All Souls month: Purgatory app fosters important devotion

Did you know? Catholics in many countries make it a tradition on All Saints’ Day to gather at a local cemetery and decorate the graves with flowers or wreaths in anticipation of All Souls’ Day, which occurs on November 2. The month of November is traditionally a time to honor and pray for the departed souls who may have no one to pray for them. So let us take a look at an app designed to help us do just that.

Catholic Meditations on Purgatory App  (Free) iOS –

Ideal for the month of All Souls and the great feast day that leads it off. 

To encourage you to pray for the holy souls in Purgatory, this app offers daily devotions for a period of one month with a  notification (you set the time) to help you to remember. According to developers, content is based on the book, “The Devout Year” by Rev. RF Clarke, SJ., and includes points of Catholic doctrine regarding Purgatory and the dire need to pray for those souls awaiting Heaven. “On many questions respecting Purgatory, vague and even false notions are very common among Catholics. It is the object [of this content] to instruct unto justice as well as to lead to the practice of good works.” [book quote in app’s introduction] You can choose from various meditations offered (like “How to avoid Purgatory”) or go to the daily, randomly selected meditation. Central to the app is Psalm 130, “De Profundis,” a traditional penitential psalm. Each meditation walks you through three points and then the subsequent adoration, reflex action on yourself, petition, resolution, colloquies and conclusion. Appreciated is the option to email, Twitter, Facebook, text message content. You can also copy content to paste.

Pope Benedict’s reflection on Psalm 130 is a rich source for meditation on this subject. It is not included in this app (great idea, though!)  You can wander over to this link to check it out. Here’s an excerpt:

“Beyond its funeral application, the text [Psalm 130] is above all a canticle to divine mercy and to reconciliation between the sinner and the Lord, a just God, but always ready to reveal himself as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). Precisely for this reason our psalm is inserted in the Christmas liturgy of vespers and of the whole Christmas octave, as well as in that of the 4th Sunday of Easter and of the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.”