Month of November: Souls in Purgatory
by VP
Posted on Saturday November 01, 2025 at 03:00AM in Monthly Devotion
"Oh, my friends, let us pray much, and let obtain many prayers from others, for the poor dead; the good God will render us back the good we do to them a hundredfold. Ah! if every one knew how useful this devotion to the holy souls in purgatory is to those who practice it, they would not be forgotten so often; the good God regards all that we do for them as if it were done to Himself." -- St. John Mary Vianney (Blessed Sacrament Book, Fr. Francis X. Lasance)
Devotion for the month of November: Souls in Purgatory
Virtue of the month of November: Charity
This is the first and greatest commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart; but the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Matthew, xxii: 88
"My God and my Lord! What need was there of commanding us to love Thee? Art Thou not most lovely in Thy infinite perfections? and for the infinite love Thou bearest to us, dost Thou not deserve our love? How, then, is it possible that any one should not love Thee? if there is such a person, it must be because he has not deserved to know Thee. For, a soul that knows God, cannot help loving Him, and loving Him in proportion to his knowledge of Him; so that is he loves Him but little, it is a sign that he knows Him but little; and the more his knowledge increases, the more his love will go on growing. St. Teresa."
"Among all those who are included under the title of neighbor, there are none who deserve it more, in one sense, that those of our own household. They are nearest of all of us, living under the same roof, and eating the same bread. Therefore, they ought to be one the principal objects of our love, and we should practice in regard to them all the acts of true charity, which ought to be founded not in flesh and blood, or upon their good qualities, but altogether upon God. St. Francis de Sales"
November's Daily Thoughts:
November's leaden skies are stretched above the fields
That Autumn's sun from flaming gold turned gray;
How faint they gleam in gossamered delight that yields
The grandeurs of Saint Martin's summer day.
True hearts are awed, yet fain, to see that Nature died;
True souls rejoice to know that not in vain they sighed.
As verdure passed, so man who is of earth, but part,
Lays down his life like wilted garden blooms,
And flowered clay, like pall, enshrouds the frozen heart,
But not the soul that Justice then illumes.
What naught was held, is vivid splotch in vision pure,
And in the purgatorial flames finds cleaning cure.
Like babes, they helpless mourn to burn away their stains,
And know beyond the bars beams heaven's light
That God will show, like sun-lit sheen, when pardon reigns.
While yet our days are clear, they live in night;
The merits of Christ-blest November's daily prayer.
Rev. T.F. Kramer, C.PP.S.
1923 Messenger of the Most Precious Blood, Volumes 28-29