Silent Scream

Do not forget the holy souls in Purgatory! They truly are holy, much holier than we, for they have succeeded in avoiding eternal damnation, they can no longer commit sin, and their only desire is to be with God, a desire which consumes them. However, they are in bondage, trapped by their former sins, and there is nothing that they can do to free themselves. They are powerless to end their suffering. However, they would not, if given the chance, go into heaven with God carying with them the stain of their former sins. No, the holy souls long to be with God, yet they love Him so dearly and see how much sorrow they have caused him, that they will to rid themselves of their impurity first. But they can do nothing to further their sanctity. God, in His mercy, has so ordained it that we, the Church Militant, can make attonment for their sins, can get them into heaven. You and I are their key to heaven! As Pope John Paul II said, "Our dead are among the invisible, not among the absent." They are here with us, now, crying, pleading with us, "Have mercy! Have pity! Pray for me!" They are your ancestors, your parents, cousins, religous, clergy. Their silence is their loudest call, pleading with us, for our sacrifices, our prayers, our good deeds. And when you have prayed for the holy souls, they will never forget it. When they join Our Lord in heaven, they will not cease in pursueing your cause before almighty God. You will have gained an everlasting freindship.

"Their silence is their loudest call, because it is the echo of God's silence...They are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. their silence is really their call, the assurance of their immortal love for us. O silent God...God of those who are silently summoning us to enter into Your life, never let us forget our dead or our living. May our love and faithfulness to them be a pledge of our beleif in You, the God of eternal life.
Let us not be deaf to the call of their silence, which is the surest and sincerest word of their love. May this word of theirs continue to accompany us, even after they have taken leave of us to enter unto You, for thus their love comes all the closer to us.

Whey we pray, 'Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them,' let our words be only the cho of the prayer of love that they themselves are speaking in the silence of eternity. " Karl Rahner, Encounters with Silence.

May the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.