Holy Souls

O MASTER, 

TEACH US TO PRAY THE OUR FATHER
FOR THE SOULS IN PURGATOR
(attributed to St. Mechtilde)

The following story, which tells of what happened to a lady, a privileged soul, on 2 February, 1968, the Feast of Candlemas, shows us the very great value and the fruitful use which one may make of the Our Father, composed by St Mechtilde for the relief of the souls in Purgatory.

It took pace in Switzerland, at Hinsiein, a place of pilgrimage to Mary.  On a weekday in winter, it was, the church was almost empty.  Madame Aloisia Lex was praying with some relatives.  Looking towards the High-altar, she noticed the presence of a very old nun, dressed in a very old-fashioned religious habit, dating from a bygone age.  She went towards her and this nun gave her a prayersheet which she put  mechanically into her pocket.  There took place, then, something strange; the entrance door opened suddenly and she beheld an enormous crowd of pilgrims arriving, very poorly dressed, who walked with muffled steps, like phantoms.  A flood of pilgrims, an almost unending line, which came into the church.  A priest stood there and showed them the way.  The country-woman wondered, in astonishment, how this immense crowd was going to have enough space in the church.  She turned to the side, then, for a brief moment, to light a candle.  When she looked behind again, the church was empty as at the beginning.

Completely amazed, Aloisia asked her parents where all the people had gone.  Nobody, however, who had come with her, had noticed the procession of pilgrims and none either had seen the nun.  Not believing her eyes, she sought, in her pocket, the sheet which she had been given. This sheet which she held in her hands, clearly proved to her that she had not imagined everything.  It contained the text of a prayer which in times past, Our Lord had taught to St. Mechtilde, during an apparition.  It was the Our Father, for the Souls in Purgatory.  Each time St. Mechtilde recited this prayer, she saw countless Souls in Purgatory rise up to Heaven.

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OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN...

I beseech You,

O Heavenly Father,

pardon the Souls in Purgatory,

for they did not love You sufficiently,

nor render to You all the honor which is Your due,

due to You their Lord and Father, Who, by pure grace,

have adopted them as Your children.

By their sins, rather,

have they driven You from their souls,

where You none the less wished always to live.

In reparation for these faults,

I offer You the love and veneration

which Your Incarnate Son

showed You all during His earthly life,

and I offer all the acts of penance and satisfaction

which He performed and by which He effaced

and atoned for the sins of men.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME...

I beg You,

O Father Most Good,

pardon the Souls in Purgatory,

for they did not honor, always and fittingly,

Your Holy Name, but often they took It in vain

and proved unworthy of the name "Christian",

by their lives of sin.

In reparation for their faults, I offer to You

all the honor which Your Well-Beloved Son

rendered to Your Name by His words and deeds.

THY KINGDOM COME...

I pray You,

Father Most Good,

pardon the Souls in Purgatory,

for they did not always seek or adore

Your Kingdom with enough fervour and diligence;

this Kingdom, the only  place where

true rest and peace reign.

In reparation for their omissions,

through indifference to do what is good,

I offer You the Most Holy Desire of Your Son,

by which He wished that they also might

become heirs of His Kingdom.

THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN...

I pray You,

Father Most Good,

pardon the Souls in Purgatory,

for they did not always submit their will to Your Will.

In reparation for their disobedience,

I offer You the perfect conformity of the Heart,

full of love, of Your Divine Son with Your Holy Will

and the most profound submission which He showed

in obeying You unto death on the Cross.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD...

I pray You,

Father Most Good,

pardon the Souls in Purgatory, for they

did not always receive the Holy Sacrament

of the Eucharist with enough desire,

but often without contemplation, or love,

or even unworthily, or they neglected to receive It.

In reparation for these faults, I offer You

the outstanding Holiness and the great

contemplation of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

Your Divine Son, addressed to You in favor

of His enemies when He was on the Cross.

FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES,

AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US...

I pray You,

Father Most Good,

pardon the Souls in Purgatory,

all the faults of which they have been guilty

through succumbing to the Seven Capital Sins

and also in not having wished either to love

or pardon their enemies.

In reparation for these faults,

I offer You the outstanding Holiness and

the great contemplation of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

Your Divine Son, addressed to You in favor of

His enemies when He was on the Cross.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION...

I pray You,

Father Most Good,

pardon the Souls in Purgatory,

because too often they did not resist temptations

and the passions, but they followed

the Enemy of all goodness.

In reparation for all these sins,

in thought, word, and deed,

I offer You the glorious victory which

Our Lord won against the world,

as well as His Most Holy Life,

His Work and Sorrows,

His Suffering & His Most Cruel Death.

BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL...

...and from all punishments

through the Infinite Merits

of Your Well-Beloved Son,

and lead us,

as well as the Souls in Purgatory,

into Your Kingdom of eternal glory.

Amen.

In the ”Novena of Surrender to the Will of God”, the ending prayer is:

“O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything”.

