During this month dedicated to the poor souls, when it comes to rescuing souls in the netherworld, one has to mention Saint Gertrude “the Great”.
Saint Gertrude was born in 1256 in what today is Germany. As a young girl, she was placed in the care of the Benedictine nuns, and became a nun in the same monastery and was elected Abbess in 1251.
St.Gertrude began to have supernatural visions and mystical experiences at the age of 26.She received many powerful teachings. She wrote a series of prayers that became very popular and through her writings helped spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She often meditated on the Passion of Christ which many times brought a flood of tears to her eyes. She also had a tender love for Our Lady.
Some visions expressed Our Lord’s wishes for people to pray for the souls in purgatory. Our Lord showed Gertrude a table of gold on which were many costly pearls.The pearls were prayers for the Holy Souls.At the same time the saint had a vision of souls freed from suffering and ascending in the form of bright sparks in different shapes to heaven.
In another vision, Our Lord told St. Gertrude that he longs for someone to ask Him to release souls from purgatory, just as a king who imprisons a friend for justice‘s sake hopes that someone will beg for mercy for his friend.
Jesus said to St. Gertrude, "I accept with highest pleasure what is offered to Me for the poor souls, for I long inexpressibly to have near Me those for whom I paid so great a price. By the prayers of thy loving soul, I am induced to free a prisoner from purgatory as often as you move your tongue to utter a word of prayer."
On another day, St. Gertrude asked Our Lord how many souls His Mercy would release from purgatory, and He replied that His Loves desires to release all souls from purgatory. He encouraged her to pray with confident assurance and to ask more than she dare for their release. In other words, Our Lord is telling us to pray, and ask BIG, be BOLD!
In another vision, St. Gertrude was given the prayer, which Our Lord told her would release 1,000 souls from Purgatory, every time it is said, with love and devotion.
The prayer goes like this: "Eternal Father, I offer you 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, those in the Universal Church, in my home and in my own family."
When we pray this prayer are 1,000 souls really released from purgatory? Theologians tell us we may not be certain of the exact number. But we do know that Our Lord points to the efficacy of our prayers offered up for these suffering souls. A "thousand" souls released could very well mean-- more than we can count, more than we dare to ask.
Today, let us ask St. Gertrude to help us come to a greater love and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and inspire us to often pray for the poor souls in purgatory, that they may forever gaze upon the faces of Jesus and Mary!