Entreaties From Beyond the Grave Or: How to Earn a Plenary Indulgence Any Day of the Year

Detained in a land of punishment, the dead call out to the living for prayers and assistance...and it's surprisingly easy to help them.

Then the Lord asked Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’

He answered, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?’

Genesis 4:9

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The doctrine of purgatory seems fantastic while walking through a cemetery. The fresh earth, the green grass, the sounds of nature, the bouquets lovingly placed alongside tombstones all speak words of rest and peace.

We're told that many of our departed loved ones suffer. Yet when standing before their place of final repose, we hear nothing that suggests howling and burning in flames of purification.

Although cemeteries on balance have been mute on this matter, plenty of evidence and doctrine compiled over the centuries assures us that these teachings are very real. The dead do call out, and we’re fully able to offer assistance.

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Contents

• Pleas From Beyond the Grave

• Purgatory Explained

• Help for the Helpless

• 5 More Ways to Earn a Plenary or Partial Indulgence...Any Day of the Week!

• Conclusion

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Pleas From Beyond the Grave

Alongside the Tiber River in Rome, a small room adjoining the Church of the Sacred Heart features the Museum of Purgatory. The museum is the vision of the parish priest, Father Victor Jouët, and its purpose is to remind visitors of purgatory and the souls detained there, asking for our prayers.

This is one of the artifacts collected by Father Jouët, founder of the Museum of Purgatory in Rome. It's the handprint of a woman's deceased mother in law, who appeared to her requesting prayers for her release from purgatory. The woman asked for a sign and this imprint appeared the following day.

At the turn of the 21st Century, Father Jouët traveled throughout Belgium, France, Germany and Italy meeting with the faithful and collecting stories and artifacts of encounters from beyond the grave. The objects on display include garments, books and nightcaps all marked with handprints of the deceased.

In one incident, a man was visited by his deceased mother who admonished him, requesting that he have Masses said for herself and his father. In farewell, she laid her hand on his nightgown, and the imprint remained.

In another, a woman was visited by her deceased mother-in-law, requesting that two Masses be said for her. The woman asked for a sign that she was really in purgatory, and the imprint of a hand appeared on the page of the book she'd been reading.

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In my own experience, over twenty years ago, a deceased friend visited me in a dream. She'd tragically died in a car accident just months before, at the age of 19, and had received a funeral Mass and burial.

In the dream, she sat in a dreary room on a puffy red chair. There seemed to be comings and goings about her, but none of it exuded joy. Rather, the atmosphere was depressing; it was the kind of feeling you'd have sitting in a dank subway station. Dinginess and seediness prevailed.

“Mora!” I addressed her, surprised. “What are you doing here? Why aren't you in heaven?”

“Because you haven't forgiven me yet,” she replied.

In our last year of high school, the year before her death, Mora's claws came out. In a classic display of mean-girl cattiness, she'd deliberately excluded me from a dance party she put together with my so-called friends, as well as inflicted other petty cruelties. And two years later I hadn't gotten over it.

Upon awakening from my dream I told her I forgave her. A few nights later I dreamt of her wearing a white shimmery gown, sitting over me as I slept and caressing me.

Before this, it hadn't seemed possible that my prolonged bitterness could have affected her whatsoever. But now, I appreciate that the living do have some say in what happens to people after they die.

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Few of us live as the BVM admonishes: as though heaven is our only goal. Rather, consumed with honor, achievement, grudges and ambition, many depart this vale of tears with some unfinished work.

But what is this place of detention? What goes on there? And on what grounds do the living believe they can help those who are in it?

A silence settles over every graveyard. Does it whisper messages of supplication or peace? ~ The Blessed Virgin said to the visionaries at Fatima: “Many souls go to Hell because they have no one to pray for them.”

Purgatory Explained

In the late 80s, Cardinal Ratzinger and a team of theologians compiled all the essential teachings of the Catholic Church into one Catechism. It spells out the rationale for purgatory explicitly:

Every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth or after death in the state called Purgatory.¹

Scripture affirms this teaching:

Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin.²

Purgatory isn't God's vengeance; rather it's our atonement. In the same way we pay fines or spend time in jail for breaking laws in sovereign nations, we must atone for transgressing against the moral order God has established in His universe.

In his book The End of the Present World, the French Priest Charles Arminjon writes that purgatory is a place of dichotomy. Inhabitants rejoice at knowing they will see God but at same time howl at the sufferings they endure.

