persistence comes in.  Our prayers may take a bit to be answered, don’t give up!  Keep at it - even if it takes years!

As St. Padre Pio tells us:

“You must always humble yourself lovingly before God and before men because God speaks only to those who are truly humble and He enriches them with His gifts.“

Pray for a Clean Heart

Deacon Kevin Gingras

March 21, 2121, 5th Sunday of Lent

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032121-YearB.cfm

So quite a few years back I took my son out shopping for a gift for his mother. I told him this expedition was to purchase a gift for his mother and nothing else. NO TOYS. We went to the mall and I foolishly parked in a spot where we would have to walk past the toy store on our way to Jordan Marsh. That was enough. He began to petition me for a toy. Again, I lovingly explained what our trip was for. He didn’t stop and his petition escalated to supplication. We are now in Jordan Marsh and his petition turns to frustration and anger with my response. The more he petitioned the more I dug my feet in and would not relent to that behavior. Finally, I decide it’s best we just head back home empty-handed. As I grab hold of him and we slog through Jordan Marsh he is now exclaiming “He’s not my father, he’s not my father” over and over again. I remember the look the lady at the makeup counter gave me. I managed to eke out a small wry smile and look her in the eye and say: “If he wasn’t my son do you think I’d still be holding on to him”? She smiled back and mentioned how he looks just like me and fortunately we were able to leave without security getting involved. Sometimes we feel God is like that, don’t we? No matter how hard we pray we feel he isn’t listening to us. Rest assured, He hears our prayers, all of them. Of course, God, like a good parent, knows how our prayers should be answered, and sometimes we don’t get our petitions and supplications answered as we would like. Jeremiah is prophesying about an answer to the prayers of the Jewish people of that time. The answer will be a Messiah who, through Jeremiah says:

I will be their God, and they shall be my people - All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.

For some of the Jews, especially the leaders, this prayer will not be answered in a way they want and they will put that Messiah to death in their aggravation, exclaiming like my son did that day at the mall: “He’s not my Father”! I’m glad I didn’t suffer the same outcome at the mall that day, I made it home alive! Contrary to what they wanted to believe about God - He is our father. We should have a relationship with him. One of the ways we do that is through prayer. We hear about Jesus praying all the time in the Gospels to his Father God. Our second reading from Hebrews illustrates that well as it states:

He offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

There are several types of prayer that we can use to assist us. Prayers of Supplication/Petition/Intercession - that’s what we just heard about, prayers asking for what we need or for the needs of others. When we read today’s Psalm we hear of another type of prayer, prayers of Contrition or Repentance. King David had committed a mortal sin with Bathsheba and then doubled down on this sin when he sent her husband Uriah to his death. Now King David asks for mercy, for the forgiveness of his sin, and asks for a clean heart. Shouldn’t we ask for a clean heart as well through prayers of repentance? A perfect heart. When the original Ark of the Covenant was built it was to be covered with pure and precious gold and it held the law. The Ark of the New Covenant, who is Mary, had to be perfect as well, conceived without sin to carry Jesus. The first reading from Jeremiah says for this new covenant that God will:

place my law within them and write it upon their hearts

Prayers of Contrition should be our mantra as the Psalmist says “Create a clean heart in me, O God”. Since this new law will also be written upon our hearts we should get them as near as perfect as we possibly can just as the Ark of the Covenant was so carefully crafted and how Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant was conceived without sin? Prayer is one of the most powerful tools in our Catholic Toolbox. We just discussed prayers of Supplication or Petition and prayers of Contrition or Repentance. There are also prayers this homily won’t get into today and they are prayers of Adoration or Blessing and Thanksgiving or Gratitude. Prayer should be how we continue to evolve our relationship with God, our loving Father, and Jesus the Son. It is the Holy Spirit who motivates and guides our prayers if we simply ask. As St. Padre Pio said:

One does not win the battle without prayer. The choice is yours.

Pray for the Dead!

Homily for the Mass of Remembrance, Nov 3, 2019, http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110319.cfm 
The first reading from Wisdom tells us that before God the whole universe is like a grain from a balance or morning dew, something small, seemingly insignificant. Now imagine us, we are like a grain to the earth, which is like a grain to the universe which is like a grain to God. Sounds like we are very insignificant so I think we need to hear this quote from the great Star Wars Jedi master Yoda:

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm? And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.”

