November: Praying for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

Why Should We Pray for the Holy Souls?

Praying for the release of the Holy Souls into Heaven should have some level of joy, shouldn’t it? Yay! I am helping souls to enter the ultimate joy of being with Jesus, the saints and angels in Heaven FOREVER!

But we don’t often see it in this light, do we!

What if we could make praying for the Holy Souls a joyful Work of Mercy! That would change everything - right?

True Story of Nun Visiting Earth from Purgatory!



OK, so we can’t show our kids Purgatory itself, but we can show them a sign left on Earth by a holy soul from Purgatory!

Please show your kids the true story of Sister Teresa Gesta (below) who came back from Purgatory to provide evidence that Purgatory exists. I have created this 2-minute short myself. The story also shows how prayer for souls in Purgatory releases them into Heaven. Before you show your children this short video, please remind them that Jesus keeps the Holy Souls in Purgatory for the shortest time possible.

Drawing Purgatory

• We will now start to make an activity that can be used during bedtime prayers.
• This will involve your child making a representative drawing of Purgatory and Heaven on one sheet of black paper. Then candles need to be made so that they can be lit during the prayers. Finally, when the picture is used to release a soul from Purgatory everyone claps!
• You may need to help your child through many of the steps of this activity.
• The drawing will be on a piece of black paper and will show souls in Purgatory and some angels in Heaven. Two of the cutout angels will not be glued down on the paper so that they can be moved around at the appropriate time. There will also be an extra cutout soul that will be added to the main drawing, and he/she will be able to move from Purgatory and into Heaven.
• During night prayer your child will be able to move the soul from Purgatory into Heaven using the cutout angels while everyone prays for the release of the souls in Purgatory.
• The video below creates one picture only and doesn’t show you how to move a soul from Purgatory to Heaven. That is something I added myself, so please look at the pictures I drew below which will give you a better idea of how it can be done.
• The video shows chalk being used but your child could use any art medium he/she likes! Chalk has this nice ability to smudge colours together and this might be an interesting experience if your child hasn’t used this medium before. Crayons or paint would be good too.

• Below is my attempt at drawing Heaven full of angels and Purgatory with its souls waiting to be released…
• Stick the moveable angels in Heaven with Blue Tac and attach the moveable person in Purgatory with Blue Tac too. Alternatively, if the picture is laid on a flat surface, they could simply be placed in their starting positions. Also make sure that Heaven is big enough to receive the released soul!

All the souls in purgatory are awaiting our releasing prayers…

Two of the cut-out angels can now fly down to collect the soul ready to be released into Heaven.

The two angels start to move the soul out of Purgatory.

Hurray! The soul has finally made it to Heaven!

Making Kid Friendly Candles to Pray By!

The last detail we need for this glorious release activity is a coloured candle or several coloured candles. You can help your child make 1 coloured candle to light every evening at bedtime prayers or 7 different coloured candles (one for every day of the week).

Please watch the video below on how to make candles the colour of your child’s choice! You could use baby food jars/ any small jar to pour your wax into and any coloured crayons that your child choses.

Bedtime Prayers

I’m A Holy Soul - Get Me Out of Here!

• Keep the drawn Purgatory picture visible during bedtime prayer. Help your child light your homemade candle with a long taper. Ensure your ’cutout-person’ is with the others in Purgatory. Explain what you are going to do. You are all going to pray for the release of souls from Purgatory just like the nuns prayed for Sr. Teresa Gesta.
• Pray for release of souls (Eternal Rest Prayer/ St. Gertrude Prayer) while your child moves the soul from Purgatory into Heaven.

Eternal rest

“Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord,

And let perpetual light shine upon them,

May they rest in Peace.”

• St. Gertrude’s Prayer “Eternal Father,
• I offer Thee, the Most Precious Blood of Thine 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”

While you are all repeating one or both of the above prayers, one or more of your children can release the 2 ‘blue-tacked angels’ from Heaven. They fly down to the soul in purgatory. The angels pick up the soul to be released and take him/her to Heaven. Then stick all 3 of them in Heaven where they belong! At the end you could all clap that souls will have been helped by your prayers.

We will not know how many souls our prayers release from Heaven- though, according to tradition, the Lord Jesus told Sister Gertrude that this prayer recited with devotion and belief would release 1,000 souls! We don’t know if this means 1,000 souls in a literal sense or whether it means ‘many, many souls’. So, we pray in faith, knowing that this Work of Mercy is helping souls in general to be released from Purgatory and to fly into Heaven.

The Virgin intercedes for souls in Purgatory painted by Andrea Vacarro