Their bliss is not that of heaven, where joys are unmixed; their torments are not those of hell, where suffering is unremitting.³

• Where is purgatory?

The Church hasn't declared the location of purgatory with any certainty.

Some saints contend it's in the center of the earth, looking to Bible references such as this passage from Sirach:

I shall enter into the lower parts of the earth, and shall visit those who sleep, and the hope of salvation shall appear in their sights.⁴

Others purport that the penitent spend their purgatory in the places where they sinned on earth.

This is corroborated in St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachai, which relates the following anecdote:

One day Archbishop Malachai received a vision of his deceased sister in a graveyard, and understood that to atone for her vanity, she had to live in her grave and watch her body decay. He proceeded to offer Masses for her over the next 30 days.

Then he saw her again, this time at the gate of the Church, repenting for irreverent behavior in Church. Again, he prayed 30 Masses in her honor.

Then he received a vision of her glorified body in heaven. (From this anecdote originates the tradition of praying for 30 days to release someone from purgatory.)

• What are the sufferings of purgatory like?

Many have weighed in on this question. Some say that the sufferings are physical and acutely painful. As Father Arminjon writes:

Stern Doctors of the Church assure us that all the cruelties practiced on the martyrs by their executioners, and all the sufferings and afflictions heaped upon men since the beginning of time, cannot be compared to the lightest penalty in that place of atonement.⁵

Others say that purgatory is the dark night of the soul that St. John of the Cross explains in his books Dark Night of the Soul and The Ascent of Mt. Carmel. --No less painful, that is to say, but more spiritual in nature. As the Jesuit Thomas H. Green recounts in book, When the Well Runs Dry:

This dry darkness is really purgatory....When I began to realize that purgatory is not vengeance but purification and transformation, the whole doctrine seemed not only acceptable but necessary. Sooner or later we have to be made divine if we are going to love as we are loved, if not in this life, then certainly after death. Since most men choose to avoid the call to purifying transformation during this life, it seemed only logical that this call would have to be faced later...the only alternative would be to remain untransformed forever, and that is hell!⁶

Although we may not be entirely settled as to the nature of the sufferings in purgatory, we can be certain that they are painful and prolonged.

Fortunately, the Church provides easy ways for the living to alleviate the suffering of those in this state of purification.

Help for the Helpless

Remarkably, we have the capacity to unleash graces and provide respite for those who suffer.

We are free at every moment to bring them that drop of water which the rich fool sought in vain from the pity of Lazarus.⁷

And none of the means are terribly difficult, either.

• All Souls Day

All Souls Day, which falls on November 2nd, immediately following All Saints Day, is a central way to assist the dead. A Catholic commemorates this holiday by attending Mass, praying in a cemetery, visiting a Church, or simply by offering acts of penance for the deceased.

This feast day originated around the year 1,000. According to an anecdote in the Annals of Citeaux, a hermit on an island near Sicily told a French pilgrim (delayed by a storm on his return from Jerusalem) that he'd seen a vision of demons throwing sinners into a smoking abyss.

The demons griped over their inability to detain these souls, particularly on account of the prayers of Abbott Odilon and his monks at the monastery of Cluny in France. The hermit petitioned the pilgrim to request that the Abbot redouble the efforts. The pilgrim, upon his return to France, related this message to the Abbott, who reflected on it and decided to dedicate one day to prayer and almsgiving for helpless tortured souls.⁸

Perhaps part legend and part truth, the holiday continues to this day and is a powerful opportunity to assist the departed.

• The Novena for All Souls (& Indulgences Explained)

The faithful can also assist the dead by obtaining plenary indulgences for them. As the Catechism states:

Since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted.⁹

Particularly, the faithful can earn plenary indulgence for the dead between November 2nd and the 10th; on All Souls Day and each day of the eight days following it.

In order to receive this indulgence, one must:

• Attend Mass.

• Visit a cemetery and offer a prayer for the dead.

• Offer a prayer for the intentions of the Pope.

• Attend Confession sometime during the novena, or in the week before or after it.

What is an indulgence?

An indulgence...obtains from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins.¹⁰

In order to receive an indulgence, one must be completely detached from sin.

An indulgence is not forgiveness for sins, which only happens in the confessional. Rather, indulgences decrease or entirely strip away the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven. They're essentially like lessening or reducing a jail sentence.

With the receipt of a plenary indulgence, simply put, a practitioner goes straight to heaven. Indulgences can be offered for the practitioner or for another person. Only one indulgence can be received each day. In the instance of the All Souls Novena, the plenary indulgences are offered specifically for departed souls.

