FEASTING WITH THE HOLY SOULS THE CHRISTIAN WAY

We all have deaths in the family.  Mine are my parents, my parents-in-law, my husband, relatives and close friends.  They may have crossed-over to the next life years ago, but memories stay.  I remember particularly the heroic frugality of my parents who made sure not one of us six siblings skipped a year in school despite their meager income; my in-laws for their simplicity and industry; and my husband for his kindness, humor and intelligence.

Loving them still, it pains me to see how the dead are remembered on their feast day these days.

Every last week of November, tv and radio feature haunted houses. haunted highways, lit moving candles and eerie crying in abandoned places.  Also retold and re-shown are past heinous crimes solved or unsolved.  Establishments too have sales people wearing lighted demon horns or made up chalk-white faces with blood-dripping lower lips.  Even events do their share to propagate these practices.

I am a Christian and I believe that in death, only the physical body dies because the soul lives on and will be resurrected.  More than now, I would therefore need your prayers once I die because the dead cannot anymore pray for him/herself.  We are blessed that the 1968 Enchiridion of Indulgences issued by the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary and the Catechism of the Catholic Church specifically writes about indulgences that can be gained for the dead (Part 2, Section 2,Chapter 2, Article 4,Subsection 10, 1471-1479).

Taken from these documents,Prayer Warriors of the Holy Souls (PWHS) Executive Director Chita G. Monfort and Membership Committee Head Rhodora Kapunan enumerated the many ways to gain these indulgences for the Holy Souls, as follows:

Date                           Indulgence Gained        Prescribed Act
November 1-8           1 Plenary eachday              -To visit and pray for the dead in a cemetery

November 2               1 Plenary                               -To visit a Church or public oratory and pray 1 OUR and 1 CREED

Any day                      Partial                                    -To pray the “Eternal rest.. (Requiem Aeternam) as many times as one wants to benefit the departed

Partial                                    -To visit and pray in a cemetery for the departed
Indulgences are either partial (removes only part of the temporal punishment due to sin) or plenary (completely removes all punishment due to sin.  There is also the toties quoties where we can gain plenary indulgence for the departed when we visit a church for them, praying in each visit (as many as is possible) the OUR FATHER, HAIL MARY, GLORY BE for the intention of the Holy Church.  This has to be performed from noon of November 1 to midnight of November 2, a span of 36 hours.  As in the case of this year’s All Souls Day which falls on on a Sunday, the toties quoties indulgence can be gained starting November 2 noon till midnight November 3.

To gain plenary indulgence, one must be 1) in a state of grace, 2) have the desire to gain it, 3) perform the act at the time, and 4) manner prescribed.  In addition, one must 5) go to confession eight (8) days before or after performing the pious act, 6) receive Holy Communion preferably on the same day the act is performed.  Permissible, though, is to receive Holy Communion several days before or after gaining the indulgence.  Unlike confession, one Holy Communion is required to gain plenary indulgence; and 7) pray for the intention of the Holy Father.  No prescribed prayers but one OUR FATHER, one HAIL MARY would suffice.
by Bella Sarenas