The Saints and the Souls in Purgatory

The Catholic faith professes, in the Apostles' Creed, “the communion of saints”. This formula designates the mystical unity of all the baptised in Jesus Christ, living and dead alike, forming one Body of which Christ is the head^[1]. Traditional teaching divides this Body into three states:

• the Church Militant: the faithful still on pilgrimage on earth;
• the Church Suffering: the souls undergoing purification in Purgatory;
• the Church Triumphant: the blessed who contemplate God face to face in heavenly glory.

This threefold division, formalised in Latin as Ecclesia militans, Ecclesia patiens and Ecclesia triumphans, was taken up in Pius XII's great encyclical on the Mystical Body^[2]. Vatican II confirmed it without the medieval vocabulary but with the same substance: “For, until the Lord comes in His majesty with all His angels, and death is destroyed and all things are made subject to Him, some of His disciples continue their pilgrimage on earth; others have finished this life and are still being purified; others again are in glory, clearly contemplating God Himself, One and Three, as He is. Yet all of us, in different degrees and in different ways, share in the same charity toward God and neighbour, and we all sing the same hymn of glory to our God”^[3].

“Our union with those who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted; indeed, according to the constant faith of the Church, it is reinforced by the sharing of spiritual goods.” — Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium § 49^[4]

The communion of saints is therefore not a devout word: it is the dogmatic affirmation that the death of the baptised does not break their belonging to the Body of Christ. The companion article The communion of saints and intercession sets out the fundamental doctrine (Scripture, councils, the distinction latria / dulia / hyperdulia). The present dossier presents its operative dimension: how this communion is lived concretely, in both directions.

Why God Willed This Interdependence

The Church stresses that this circulation is neither superfluous nor incidental. It reveals God's plan for His family. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains it in simple terms: God could have saved humanity directly; He preferred to make the baptised secondary causes cooperating in His work^[5]. Salvation is like creation: God is not content to do everything alone; He associates His creatures with His fruitfulness. Saint Augustine summed it up: “He who made you without you will not save you without you”^[6].

“The saints in Heaven help us; the souls in Purgatory need our help. God willed it so that we would need one another.”^[7]

This logic of supernatural interdependence explains the central paradox of the communion of saints: we both need the help of the blessed and bear the responsibility of intervening for the souls in purification. Neither beggars nor supermen, the faithful on earth are brothers and sisters of the whole family of Heaven.

The word saint has, in Catholic tradition, two distinct meanings that must be carefully distinguished to avoid practical confusion.

Canonised Saint and Anonymous Saint

In the strict canonical sense, a saint is a deceased person whom the Church, by a solemn act of beatification then canonisation, infallibly declares to be already living in heavenly glory, and whom she proposes as a universal model and public intercessor. Canonisation presupposes a theological inquiry into heroic virtues, the absence of doctrinal obstacles, and usually the recognition of at least two miracles attributed to the intercession of the deceased — one for beatification, one for canonisation^[8].

In the broad traditional sense, saint designates every baptised person already enjoying Heaven. Saint Paul called “saints” all the living Christians of Rome, Ephesus or Corinth (Rom 1:7; Eph 1:1; Phil 1:1); all the more those who have attained the beatific vision. The feast of All Saints celebrates precisely these countless anonymous saints, never raised upon an altar but already glorified in the light of God: obscure labourers, mothers of families, peasants, hidden religious.

“All apples are fruit, but not all fruit are apples”^[9]: all canonised saints are in Paradise, but not all the saints in Paradise are canonised.

This distinction has a practical consequence: to invoke a deceased person as a certain intercessor, canonisation is the Church's public guarantee. To invoke a loved one whose salvation we hope for, we may pray with him if he is in Paradise and for him if he is in Purgatory — and when in doubt, we do both at once.

One's Baptismal Patron Saint

The Latin tradition wills that each baptised person receive the name of a canonised saint, who becomes his personal heavenly patron^[10]. The patron saint is both a model of life whose personality, virtues and struggles can enlighten the baptised person, and a particular intercessor watching over the life of the one who bears his name. The practice goes back to the first centuries; it is rooted in the patristic conviction that Heaven is not populated by strangers but by personal friends.

Knowing one's patron saint — his life, his writings if any, his struggles, the date of his feast — is part of basic Christian education. The reference Catholic site nominis.cef.fr, run by the Conference of Bishops of France, gives for each first name the saints who bear it, their biography and the corresponding liturgical date.

The “Specialist” Saints: The Tradition of Patronages

Besides one's baptismal patron, Catholic tradition has gradually attributed to particular saints the protection of this or that domain: place, trade, illness, situation in life. These patronages are not magical: they are rooted in the very life of the saint, who is believed to continue in Heaven the mission he exercised on earth.

