Sunday, June 16, 2002 2:16 PM

Responses to ‘A soul asks for prayers’

The last forum mailing of June 13, ‘A soul asks for prayers’ /forum/forum515.html resulted in many responses. Two of them are copied below. Additionally, several people asked for the St Gertrude prayer which Vassula referred to in her letter.

Here it is:

“Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.”

Our Lord told St. Gertrude the Great that this prayer would release 1,000 souls from Purgatory each time it is said.

St. Gertrude was a Benedictine and mystic writer; born in Germany, 6 Jan, 1256 and died in 1301 or 1302.

Of all the stories and messages you sent me so far, this one moved me to tears! God did not do that just for J…’s father’s soul, but as with most of his Biblical Parables, He reached each and every reader today! He used Vassula’s acquaintance to Glorify His Name and to teach each and every reader a big lesson indeed!

I lost my father 13 years ago (needless to say I learnt that Christ’s mercy is infinte & His love beyond our comprehension through my loss,

would tell Him that if He really raised Lazarus, then He must bring my dad back to life! I would do and say all sort of thing to challenge His very existance! Looking back I could see that deep down I knew He was there listening to me. I even considered the Spiritual side (slightly, but I did) and I opened the Bible and He hit me with full force: “Leviticus 20: vs. 6 – 8 & v.27″ ” (as I open the Bible now to confirm these verses they hit me again, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!!!!)

It readsVs.6 to 8: ‘If anyone goes for advise to people who consult the spirits of the dead, I will turn turn against him and will no longer consider him one of my people. Keep yourselves holy, because I am the Lord your God. Obey my laws, because I am the Lord and I make you holy’

& v. 27: ‘Any man or woman who consults the spirits of the dead shall be stoned to death; any person who does this is responsible for his own death.’

Since my early childhood I have always been fearful of God and at that moment I realized I could not change the course of life and I had to grieve like everyone else does. To this very day, I miss my dad, BUT today I can say with pride that once I allowed Christ to talk to me, He worked miracles! I briefly sensed the presence of my Dad & knew he was alright. Christ guided me and held my hand in grief in the most loving manner. The experience of death is the ultimate punishment for any human being. The pain it causes cannot be compared to any other on Earth. But if we are what be preach or claim to be, ‘Christians’, then it is a time of bonding with Christ Himself.

I know that today Christ talked to me and I feel priviledged & very loved indeed!

In Christ I greet you all,
Diana

If I may, I would like to bring out a couple of important points from the correspondence about the Soul in need of prayers.

First of all, how important it is for us to have faith in God. We must not give in to the temptation to doubt God’s goodness or His ability to answer our call. To doubt is an insult to God. When we pray we should be full of expectation and trust. True, the Father may not always give us exactly what we request, but He will not turn away from us. Sometimes we hear the statement, “God always answers prayers but sometimes the answer is ‘No!’.” I think there is something wrong with that. In fact, when I think about it, it makes me think of the false wisdom of the friends of Job! What we should always say is, “God always answers sincere prayers – in the BEST way.” Our prayers must be sincere and be motivated by a desire for something good. I do not believe God refuses such prayers. We may have to wait, but if we understand this correctly, the waiting period is part of the answer. God has created us because He wants to share His life and His love with us. In everything He does, God seeks our ultimate happiness and the happiness of those we pray for. We must believe this and never doubt it.

Secondly, how beautifully Vassula sums up the message about living and acting in union with Jesus. Only through this do we become aware of how we are to act. It seems to me that in TLIG we must never forget that we act WITH Him and only in this way do we act FOR Him. Ultimately it is God’s Will that matters – nothing else is as important as that. “We, us” is essential. Before doing anything or assuming that we must do something we need to ask Jesus what He is doing and wants to do. We may want to say to Him, “come with me, Lord and help me” but He may already be doing something that we have not seen or heard about. Perhaps we should begin by asking, “What do you want to do today Lord? What can we do together?”

I am staying at one of the main distributors of the Messages here in Wales at the moment. I want to remind everyone that we must pray for each other. Janice and Adrian, here, have been under attack from the evil one and I feel that, just as we, perhaps, forget to pray for Vassula, so we forget to pray for each other especially for those in “exposed” positions. We owe it to Jesus to pray for protection over each other and to support each other in friendship.

Fr. John Abberton