Mission Statement
We, the members of the Holy Rosary Parish family, are the living sign of Christ’s Presence, reconciling life, light, hopefulness, and healing within our community. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we seek to realize the full potential of our creative energies to be about the work of God in our commitment to the Lord, each other, the Church and our world.
We are a community sharing responsibility and celebration. We seek to reflect the love of Jesus in such a way that we burn with desire to be at one with Him. We pray that we are open to hear an understand the good news, while we reach out to those who have not heard it.
We come together as one, sharing the Word, the Eucharist, and the Spirit which is our Gift from God.
November : The Month of the Holy Souls
The month of November is dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory. The Holy Souls (also called the Faithful Departed) are members of the Church who await the purification of their souls before joining the saints in heaven for all eternity. Specifically, they are referred to as the Church Suffering (the saints in heaven are the Church Triumphant, and the faithful on earth are the Church Militant). The poor souls in purgatory cannot pray for themselves or do anything to hasten their entrance into heaven, but we can and ought to pray for them as an act of charity.
The Church commemorates all her faithful children who have departed from this life, but have not yet attained the joys of heaven. St. Paul warns us that we must not be ignorant concerning the dead, nor sorrowful, “even as others who have no hope … For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven … and the dead who are in Christ shall rise.”
The Church has always taught us to pray for those who have gone into eternity. Even in the Old Testament prayers and alms were offered for the souls of the dead by those who thought “well and religiously concerning the resurrection.” It was believed that “they who had fallen asleep with godliness had great grace laid up for them” and that “it is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.” We know that a defiled soul cannot enter into heaven.
Purgatory is not eternal. Its duration varies according to the sentence pronounced at each particular judgment. It may be prolonged for centuries in the case of the more guilty souls, or of those who, being excluded from the Catholic communion, are deprived of the suffrages of the Church, although by the divine mercy they have escaped hell. But the end of the world, which will be also the end of time, will close forever the place of temporary expiation. God will know how to reconcile His justice and His goodness in the purification of the last members of the human race, and to supply by the intensity of the expiatory suffering what may be wanting in duration. But, whereas a favorable sentence at the particular judgment admits of eternal beatitude being suspended and postponed, and leaves the bodies of the elect to the same fate as those of the reprobate; at the universal judgment, every sentence, whether for heaven or for hell, will be absolute, and will be executed immediately and completely.
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/11_1.cfm
PRAYERS FOR THE HOLY SOULS
Eternal Father,
I offer Thee 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,
for sinners in the universal church,
those in my own home
and within my family.
Amen.
Oh Mary,
you are the Mother of the Poor Souls in Purgatory.
Lessen their sufferings and
grant them a speedy entrance into heavenly bliss.
Amen.
Lord,
hear my prayer for those who died alone, with no one to pray for them.
Many of these forgotten ones endured severe poverty, illness or violence, and felt abandoned. Though I do not know their names,
I am deeply moved by their suffering.
Let me now be the friend they needed.
I pray that You forgive their sins and
bring them into Your arms
where their agony will be replaced with
happiness, light and love for eternity.
Amen.
God, Lord of mercies,
grant to the souls of Your servants and handmaids,
the place of refreshment, the bliss of eternal rest
and the splendor of Your light.
Amen.
Eternal rest grant to them,
O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May the souls of the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
Church of the Holy Rosary, Edgewater, NJ 