The best-known patronages are innumerable. Saint Rita of Cascia (1381-1457), a mistreated wife and mother of two sons who died violently before her, is invoked for desperate causes; her life of extreme patience and her almost systematic granting of prayers have made her one of the most prayed-to saints in the West. Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231), a Franciscan, is patron of lost objects since the medieval account in which, through his prayer, a novice returned a precious manuscript he had stolen. Saint Christopher, the legendary giant said to have carried the Christ Child on his shoulders across a river, is patron of travellers. Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop of Geneva who used the newborn printing press for preaching, is patron of journalists; Saint Luke, physician and Evangelist, of doctors; Saint Apollonia, martyred at Alexandria by having her teeth torn out, of those suffering with their teeth; Saint Lucy, martyred by enucleation according to tradition, of those suffering with their eyes.

“You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much.” — Matthew 25:21^[11]

These patronages express a deep conviction: the mission God entrusts to each baptised person does not end at death; it continues in glory. The saints carry on in Heaven what they began on earth, on the scale of all humanity. This intuition is not medieval folklore: it explicitly runs through the writings of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), who died at 24 promising:

“I feel above all that my mission is about to begin, my mission of making the good God loved as I love Him, of giving my little way to souls. If the good God hears my desires, my Heaven will be spent on earth until the end of the world. Yes, I want to spend my Heaven doing good on earth.” — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Last Conversations, 17 July 1897^[12]

The Catholic doctrine of the saints' posthumous mission is therefore nothing like superstitious automatism; it is a free and personal collaboration in divine providence.

How to Cultivate Friendship with a Saint Concretely

Spiritual friendship is nourished like other friendships: through knowledge, familiarity and trust. Several proven means are within every faithful person's reach.

Reading the saint's life. The Pray 15 Days with... collection (Nouvelle Cité) offers, for most major saints, two weeks of short meditations accompanied by excerpts from their writings. Canon Jean-Antoine Guérin's Petits Bollandistes (1872 edition, 14 volumes plus 3 of index and lives of Jesus and Mary) remains the most complete French hagiographical encyclopaedia, now fully digitised.

Making a novena. A novena is a prayer spread over nine consecutive days addressed to a saint for a precise intention. The number nine recalls the nine days of waiting of the Apostles between the Ascension and Pentecost (Acts 1:14). Novenas to Saint Rita, Saint Joseph, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux or Saint Anthony of Padua enjoy wide popular diffusion and a great many testimonies of answered prayer.

Reading the saint's writings. Where the saint has left works — Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Saint Padre Pio, Sister Faustina — direct reading is the shortest way to enter into his spiritual personality and awaken familiarity.

Asking for signs. Catholic tradition has never feared the tangible signs a saint may give. Marcel Van (1928-1959), the young Vietnamese Redemptorist brother whose cause for beatification has been open in Rome since 1997, testifies at length in his Conversations to an almost conversational intimacy with Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, from whom he said he received precise words of consolation and direction^[13]. One day when he felt spiritually abandoned, he reports this interior word:

“Ah! You are feeling great disgust? Do not complain. Rest in peace with me. Little Jesus has gone to visit France. Wait for Him patiently, He will return with you. Rest in peace. I will hide your sadness.” — Saint Thérèse of Lisieux to Marcel Van^[14]

This familiarity with the saints, far from detracting from direct prayer to God, enriches it: “Jesus is the Way; the saints are those who have walked it.”^[15] The saints do not turn us away from Christ; they are His experienced companions, elder brothers showing how to walk.

The Case of Those Who Died “in the Odour of Sanctity”

A frequent pastoral question concerns deceased persons whose holiness the Church has not (yet) officially recognised, but whose spiritual life, writings or fruits manifest a strong moral probability that they are already in Paradise. Such is the case of Marcel Van, Gabrielle Bossis, Luisa Piccarreta, Marthe Robin, Chiara Corbella Petrillo, and countless priests and religious known locally. (Carlo Acutis, long cited in this list, was canonised on 7 September 2025 by Pope Leo XIV — a celebration initially scheduled for 27 April 2025.)

Theology distinguishes here between two kinds of act. As long as the Church has not concluded her official inquiry, they may not receive public liturgical worship. But private devotion — personal invocation, requests for intercession, shared testimonies — is not only licit; it is even one of the means by which the reputation of sanctity rises to Rome and triggers the opening of a process. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints explicitly encourages this private piety, provided it does not prejudge the Church's final judgement.

For ordinary deceased loved ones — a parent, a friend, a neighbour — Catholic prudence is the reverse: presume neither their salvation nor despair of it, but pray for them as if they were in Purgatory, and gratefully welcome any signs of their intercession if they have already reached Heaven. This twofold attitude avoids both the angelism that mechanically canonises all the dead and the despair that abandons them.

Purgatory is, in Catholic doctrine, the state of final purification of the elect who die in God's grace and friendship but are not yet perfectly purified to enter the full beatific vision. The separate article Purgatory presents the complete doctrinal dossier (scriptural foundations, patristic attestation, the conciliar definitions of Florence in 1439 and Trent in 1563, mystical testimonies, Protestant objections and their refutation). Only what sheds light on the practice of suffrages is retained here.

Catechetical Definition

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives the reference definition in three dense paragraphs:

“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.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church § 1030^[16]

The next paragraph adds: “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (CCC § 1031)^[17]. And § 1032 recalls the immemorial practice: “From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead”^[18].