I mention this novena, because this current post speaks about ehhh, shall we say, my recent butchering of this novena. Let me explain…

I was in the process of making two apple pies this afternoon. The alarm on my IPhone went off. It reminds me with the prompt “Surrender” to say the highlighted prayer at the top of this post. (I like to think that I have my IPhone serve me and not the other way around.) Anyway, back to my pie making, I was adjusting the oven to the second temperature setting, that I use half-way through the process. I glanced at the IPhone, uttered a quick (un-meaning) prayer, and completed the temperature setting process. The pie already looked absolutely beautiful. The crust was turning a nice soft brownish color around the edges. It would soon be done.

Twenty minutes later the oven timer went off. The pie was done. Juices were bubbling out of the little slits in the top crust. “This has got to be my best yet”, I thought. Now here is where the gentle story about a pie, turns into a tirade of curse words, shouts of grief and anger you would not believe.

(My Italian temper is always with me.)

As I said the timer went off. Normally, I take out together, the pie AND the pizza stone on which the pie is baking. But this was a special occasion and I was making two pies. I needed the stone for the next one. I brought the pie and the stone over to a pie rack and tilted the stone so that the pie would slide off. ….. uhh…. slide off.

Nothing happened. The pie sat right where it was. I tilted it a little more, but still nothing. The pie just sat there, kind of laughing at me. I had the heat gloves on, so I tried nudging it just a little. (The next two minutes I would like to leave out, but you are already aware that something not right is going to happen.)

As I discovered later, some of the bubbling juices had spilled onto the stone and were preventing the pie from moving. Pushing (or nudging, or hitting it with a sledge hammer) wasn’t going to dislodge it from the stone. That’s really not correct, though. The top half of the beautiful crust slid off exposing the cooked apples and juices that were inside. Fortunately, for me, the kitchen door and windows were closed, so my pretense of being a sane, calm, well-balanced neighbour was still intact. The invective that poured from my mouth and my vocal chords would have made an old-time sailor on a deck, proud.

My thoughts went back to my IPhone alarm. Surrender!!! I write this post with egg on my face, and the day’s events proved to me how much, once again, I do not surrender to His will. It is easy to rattle off words, “I surrender myself to You”. But to say them and let them mean “WHATEVER you allow to come to me, or  to happen to me, I accept… that is not so easy. How can I, how can we possibly mean that? It has to be more than words, more than pious platitudes. That surrender has to focus on His love for us, what He means to us, how can we possibly love Him back for ALL that He has done for us. It must focus on our true trust of Him, knowing that His love will not harm us, knowing that everything that happens to us…the good, the bad and the ugly, He allows for some better good, for something more positive, something that we will dearly cherish. Our trust in Him, will bring us into His loving heart. Every negative that we experience, and accept as passing through His will for us, brings us closer to Him, closer to His loving heart.

POSTSCRIPT: For all you bakers out there, there is kind of a happy ending. The pie was fixable. It kind of looks like scar face, but the taste will decide its’ worth.

And lastly, I don’t think I did a good job of accepting the crisis, when it happened. But I can say this, “It led to this post, which is trying to show how to make use of a mishap and strengthen our love of Christ.”

SURRENDER NOVENA

Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo – (A prophet of our time)

On November 19, 1970, Fr. Ruotolo died at the age of 88. Padre Pio said of him, that the “whole of paradise is in your soul”. His life, his words all reflected very high devotion to God and serving Him to the nth degree of his ability. In his profound humility, he was able to hear the words of God. One of the treasures that He learned from the words that Jesus spoke to him was this teaching about total abandonment to God.

Each day of this novena, we hear of what surrender to God’s will requires. In this novena (nine days), Jesus is talking to Fr. Dolindo and also to you and me. The nine days of the novena will be presented over the next three days on TheSteppingStones. Start the novena, and each day, of the nine days, reflect on that particular day’s words. Think and meditate on what that day’s reflection means to you. Pray the conclusion prayer throughout that day. Realize and understand what the words of the conclusion prayer signify for your life.

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Day 1:

Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying?

Leave the care of your affairs to Me and everything will be peaceful.

I say to you in Truth that every act of true, blind complete surrender to Me

produces the effect that you desire and resolves all difficult situations.

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

Day 2:

Surrender to Me does not mean to fret, to be upset, or to lose hope, nor does it mean offering to Me a worried prayer asking Me to follow you and change your worry into prayer. It is against this surrender, deeply against it, to worry, to be nervous and to desire to think about the consequences of anything. It is like the confusion that children feel when they ask their mother to see to their needs, and then try to take care of those needs for themselves so that their childlike efforts get in their mother’s way. Surrender means to placidly close the eyes of your soul, to turn away from thoughts of tribulation and to put yourself in My care, so that only I act. Saying “You take care of it.”

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything! (10 times)

Day 3:

How many things I do when the soul, in so much spiritual and material need turns to Me, looks at Me and says to Me; “You take care of it,” then close its eyes and rests. In pain you pray for Me to act, but that I act in the way you want. You do not turn to Me, instead, you want Me to adapt to your ideas. You are not sick people who ask the doctor to cure you, but rather sick people who tell the doctor how to. So do not act this way, but pray as I taught you in the Our Father:

“Hallowed be thy Name”, that is, be glorified in My need.

