Thought for the Day – 6 November – The Communion of Saints and the Souls in Purgatory

Thought for the Day – 6 November – Meditations with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)

The Communion of Saints
and the Souls in Purgatory

“The Communion of Saints is one of the most consoling Doctrines of our religion.
This Dogma assures us, that the Church Militant, Suffering and Triumphant, is one family, whose members are bound together by the bonds of divine charity.
As the Saints in Heaven love and pray for us and for the Souls in Purgatory, so the suffering souls love and intercede for us and so, we should love and pray for them too.
This is a triple harmony of love and prayer, a hymn which rises to the throne of God, from our place of pilgrimage, from the region of expiation, where the separated souls are aflame with the desire to be united with their Creator and from the joyful choirs of Heaven.
The result is the pouring of divine grace on ourselves and on the Souls in Purgatory.

The souls of the dead, therefore, whether they are among the blessed in Heaven, or are expiating their sins in Purgatory, are united to us in that they love us and pray for us.
Between them and us, there is a real but invisible link, an exchange of thought, of affections and of prayer.
There are all the elements of a true and lasting friendship.

This is a very consoling realisation.
We have not lost our dear ones, who have gone to God.
They are looking down on us, thinking of us and waiting for us.
We, in our turn, can think of them, love them still and pray for them, always.

Antonio Cardinal Bacci