Three features must be held together: (a) the souls in Purgatory are assuredly saved — this is not a second chance after hell; (b) they undergo a real purification; (c) the living can help them through suffrages. These three affirmations, set aside by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, were solemnly reaffirmed at the Council of Trent, Session XXV (decree of 3 December 1563)^[19].

The Fire of Purgatory Is the Fire of Divine Love

The medieval image of souls burned by a punitive fire has often been caricatured and dismissed as outdated. Yet the Catholic mystical tradition has always given it a profounder reading: the fire that purifies in Purgatory is nothing other than the love of God Himself, consuming in the soul everything not yet worthy of Him.

“The fire that will one day be united to the soul to glorify it and the fire that first invades it to purify it are one and the same fire of love.” — Saint John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, stanza I (c. 1585)^[20]

Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510), in her famous Treatise on Purgatory dictated to her intimates around 1510, is the reference spiritual authority on this intuition. She insists on the absolute necessity of purification in the face of God's holiness:

“On God's part, paradise is open; whoever wishes may enter. For God is all mercy; He remains turned toward us, arms open to receive us into His glory. But on the other hand, since this divine essence is of such purity and brightness, beyond anything one could imagine, the soul that had in itself an imperfection even as slight as a tiny straw would throw itself into a thousand hells rather than find itself with that stain in the presence of the divine majesty. So, seeing that purgatory was made to remove these stains, it throws itself into it. It sees that it is a great mercy for it that this means of removing this hindrance exists.” — Saint Catherine of Genoa, Treatise on Purgatory, ch. 9^[21]

This doctrine of Purgatory as mercy — not as a vindictive prison but as graciously offered access to full union with God — was taken up verbatim by Benedict XVI in his encyclical Spe Salvi of 30 November 2007. The theologian Joseph Ratzinger identifies the purifying fire with Christ Himself in the encounter of the particular judgement:

“Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze vanishes all falsehood. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, to make us become truly ourselves. […] Yet it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, allowing us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.” — Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi § 47^[22]

The turning point is decisive: Purgatory is not a place between Heaven and hell, but an experience — the encounter with the risen Christ which transforms the soul by consuming whatever still resists His love. Saint Catherine of Genoa had expressed it in two sentences:

“The souls in Purgatory have at once the greatest joy and the greatest suffering, neither hindering the other.” — Saint Catherine of Genoa, Treatise on Purgatory, ch. 14^[23]

Why Purgatory Is the Ordinary Path

The Church's classical teaching, attested by mystics of every age, is that most saved souls pass through Purgatory. Canonisation does not only give the Church the assurance that a deceased person is in Heaven; it also declares, implicitly, that he had no need of this purification, or that he completed it before death.

“Of so many souls, I have seen only three go straight to Heaven without passing through Purgatory.” — Saint Teresa of Avila, Life Written by Herself, ch. XXXVIII^[24]

Abbé Martin Berlioux, whose meditation manual A Month with Our Friends, the Souls in Purgatory — Knowing Them, Praying for Them, Delivering Them (first edition 1880, reprinted several times by the Éditions de l'Étoile Notre-Dame de Montligeon) remains a French-language classic, posed the question differently:

“Who could flatter himself that he will die pure enough to have nothing to expiate?” — Abbé Martin Berlioux, A Month with Our Friends the Souls in Purgatory, 2nd day^[25]

The pastoral consequence is clear: think about Purgatory from today without morbidity. First by aiming straight at Heaven through conversion and holiness, then by not forgetting that our deceased loved ones statistically need our prayer — and that we in turn will most likely pass through it.

“My daughter, it is true that confession remits sins. However, the surest and most certain means of escaping purgatory is love. Love must be the soul's predominant passion: love in thoughts, love in words, love in actions. Everything, absolutely everything, must be enveloped in love! Thus, uncreated Love, finding the soul to be totally love, absorbs created love into Himself. In fact, purgatory does nothing but fill the voids of love present in the soul. And when these voids are filled, the soul goes to Heaven. If there are no such voids in the soul, it has nothing to do in purgatory.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 8, 14 July 1907^[26]

This word of Jesus to the mystic of Corato (1865-1947) sums up traditional teaching without subtracting any of its rigour: Purgatory is not a fatality; it is the completion of a work that love could have accomplished on earth. Note that “living in the Divine Will” does not mean merely doing God's will: it means forming but one will with Him, whose act becomes divine — a freely received gift. See Doing God's Will and Living in the Divine Will: What Is the Difference?.

Catholic mystical teaching allows us to enter, prudently, into the spiritual psychology of the souls undergoing purification. Three traits dominate all concordant descriptions: an extreme joy, an extreme suffering, and a powerlessness to shorten their own wait.

Joy: They Are Saved and They Know It

The souls in Purgatory have already passed the particular judgement. They have seen God for an instant, love Him with a pure love, and know with certainty that they will possess Him for eternity. This certainty is itself an incomparable joy. Catherine of Genoa repeats: “I do not believe there can be found a contentment comparable to that of a soul in purgatory, except that of the saints in paradise”^[27]. The more the rust of sin is consumed, the more the soul is exposed to the divine radiance, the more its joy grows.

