Requiescant in pace. On All Souls' Day we
offer this prayer for those who are not only Saints,
but Saints on the very threshold of Paradise, waiting
to be admitted to the immediate presence of
God. It is always a privilege to do a service to the
friends of God; it is so, above all, when those who
need our help will in a short time behold His
Face in Heaven, and will gratefully remember for
all eternity each little prayer offered in their behalf.
These Saints waiting for Heaven cry out to us
to help them. They have a claim on us by reason
of the intensity of their suffering. No words can
tell all that they suffer, and their very love of
God increases their pain. Every compassionate heart
will desire to do something to relieve them, and
to shorten the time of their banishment. Yet how
little I do for them!
They are, moreover, unable to help themselves.
We always feel a more tender sympathy for
those who cannot move a finger to relieve their
own sufferings. Their helplessness appeals to our
generosity. If we saw one, whom "we knew to be
a Saint, enduring some affliction in which he could
do nothing in his own behalf, we should be eager
to assist him. The Holy Souls are utterly helpless;
their own prayers avail them nothing. To us
they look for aid, for an abridgment of their time
of punishment. Do I respond to their appeal as
I ought? Endeavor to increase in sympathy for the Souls
in Purgatory.