Our ally isn’t the Force, our ally is God who has mercy on us all and will overlook our sins if we repent. There is significant hope in those verses from Wisdom, hope in our own salvation and also for those that have gone before us. In our second reading, Paul is writing to Thessalonians and it begins with such an important line.

Brothers and sisters: We always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling.

Paul’s words are so very true for us and for those who have gone before us. We must always pray for them to help them reach that final destination, that final calling of God and that is to spend eternity with God in Heaven. He wants nothing less of us than all to be saints with him at the end of our earthly journey. Even today’s gospel from Luke is about salvation. Zacchaeus and I don’t have a lot in common, he was a wealthy man who extorted money from his subjects, a thief, a cheat and short of stature. I, however, am tall. Yet, Zacchaeus knew there was something about Jesus worth climbing a tree for. Zacchaeus didn’t know what he needed or what Jesus could offer at that time, he probably had just heard some amazing stories about a man named Jesus. What Jesus would give Zacchaeus that day was so much more than he could have imagined. Zacchaeus received Jesus with great joy and furthermore repented, offering to give half of his possessions to the poor, repay the money he stole from others with four times interest and Jesus, who cannot be outdone in generosity, gives Zacchaeus the best gift ever when He says to him:

"Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost."

Do we believe that? Do we believe that Jesus was sent for our salvation? Do we believe that Jesus came to save all of our friends and relatives who have died before us? I certainly do! A wise Directory of Religious Education who was very ill once replied, when I asked if she needed anything replied: "yes, prayers, and pray for me when I am gone, don't assume I'm in Heaven". I thought about that a lot. It made me realize that our job now is to pray for our friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners, and beloved family who have gone on before us and the greatest thing is that these prayers will never be wasted. God doesn’t get our prayers, look at them and think, “Oh this person is in Heaven already” and then throws the prayer in the trash, no, that prayer will be used for somebody else who needs it. Perhaps, that prayer will be what one soul needed to get them into the gates of heaven that same day. When it comes to praying for the departed souls my wife Allison was the one who taught me the necessity of this devotion. Quite a few years ago she started dragging me along to the cemetery visits she does annually. I initially thought this was an odd devotion, cemeteries didn’t scare me, I worked in one for 8 years, but going there for a devotion, well, I have to be honest, it struck me as odd but a lot of things Allison does strike me that way so I just went along. Boy was I wrong! What a powerful devotion this is and it’s so great to know that we can help our departed loved one’s spirits attain eternal glory with God if they have not achieved that yet! The holy souls that were not fully ready for Heaven now reside in Purgatory and they also cannot earn their own way out of Purgatory and that’s where we come in! I’m stealing this directly from Allison now, it’s ok, I have her permission, but here are some ways we can help: ● Attend Mass, as often as you can, from Nov.1-8 to pray for the Holy Souls. ● Visit a cemetery, as often as you can, from Nov. 1-8. My family makes field trips out of this devotion, visiting a different cemetery each day. We will travel (usually on the days that fall during the weekend) to cemeteries uncommon in our area such that honor the military, primarily serve non-Catholics, or just because we thought it was architecturally fascinating. ● Attend Mass Nov. 2, the Feast of All Souls’ to pray for deceased family members, for those who have no one to pray for them, and for all of those who have died this year. ● Pray the rosary during the entire month of November for the Holy Souls. ● Pray the novena for the Holy Souls, written by St. Alphonsus Liguori, followed by the Prayer to Our Suffering Saviour for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Allison also found a prayer she likes to pray while visiting cemeteries as she walks up and down the rows, looking prayerfully at each name while reciting: ● Five Apostle’s Creeds ● One Hail, Holy Queen ● One Our Father (Lord’s Prayer), Hail Mary and Glory Be ● Conclude with the Requiem: Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them, and may they rest in peace. Amen. Not only are you praying for the Holy Souls but you might just hit your step goal while you are at it!

St. Augustine said “One of the holiest works, one of the best exercises of piety that we can practice in this world is to offer sacrifices, alms, and prayer for the dead”

 Confused by Purgatory? Fr. Mike Schmitz Explains All!