Suffering: Longing for God

But this joy is pierced by a proportionate suffering to the love that has not yet received everything. The souls in Purgatory know that God exists and that they are not yet in Him. They desire the beatific vision with a vehemence unimaginable here below. Saint Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) received a famous vision of it related in her Diary (§ 20):

“I saw my guardian angel, who ordered me to follow him. In a moment I found myself in a smoky place, full of flames, where there was a multitude of suffering souls praying fervently, but to no avail for themselves; only we can help them. The flames that burned them did not touch me. […] And I asked these souls what their greatest suffering was. They answered me with one accord that it was longing for God.” — Saint Faustina Kowalska, Diary § 20 (1933)^[28]

The vision highlights three elements that rejoin Catherine of Genoa's analysis: the powerlessness of souls to help themselves, the primacy of the help of the living, and the identification of the principal suffering with the provisional deprivation of God. Saint Augustine summed it up:

“This fire of purgatory, though it is not eternal, is nevertheless more dreadful than anything man can suffer in this life.” — Saint Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 37, no. 3 (c. 415)^[29]

Powerlessness and Solitude

The third characteristic is the most poignant. Souls can pray, love, desire God, but they can no longer merit anything for themselves. The time of merit is earthly life. In Purgatory, the soul is totally dependent on what the living and the communion of saints will do for it. This interdependence is precisely what seals the communion of saints as a living reality, not a theological abstraction.

“Who could affirm that there is no one of his family or loved ones in Purgatory?” — Abbé Martin Berlioux, A Month with Our Friends the Souls in Purgatory, introduction^[30]

Berlioux's question is not rhetorical: it is pastoral. It aims to awaken a sense of responsibility toward the deceased to whom we owe gratitude, affection or reparation.

Mary, Star of the Sea of the Souls in Purgatory

The same vision of Faustina attributes to the Virgin Mary a particular role with the souls in purification:

“I saw the Holy Virgin, visiting the souls in Purgatory. They call her ‘Star of the Sea’. She brings them relief.” — Saint Faustina Kowalska, Diary § 20 (1933)^[31]

This devotion to Our Lady, Help of the Souls in Purgatory or Liberator of Souls is ancient. It found its principal shrine expression at the shrine of Montligeon in the Orne (see below, the section on Holy Mass), whose official title is Our Lady, Liberator of the Souls in Purgatory.

Catholic teaching on suffrages is not a devotional option reserved for pious minds. The Catechism teaches it as an obligation of charity inherited from the first centuries:

“From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church § 1032^[32]

The word suffrages, from the Latin suffragium (“support, favourable vote, intercession”), designates every action performed by the living for the souls in Purgatory to shorten their purification. It is an ancient vocabulary that the liturgy has preserved. 2 November, Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, and the whole month of November are liturgically dedicated to it. But this remembrance must not be restricted to a single day: spiritual tradition invites us to pray all year round for the departed, especially our loved ones.

Abbé Louvet's Reproach

Abbé Louis-Eugène Louvet, a French missionary in Cochinchina who became the author of a reference work on Purgatory (Purgatory According to the Revelations of the Saints, 1st edition 1879, 3rd revised edition 1892), pointed in the 19th century to a failing that remains current:

“Our vanity consoles itself with pompous and theatrical funerals… As for the immortal and accountable soul, it is left face to face with its Judge, without Masses, without prayers. Everything for the corpse, nothing for the soul.” — Abbé Louis-Eugène Louvet, Purgatory According to the Revelations of the Saints, preface to the 3rd edition, 1892, p. XII^[33]

This reproach is not merely a pastoral remark: it denounces a silent but profound inversion. Money is spent on the coffin, the civil ceremony, flowers and the family meal — but the soul of the deceased itself, which needs it, is forgotten. Catholic tradition proposes instead that the most useful funeral expense is the celebration of Masses for the repose of the soul.

The Church traditionally identifies five principal means by which the living can help the souls in Purgatory. They are neither equivalent in power nor mutually exclusive. Holy Mass has been held, since the Fathers, as the suffrage par excellence; the others surround or prolong it.

1. Prayer — The Most Accessible Means

Private prayer is the suffrage most within every faithful person's reach. It can take the most diverse forms: rosary or Chaplet of Divine Mercy offered for the intentions of the departed; penitential psalms, especially Psalm 130 (De profundis — “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord”) which the Latin tradition recited daily for the dead; brief orisons and invocations.

A particularly widespread prayer is the one tradition attributes to Saint Gertrude of Helfta (c. 1256-c. 1302), the Cistercian Benedictine mystic. The traditional account reports that Jesus promised her that at each recitation, a great number of souls would be freed from Purgatory. The classical formula:

“Eternal Father, I offer You the Most Precious Blood of Your Divine Son Jesus, in union with all the Masses celebrated today throughout the world, for the souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal Church, for those in my own home and in my family. Amen.”^[34]

This prayer remains devoutly widespread. One pastoral nuance recalled by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must however be kept in mind: no mystical promise attributing a fixed number of freed souls to a given formula is part of the deposit of faith. The prayer remains very powerful in itself; exact numbers belong to the mystery of God's mercy^[35]. This takes nothing away from the practice: pray with confidence, without keeping count.