Indulgences can be plenary, which means they completely remove the temporal punishment due from sin, or partial, which partially removes the temporal punishment due from sin.

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And this summarizes some methods to relieve the sufferings of the souls in purgatory. But it's by no means an exhaustive list. Earning plenary indulgences is something that anyone can do, day-in and day-out. To this end, let's go over some other accessible ways to earn indulgences.

All races have honored their dead. The prehistoric grave site Louchcrew in Ireland pre-dates the Celts. Its tombs date back to the 4th Millennium BC.

5 More Ways to Earn a Plenary or Partial Indulgence...Any Day of the Week!

Given that indulgences are so powerful, why not earn them all the time? Here are a few more ways to do so.

1. Adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

So many Churches hold Adoration hours, and some even have an Adoration Chapel, dedicated to adoring Jesus at all hours of the day and night!

This indulgence is partial if the visitor adores Jesus for fewer than 30 minutes, and plenary he or she adores Him for 30 minutes or more.

2. Recite the “Prayer Before a Crucifix” after Communion.

Many of us learned this prayer in preparation for our First Communion. Earning this indulgence entails kneeling before a crucifix after Communion and reciting the prayer. One version goes like:

Behold oh kind and most sweet Jesus, I cast myself upon my knees in your sight, and with the most fervent desire of my soul, pray and beseech that You would impress me with the virtues of faith, hope and charity, with true repentance for my sins and a firm desire of amendment. At the same time, with sorrow I meditate on Your five precious wounds, having that before me which David spoke in prophecy: 'They have pierced my hands and my feet; I can number all my bones.'

This indulgence is plenary when recited on Fridays during Lent, and partial when recited on any other day.

3. Pray the Rosary.

Now here you go. Who can't do this? Even non-Catholics can receive this grace (although I'm not sure if a non-Catholic can earn an indulgence, quite frankly).

The indulgence for praying a rosary is plenary when recited in a church, with a family, with a religious community, or with another pious association. It is partial when recited at any other time.

4. Read Scripture.

Another easy one—simply read scripture for 30 minutes! This entails reading scripture not as you might a novel, but as a form of prayer and communion with God.

30 minutes of reading is a plenary indulgence! So hard to believe.

5. Visit a Cemetery.

As already discussed, visiting a cemetery and saying a prayer, if only a mental, comprises an indulgence, when combined with the other requirements listed above.

During the novena to All Souls this indulgence is plenary; on any other day of the year, it's partial.

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And there you have it. Complete removal of temporal sins with the completion of one of these simple devotions: for yourself or a person of your choosing (you can offer them as well for the forgotten souls that the Blessed Virgin pines for).

Many other indulgences can be earned on special feast days like Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Divine Mercy Sunday. But those listed above are good to have front-of-mind, as they can be received on any day, at any time; even during the middle of the night when you wake up and cannot get back to sleep!

And one final word on Indulgences: The spirit in which one performs the devotion ultimately determines its efficacy. That is, a scrupulous adherence to the “what” of the indulgence isn't as critical as the fervor behind it. As St. Paul wrote: “The letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life.”¹¹

Conclusion

As we've all experienced, AAA doesn't always come to the rescue. Sometimes the only way out of one of those broken-down-on-the-side-of-the-road quagmires of life is the helping hand of another person.

As members of Church Militant, we have the great capacity to extend this same kindness to the members of Church Penitent. --And then, when we're in need of this assistance ourselves, they will return the favor to us from their eternal repose in Church Triumphant!

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Now what about you? What is your take on purgatory and the nature of the sufferings there? Do you have an opinion on where it's located?

And what about entreaties from beyond the grave: have you interacted with anyone who's passed onto the great nirvana beyond the clouds?

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1. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Doubleday Publishers, April 1995: Paragraph 1472.

2. 2 Maccabees 12:45-6

3. The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life by Father Charles Arminjon. Translated by Susan Conroy and Peter McEnerny. Sophia Institute Press, 2008: page 142.

4. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 24:45 Douay-Rheims version.

5. The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life. Page 141.

6. When the Well Runs Dry: Prayer Beyond the Beginnings by Thomas H. Green, S.J. Ave Maria Press, 1979. Page 121-2.

7. The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life. Page 150.

8. The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life. Page 152-3.

9. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Paragraph 1479.

10. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Paragraph 1478.

11. 2 Corinthians 3:6