Prayer Warriors of Souls invites more

It is written in Maccabees 12:46 that “it is therefore a holy and wholesome thing to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins.” Taking this verse to heart, a group gathered years ago to help their dear departed.

The Prayer Warriors of the Holy Souls (PWHS) – Davao Chapter has celebrated recently their 4th year anniversary. As in the past celebration, it was crowned with a Holy Mass by Fr. Amado Arroyo at the San Pedro Cathedral. Lunch-cum-meeting followed.

A cross section of men and women bankers, entrepreneurs, retirees, nurses, teachers, housewives continue to come together to embrace their dead loved ones in common prayer.

They have learned through readings, teachings, national conventions: that our dead are powerful intercessors for us, the living, but can no longer pray for themselves; that our dead are fully dependent on our prayers to lessen/even release them from purgatorial suffering; that the Holy Mass for the dead benefit them most; that tears and consoling words alone, for the family left behind in visits to the wake cannot relieve the poor souls, only prayers for them can; that we can share with the dead merits we personally gain from holy mass, holy communion, and any act of mercy; that more souls are released from Purgatory during feast days of our LORD JESUS and Mother Mary: that the living gain indulgences every time they pray for the dead; that our Church has a wealth of invocations and prayers for the dead.

One such prayer was taught by our Lord Jesus himself to St. Gertrude where He promised the release of 1,000 souls whenever prayed reverently. PWHSians are bound together by this as a stand-alone prayer, or incorporated in their other devotional prayers.

Everyone has a beloved dead, and everyone is invited to join PWHSIANS-Davao chapter in its 2nd Monday monthly meetings, then mass at the San Pedro Cathedral Social Hall, its 1st Saturday noon mass at the Sta. Ana Shrine, its memorial masses, as mass sponsors in parish church feast days and all the days of November, its pilgrimages for the dead, its March of Saints in lieu of Halloween, its recollections, its fund-raising events. And if by God’s grace you happen to be in Manila, you are invited to join our PWHS mother unit’s all-year-round activities and this year’s pilgrimage/walk of mercy in jubilee doors in Manila.

One cannot overdo acts of kindness to the holy souls in Purgatory. Many saints wrote that they are the real poorest of the poor, beggars for all the living’s alms of grace. Death is not able to erase the love shared during one’s lifetime, and if our departed needed our love in their sickness then, the more they need our love now.

The holy souls are a thankful lot too, and are known to repay grace for grace. But never for this reason only, let us unite our prayers with the holy will of God to finally bring home to heaven His flock. (Bella Sarenas | PWHS Correspondent)