A striking testimony is given to us by the mystic Luisa Piccarreta. One of her former confessors appeared to her one day to thank her after an intercession — “plunging oneself into the Divine Will” is to be understood here in the sense defined above (one single will with God, a divine act, a free gift):

“Once, you made a beautiful intercession for me. If you knew the good you did me, the refreshment I felt and the years you took off me! You plunged yourself into the Divine Will and you took its Power, the immensity of its Love, the immense value of the Sufferings of the Son of God and the divine qualities, and you poured them over me. I was then plunged into the bath of Love of the Supreme Being, into the bath of His Beauty, into the bath of the Blood of Jesus and into the bath of all the divine qualities. Who could say the good that followed for me? Do it again for me, do it again for me!” — Account of the deceased confessor to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 12, 14 March 1919^[36]

This account, which must be received as testimony of private revelation and not as dogma, illustrates classical teaching: we can offer the departed the infinite merits of Christ's Passion and the accumulated merits of the Virgin and the saints, in addition to our poor prayers. This offering passes through the universal Mediation of Christ and the maternal Mediation of Mary; it in no way diminishes the gratuity of salvation but distributes its fruits.

2. Holy Mass — The Supreme Suffrage

The whole Catholic tradition, from the Fathers to modern mystics, designates the Eucharistic sacrifice as the most powerful means the living can offer the departed. The Catechism teaches:

“The Eucharistic sacrifice is also offered for the faithful departed who ‘have died in Christ but are not yet wholly purified,’ so that they may be able to enter into the light and peace of Christ.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church § 1371^[37]

This doctrine, inherited from the first centuries, is attested in Tertullian as early as the end of the 2nd century (De Corona III, 3: “For the dead, we make offerings on the anniversary of their heavenly birth”) and in Saint Augustine at the beginning of the 5th. The classic pastoral turning point remains the testament of Saint Monica (died at Ostia in 387), reported by her son in Book IX of the Confessions:

“Bury my body anywhere; let that give you no concern. I ask only that you remember me at the altar of the Lord, wherever you may be.” — Saint Monica to her sons Augustine and Navigius, reported by Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book IX, ch. 11, § 27 (c. 397-401)^[38]

Contempt for funeral honours goes hand in hand with the insistent request to be present at the altar. The dying woman knows that the sacrifice of Christ made present in the Eucharist is what can truly reach her in her state of eternity. This intuition has never varied in the Catholic Church.

The Exchange of the Body of Christ

A famous account, reported by Saint John-Marie Vianney (1786-1859), the Curé of Ars, illustrates the power attributed to Holy Mass for the liberation of the souls in Purgatory:

“A holy priest learned from God that his deceased friend was suffering horribly in Purgatory. He offered Holy Mass for him. At the moment of the Consecration, holding the Host between his fingers, he said: ‘Holy and Eternal Father, let us make an exchange: You hold my friend's soul in Purgatory, and I hold the Body of Your Son in my hands. Deliver my friend, and I offer You Your Son with all the merits of His Death and Passion.’ At the elevation, he saw his friend's soul, radiant with glory, ascending to Heaven. My children, when we wish to deliver from Purgatory a soul dear to us, let us do likewise: He will be able to refuse us nothing.” — Saint John-Marie Vianney, catechetical preaching, reported by Abbé Alfred Monnin, The Curé of Ars — Life of M. Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney, Paris, Charles Douniol, 1868, volume II^[39]

This passage, carefully studied by theologians, is not a magic formula. It teaches that the faithful person, united to the priest's oblation, can spiritually offer Christ's sacrifice for his departed loved ones. Every Mass one attends can thus be inwardly offered for the souls in Purgatory.

Saint Bernard's Vision at Tre Fontane

Another spiritual tradition is associated with the Roman shrine of Tre Fontane (Abbey of the Three Fountains, at Acque Salvie, south of Rome, where Saint Paul was beheaded). In 1138, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was celebrating a Mass for the dead there in the presence of Pope Innocent II. Tradition reports that he saw a long ladder between earth and heaven on which angels escorted souls from Purgatory toward the beatific vision, in a continual coming and going. The little church was henceforth called Santa Maria Scala Coeli — Our Lady of the Ladder to Heaven^[40]. The episode inspired centuries of Christian funerary iconography and remains one of the classic mystical references on the power of Mass for the departed.

Henry Suso and Mass Against Good Works

Blessed Henry Suso (1295-1366), the Rhineland Dominican, recounts the following story in his autobiographical writings. He and a Dominican companion had mutually promised that, at the death of one, the other would offer for him two Masses a week for a year. The friend died. Suso prayed much, fasted, performed penances — but forgot the Masses. The deceased appeared to him and reproached him for his unfaithfulness. Suso defended himself by listing his prayers and good works. The deceased answered him — as recounted by Abbé Martin Berlioux in A Month with Our Friends the Souls in Purgatory (1880) — that all that was nothing compared to holy Mass for extinguishing the flames that burned him^[41].