“Thy kingdom come”, that is, let all that is in us and in the world be in accord with Your Kingdom. “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”, that is, in our need, decide as You see fit for our temporal and eternal life.

If you say to Me truly: “Thy will be done” which is the same as saying: “You take care of it”. I will intervene with all my Omnipotence, and I will resolve the most difficult situations.

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything! (10 times)

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We speak of surrendering to the Will of God. What are we surrendering, though? Look at ourselves. We are full of emotions, ideals, goals, desires, wishes. We are fearful of sickness, death, loss of income, loss of tangible and intangible things. The list goes on and on and on. All of the above can be good, but to obsess over any one of these can be very harmful to our well-being.

When the loss of, or the fear of losing any one of these causes us to change our way of acting, they have become an obstacle and not a goal. Let me explain. Just as a child knows that the mother loves it, and all is well when she is present. In like manner, we are that child, and God is that parent. We know He loves us. Surrendering to His will is nothing more than trusting Him, trusting His love for us. When we put our trust in Him, His answer to our prayers, may not be what we want, but He knows what is best for us. Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.

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Day 4:

You see evil growing instead of weakening? Do not worry, Close your eyes and say to Me with faith: “Thy will be done, You take care of it.” I say to you that I will take care of it, and that I will intervene as does a doctor and I will accomplish miracles when they are needed.
Do you see that the sick person is getting worse? Do not be upset, but close your eyes and say:
“You take care of it.” I say to you that I will take care of it, and  that there is no medicine more powerful than My loving intervention. By My love, I promise this to you.

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

Day 5:
And when I must lead you on a path different from the one you see, I will prepare you; I will carry you in my arms; I will let you find yourself, like children who have fallen asleep in their mother’s arms, on the other bank of the river. What troubles you and hurts you immensely are your reason, your thoughts and worry, and your desire at all costs to deal with what afflicts you. 

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

Day 6:
You are sleepless; you want to judge everything, direct everything and see to everything and you surrender to human strength, or worse- to men themselves, trusting in their intervention- this is what hinders My words and My views. Oh how much I wish from you this surrender, to help you and how I suffer when I see you so agitated! Satan tries to do exactly this: to agitate you and to remove you from My protection and to throw you into the jaws of human initiative. So, trust only in Me, rest in Me, surrender to Me in everything.

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

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How would you describe yourself? Are you at peace with yourself? With your circumstances? With your surroundings? With your God? Or, do you worry about everything and anything? Do you worry if your work is going to get done? Do you worry if the train is going to be on time? Is the house clean? Did you forget anything? Do you worry about how people are living their lives? Why do we worry so much? What does our worrying accomplish? If we worry a little or a lot, does the problem go away because we are worrying? The more we worry, does the problem gets resolved any sooner? Worry is a waste of our energy. It accomplishes nothing.

We are fearful of something. And so we worry. But what is that something that has a strangle hold on us? I believe we can honestly say that it is fear of not having things OUR way, in OUR best interests. If the train isn’t on time, I will be late. I want the work to get done. If the house isn’t clean, what will people think about me? Not wanting to be uncomfortable, we fear that something bad will happen that will affect us negatively. How many bad things are there in this world that we don’t worry about? And why don’t we worry? Those bad things don’t affect us directly. Do you see where this is going? We think the world revolves around us. We are at its center. But we are not. Jesus is telling us throughout this novena, “Surrender yourself to me, I will take care of it.” But for that to happen, we have to relinquish our stranglehold on our self-reliance. Trust Him.

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Day 7:

I perform miracles in proportion to your full surrender to me and to your not thinking of yourselves. I sow treasure troves of graces when you are in the deepest poverty. No person of reason, no thinker, has ever performed miracles, not even among the saints. He does divine works whosoever surrenders to God. So don’t think about it anymore, because your mind is acute and for you it is very hard to see evil and to trust in Me and to not think of yourself. Do this for all your needs, do this all of you and you will see great continual silent miracles. I will take care of things, I promise this to you

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

Day 8:

Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away on the flowing current of My grace; close your eyes and do not think of the present, turning your thoughts away from the future just as you would from temptation. Repose in Me, believing in My goodness, and I promise you by My love that if you say “You take care of it.” I will take care of it all; I will console you, liberate you and guide you.

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

Day 9:

Pray always in readiness to surrender, and you will receive from it great peace and great rewards, even when I confer on you the grace of immolation, of repentance and of love. Then what does suffering matter? It seems impossible to you? Close your eyes and say with all your soul, “Jesus, you take care of it.” Do not be afraid, I will take care of things and you will bless My name by humbling yourself. A thousand prayers cannot equal one single act of surrender, remember this well. There is no novena more effective than this: “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything!”

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

SURRENDER NOVENA :-