Suso immediately had several Masses celebrated by other priests. A few days later, the friend appeared to him in a great light, his face radiant, and thanked him for his liberation. The episode has become emblematic: no private devotion, however fervent, replaces the sacramental presence of Christ offered.

Gregorian Series and Novena of Masses

Two practices have historically stood out above all others:

• the novena of Masses — nine Masses celebrated on nine consecutive days for a single soul;
• the Gregorian series — thirty Masses celebrated on thirty consecutive days, without interruption, for a single soul.

The series goes back to Pope Saint Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), who had it celebrated for a monk of his monastery, Brother Justus, who died in disgrace because three gold coins were found in his cell after his death, in violation of the vow of poverty. On the thirtieth day, Justus appeared to his biological brother Copiosus to announce his liberation^[42]. The account appears in chapter 55 of Book IV of Saint Gregory's Dialogues (c. 593).

“See to it that for thirty days the holy Sacrifice is offered for him, and that no day passes without the holy Victim being immolated for his intention.” — Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, Book IV, ch. 55 (c. 593)^[43]

Pope Benedict XIV praised this custom in 1752, and the Congregation of Indulgences in 1889 confirmed its official approval^[44] — without thereby making it an automatic guarantee of liberation: the decision remains God's. Today, the series may be requested in most monasteries and abbeys; a suitable offering accompanies it, both as support for the community and as an expression of the seriousness of the undertaking.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Montligeon

The shrine of Our Lady of Montligeon, in the Orne (diocese of Séez), is the only shrine in the world specifically dedicated to the liberation of the souls in Purgatory. It was founded by Abbé Paul Buguet (1843-1918), parish priest of La Chapelle-Montligeon from 1878 to 1918, after a series of family bereavements: his brother crushed by a church bell in 1876, his two nieces dead of grief the following year. On 4 October 1884, the Bishop of Séez, Bishop François-Marie Trégaro, approved the foundation of the Expiatory Work for the Deliverance of the Souls in Purgatory^[45]. The first stone of the basilica was blessed on 4 June 1896. The work developed rapidly and today counts hundreds of thousands of enrolled members on five continents.

The perpetual Mass of Montligeon is celebrated every morning for all enrolled persons — living and dead. Enrolment is for life, at a modest cost (a few euros per deceased person). It is one of the simplest and most continuous ways of offering Eucharistic intercession for one's departed loved ones. The resulting fraternity of prayer ranks among the oldest modern Catholic confraternities devoted to Purgatory.

3. Indulgences — Sponging Away the Temporal Debt

An indulgence is, in Catholic doctrine, “the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, a remission which a properly disposed faithful person obtains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints”^[46].

The Catechism offers a simple analogy. A child breaks a window. His father forgives him — but still asks him to make repair. Forgiveness of the fault is immediate (sacrament of reconciliation); the temporal punishment linked to the disorder caused remains to be paid. That is precisely what Purgatory completes. The indulgence intervenes to sponge away all or part of this debt by drawing on the infinite merits of Christ and the treasury of the Church (saints, sacrifices, accepted prayers).

An indulgence may be partial (remission of part of the debt) or plenary (total remission). A plenary indulgence may be applied to oneself or to a soul in Purgatory, but never to another living person (for the latter must personally acquire his indulgence through interior disposition).

The Three Usual Conditions for a Plenary Indulgence

To obtain a plenary indulgence, the faithful person must perform the prescribed indulgenced work and fulfil the three usual conditions:

1. go to sacramental confession (in the days before or after the work);
2. receive Communion on the day itself or within the week;
3. pray for the intentions of the Holy Father (in practice: an Our Father and a Hail Mary).

Added to this is an interior requirement: to be detached from all sin, even venial. This condition is so rigorous that many spiritual authors teach that it is better to multiply one's efforts: what does not result in a plenary indulgence remains a considerable partial one, and interior disposition progresses as one goes.

Four Ordinary Works Granting a Plenary Indulgence

The official manual of indulgences, the Enchiridion indulgentiarum, whose 4th Latin edition was published in July 1999 by the Apostolic Penitentiary^[47], lists the indulgenced works. Four ordinary works, accessible all year round, grant a plenary indulgence (once a day):

• praying the Way of the Cross before an erected Way of the Cross;
• adoring the Blessed Sacrament for at least thirty minutes;
• reading (or listening to) Sacred Scripture for at least thirty minutes;
• praying the rosary as a family, in a church or oratory, or in a religious community.

These works are not rare: they belong to ordinary Christian life. Joined to the three conditions, they allow an attentive faithful person to help a soul in Purgatory every day. This possibility, little known, is one of the finest concrete applications of the communion of saints.

Divine Mercy Sunday

Another plenary indulgence, instituted by Saint John Paul II in the wake of the private revelations to Saint Faustina, is attached to the Sunday after Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday). To the three usual conditions is added participation in acts of piety in honour of Divine Mercy — at least the recitation, before the Blessed Sacrament exposed or kept in the tabernacle, of the Our Father, the I Believe in God, and the invocation “Merciful Jesus, I trust in You”^[48]. This indulgence rests explicitly on Jesus' promise to Faustina:

“Every soul that approaches confession and Holy Communion will receive complete forgiveness of its faults and remission of their punishment. On this day all the divine springs through which grace flows are opened.” — Jesus to Saint Faustina Kowalska, Diary § 699 (1934)^[49]

Jubilee Indulgences

During holy years or jubilees (every 25 years as a rule, plus extraordinary jubilees), Rome opens plenary indulgences attached to a pilgrimage to a jubilee shrine, accompanied by a work of corporal or spiritual mercy. The Jubilee Year 2025, opened by Pope Francis for the 25th anniversary of the Great Jubilee 2000, allowed millions of faithful to receive this grace. The specific article Indulgences details the historical and theological mechanism.

4. Almsgiving — The Charity That Makes Reparation

Since the first centuries, Christians have made gifts to the poor “for the repose of the soul” of their dead. This practice, attested by the Book of Tobit in the Old Testament (“For almsgiving delivers from death, and it is this which purges away every sin” — Tob 12:9) and taken up by the Fathers, expresses a profound intuition: charity toward the living touches the Heart of God in favour of the departed who no longer have the possibility of loving through deeds.

Saint John Chrysostom (c. 349-407) preached to his faithful at Antioch:

“Let us help them and remember them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifices, how can we doubt that the departed receive some consolation from our offerings on their behalf?” — Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 41, 5 (c. 392)^[50]

The Catechism, in § 1032, explicitly includes “almsgiving” among the four suffrages cited.

Concretely: a gift to a charitable work, a shrine, a seminary, a mission; occasional help to a neighbour in need; support for a bereaved family — all these acts can be inwardly offered for the departed we carry in our hearts. This secret intention does not duplicate ordinary charity; it directs it.

5. The Offering of Sufferings and the Heroic Act of Charity

The fifth suffrage is doubtless the deepest, for it engages the very flesh of the faithful person. Every suffering — illness, family trial, fatigue, injustice endured, fasting, voluntary privation, the ordinary contrarieties of the day — acquires redemptive value if it is consciously united to Christ's Passion and offered for the departed.

Saint Paul wrote to the Colossians, speaking of his own imprisonment:

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.” — Saint Paul, Colossians 1:24^[51]

This doctrine, called co-redemption or co-passion, takes nothing away from the unique perfection of the sacrifice of Calvary — “it is finished” (Jn 19:30) — but affirms that the baptised can and must apply this sacrifice to the concrete situations of their time, including the liberation of the souls in Purgatory.

The Heroic Act of Charity

For the most generous souls, Catholic tradition has devised an extreme step: the Heroic Act of Charity for the Souls in Purgatory. It consists in offering in a block, without reserve and without return, all the meritorious works one will perform until death — prayers, fasts, communions, indulgences — for the souls in Purgatory, renouncing even the right to apply them to oneself after one's own death.

The act is neither a vow nor a renunciation of personal salvation: it simply deposits the available merits in the hands of the Virgin Mary, who will distribute them to the souls she wishes. The faithful person remains free to perform any acts of piety he wishes; he merely entrusts Mary with their destination.

This practice was introduced by Father Gaspar Olivieri (Theatine, sometimes spelled Oliden) at the beginning of the 18th century. It was enriched with indulgences by Pope Benedict XIII on 23 August 1728, then confirmed by Pius VI on 12 December 1788, and solemnly detailed by Pius IX in a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences of 20 September 1852, completed by a brief of 20 November 1854^[52]. The doctrine is unambiguous: this gift does not harm personal salvation, for the Virgin protects her children; but it considerably accelerates the liberation of countless souls.

The logic is the same as that of little Thérèse:

“On the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works.” — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Offering of Myself as a Victim of Holocaust to God's Merciful Love, 9 June 1895^[53]

Whoever gives everything to the souls in Purgatory loses nothing: he receives in return Mary's particular protection, the grateful intercession of all the souls he will have delivered, and — the tradition promises — the welcome of those same souls at the hour of his death.

The Catechism teaches very clearly that communion between the living and the souls in Purgatory is not one-way:

“Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church § 958^[54]

This doctrine, little known but of great pastoral consequence, distinguishes Catholicism from a minimalist Protestant vision of the departed. The souls in Purgatory can no longer merit for themselves, but they dispose of the treasury of merits acquired during their earthly life, which they can plead in our favour. And when they are freed, their gratitude toward their benefactors will be, tradition says, immense.

“In truth, these blessed souls can no longer gain merits; but they have the faculty of pleading their former merits in our favour. They can obtain nothing for themselves, but the prayers they make for us and the sufferings they endure keenly touch the Heart of God. And if they can already be of great use to us while they are in the place of expiation, what will they not do for us when they are in Heaven! How grateful they will be to their benefactors!” — Abbé Martin Berlioux, A Month with Our Friends the Souls in Purgatory, 1880^[55]

Saints Devoted to the Souls in Purgatory

Several great saints were famous for their particular devotion to the souls in Purgatory and for the spiritual conversations they held with them.

Saint Padre Pio

Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), the stigmatised Capuchin canonised by John Paul II in 2002, testified all his life to a regular presence of the souls in Purgatory in his cell at San Giovanni Rotondo. He liked to repeat to his confreres:

“More souls of the departed come here than of the living, to attend my Masses and solicit my prayers.”^[56]

The famous episode of May 1922 has remained in the convent chronicles. Padre Pio, sitting near the fireplace of the common room, saw an old man sit down beside him. Questioned about his identity, the man answered that his name was Pietro Di Mauro, son of Nicola, nicknamed Precoco, and that he came to solicit Masses for his repose. Later, Padre Pio and Father Paolino consulted the civil registers of the commune and discovered that a certain Pietro Di Mauro had indeed died on 18 September 1908, burned and asphyxiated in room 4 of the convent — then used as a shelter for the homeless^[57].

Maria Simma (1915-2004)

Maria Simma, an Austrian peasant woman from Vorarlberg, received from 1940 onward almost daily visits from souls in Purgatory coming to ask her for prayers, Masses, or simply to make known the circumstances of their liberation. Having remained a laywoman through physical inability to enter a monastery (three refusals for health reasons), she devoted her life to this mission of service to souls. Her testimony was collected by Sister Emmanuel Maillard (of the Beatitudes Community at Medjugorje) in the book The Amazing Secret of the Souls in Purgatory (Éditions des Béatitudes, 1997)^[58]. Maria Simma died on 16 March 2004. Her testimony has not yet been officially evaluated by the Church, which leaves judgement to time; but many concordant elements invite us to receive it attentively.

Saint Gertrude the Great

Saint Gertrude of Helfta (c. 1256-c. 1302), a Cistercian Benedictine, a Doctor of the Church according to tradition (not an official title), was one of the great medieval mystics of devotion to the departed. Her Herald of Divine Love (Latin Legatus Divinae Pietatis) contains several apparitions of souls in Purgatory asking her for suffrages and thanking her afterwards effusively. The prayer to Saint Gertrude quoted above is rooted in this tradition of familiarity, without however being literally attested in the Herald.

Asking Favours of the Souls in Purgatory

The Church's millennial experience attests that the souls in Purgatory can intercede effectively for very concrete favours: healings, difficult marital and family situations, job or housing searches, conversions, vocations. Abbé Berlioux wrote:

“God, knowing how much men prize these goods of second order, has put them, so to speak, at the disposal of the suffering souls, so as thereby to induce us to procure for them the most abundant suffrages.” — Abbé Martin Berlioux, A Month with Our Friends the Souls in Purgatory, 1880^[59]

The logic is delightfully human: God even uses our imperfect desires to multiply the suffrages offered to souls. There is therefore nothing mercenary about asking the souls in Purgatory for a particular favour, provided we immediately repay them with other prayers, Masses or indulgences. That is precisely how a friendship is built: through concrete exchanges, not abstract transactions.

Catholic teaching invites a regular practice, organised around a few spiritual appointments.

Daily. Remembrance of a patron saint on rising; an intention for one's departed loved ones at Mass or during the rosary; a few words to a protector saint in a precise difficulty; a plenary indulgence offered whenever possible.

Weekly. A Mass offered for a precise deceased person — a parent, a friend, someone for whom no one else prays; a rosary for the souls in Purgatory; spiritual reading of a saint's life.

Monthly. The 2nd of the month (monthly remembrance of the departed in several monastic traditions): particular attention. Throughout the month of November: intensified suffrages, meditative reading of Abbé Berlioux's booklet A Month with Our Friends the Souls in Purgatory, or a modern equivalent.

Once and for all. Enrolment of one's departed in the perpetual Mass of Montligeon; possibly making the Heroic Act of Charity after serious reflection and counsel from a spiritual director; choosing a patron saint of the heart in addition to one's baptismal saint.

On great occasions. Death anniversaries: have a Mass celebrated, pray the De profundis, light a candle in church. All Saints and 2 November: visit to the cemetery, prayer at the graves, offering of a Mass or an indulgence. Lent and Eastertide: intensified suffrage through almsgiving and the offering of privations.

This regular practice gradually transforms one's relationship with the invisible world. The saints become familiar presences, and the departed cease to be irrecoverable absentees to become brothers and sisters in waiting, present in prayer. The communion of saints, then, is no longer an article of the Creed recited from habit: it is the broadest dimension of Christian life, the fabric in which death itself is conquered by love.

Deepening your life of prayer — To learn to live the communion of saints concretely — intercession, suffrages and spiritual friendship with the saints: discover the Via Divina formation.

• The communion of saints and intercession — fundamental doctrine, the latria / dulia / hyperdulia distinction, scriptural foundations.
• Purgatory — complete doctrinal dossier: Scripture, the Councils of Florence and Trent, patristic attestation, Protestant objections.
• Indulgences — theology and history of indulgences, the Enchiridion, jubilees.
• The Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph — Mary's maternal mediation, the first heavenly intercession.
• Angels in the life of prayer — the guardian angel and the nine angelic choirs.