I was staring into my beer the other day

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Ahh, I haven’t been here for several days. Such heavy topics today 😦 Could it be because we are rapidly approaching Easter? :confused:

Well, not to be frivolous, but the other day I was looking into a mug of beer I was having, and I guess it would work the same for any soft drink, or champagne, but anyways, I was watching the bubbles streaming to the top. It’s weird, because they appear out of nowhere, and they follow the same path, as if a little invisible bubble machine gun near the bottom is shooting them to the foam.

In any event, the thought that came to me at that moment was that they were like the souls of purgatory streaming up to heaven every time someone says the St. Gertrude purgatory prayer.

I’ve posted this site before, and this has to a certain extent become one of my pet subjects, but that’s because it really affected me → www.mtep.com If you click on the right side on the button that says “About Saint Gertrude the Great” and read the paragraph where wording appears in red (talking about one vision she had, with the king analogy…), man, that made me cry when I first read it.

What is my point? There is none !! 😃 I must be from Babylon, because I keep babbling on and on.
 
Hmm, sounds good. I myself say the St Gertrude prayer every day, more than once if I remember, I think it can’t but help me as well as them if I pray for the poor souls in Purgatory.

Wouldn’t stare into too many more of those beers if I were you though hic

http://www.awtrey.com/tony/beer/finepint.jpg

just one more for the road and then call it a day eh?
 
Hahaha, yes, I feel the same way. I must pray for the worst sinners to be sure that I’m included 🙂

Yes, alcohol is a problem for me. No, I’m not an alcoholic, but I do have trouble stopping once I start. On one hand, I’m thinking "hey, Jesus made between 90 to 120 GALLONS of wine !!! (6 jars at 15 to 20 gallons each) :eek:

Of course, that’s just me rationalizing. I do try and practice moderation nowadays…
 
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CSN:
Hahaha, yes, I feel the same way. I must pray for the worst sinners to be sure that I’m included 🙂

Yes, alcohol is a problem for me. No, I’m not an alcoholic, but I do have trouble stopping once I start. On one hand, I’m thinking "hey, Jesus made between 90 to 120 GALLONS of wine !!! (6 jars at 15 to 20 gallons each) :eek:

Of course, that’s just me rationalizing. I do try and practice moderation nowadays…
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Hmmm. I wonder if a person waking up after that night would get the “hangover from heaven” 😛

Alan
 
Is the St. Gertrude prayer the one that if you say it supposedly Christ will release 1000 souls from purgatory? If so, I don’t like it. Not because of the prayer but because of that idea that by saying that one prayer you can release 1000 people from purgatory. It sounds so legalistic and it completely changes the meaning of purgatory. The saints tell us that the greatest prayer is contemplative prayer and that it helps the souls in purgatory more than anything else. Yet this one sentence releases 1000 souls from purgatory. It completely changes the meaning of purgatory. Purgatory is a cleansing process where people are made perfect.

Maybe I will have a beer with you.

http://www.awtrey.com/tony/beer/finepint.jpg
 
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jimmy:
Is the St. Gertrude prayer the one that if you say it supposedly Christ will release 1000 souls from purgatory? If so, I don’t like it. Not because of the prayer but because of that idea that by saying that one prayer you can release 1000 people from purgatory. It sounds so legalistic and it completely changes the meaning of purgatory. The saints tell us that the greatest prayer is contemplative prayer and that it helps the souls in purgatory more than anything else. Yet this one sentence releases 1000 souls from purgatory. It completely changes the meaning of purgatory. Purgatory is a cleansing process where people are made perfect.

Maybe I will have a beer with you.

http://www.awtrey.com/tony/beer/finepint.jpg
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Prayer is never legalistic, even if it is formal - I doubt you could pray in any old frame of mind and with any old level of attention and get the desired result. I certainly include contemplative prayer such as Adoration in my day, nothing wrong with adding formal prayer as well. And if our contemplative prayer helps the souls in purgatory, then why not our formal prayer? Don’t we offer masses for the dead as well?
 
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LilyM:
Prayer is never legalistic, even if it is formal - I doubt you could pray in any old frame of mind and with any old level of attention and get the desired result. I certainly include contemplative prayer such as Adoration in my day as well, nothing wrong with adding formal prayer as well.
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There is nothing wrong with formal prayer, my problem is with the idea that this single prayer will release 1000 souls from purgatory. One line. Why is that prayer better than the little prayer in the Divine Mercy chaplet which is pretty much the same? Or the Our Father, or the Jesus Prayer, or the O My Jesus prayer? My problem with it is not that it is formal prayer, I use formal prayers. The problem is with the idea that it will release 1000 souls from purgatory. Why does Christ make people stay in purgatory if they can be released so easily? Is He letting them into heaven before they are perfect?
 
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CSN:
Well, not to be frivolous, but the other day I was looking into a mug of beer I was having, and I guess it would work the same for any soft drink, or champagne, but anyways, I was watching the bubbles streaming to the top. It’s weird, because they appear out of nowhere, and they follow the same path, as if a little invisible bubble machine gun near the bottom is shooting them to the foam.

In any event, the thought that came to me at that moment was that they were like the souls of purgatory streaming up to heaven every time someone says the St. Gertrude purgatory prayer.
Click to expand...
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LilyM:
Wouldn’t stare into too many more of those beers if I were you though hic

http://www.awtrey.com/tony/beer/finepint.jpg
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By No Means Stare Into That Beer (Stout) While Contemplating This!

The bubbles float **down **not up! :eek:

😛
tee
 
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jimmy:
There is nothing wrong with formal prayer, my problem is with the idea that this single prayer will release 1000 souls from purgatory. One line. Why is that prayer better than the little prayer in the Divine Mercy chaplet which is pretty much the same? Or the Our Father, or the Jesus Prayer, or the O My Jesus prayer? My problem with it is not that it is formal prayer, I use formal prayers. The problem is with the idea that it will release 1000 souls from purgatory. Why does Christ make people stay in purgatory if they can be released so easily? Is He letting them into heaven before they are perfect?
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It’s not necessarily better - after all Jesus never said that a Divine Mercy Chaplet didn’t release 10,000 or 50,000 souls each time it was prayed. On the other hand, perhaps it’s because the St Gertrude Prayer offers ‘all the masses said in the world’ and thus links itself with them that it’s so effective.

I don’t think the figures are necessarily accurate or should be the main focus either. They are like the ‘forgive your brother seventy times’ line - it’s not like we’re supposed to literally keep a tally of the number of times we forgive each person and stop at some point.

The idea is that WE can greatly help to release souls from purgatory by offering even simple prayers for them - or lessen our own time there by praying on our own behalf. And the saints have told us that our prayers while we are alive are much more effective than anything that those in purgatory can do for themselves, just as the prayers of those in heaven on our behalf are more effective than our own.
 
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LilyM:
It’s not necessarily better - after all Jesus never said that a Divine Mercy Chaplet didn’t release 10,000 or 50,000 souls each time it was prayed. On the other hand, perhaps it’s because the St Gertrude Prayer offers ‘all the masses said in the world’ and thus links itself with them that it’s so effective.

I don’t think the figures are necessarily accurate or should be the main focus either. They are like the ‘forgive your brother seventy times’ line - it’s not like we’re supposed to literally keep a tally of the number of times we forgive each person and stop at some point.

The idea is that WE can greatly help to release souls from purgatory by offering even simple prayers for them - or lessen our own time there by praying on our own behalf. And the saints have told us that our prayers while we are alive are much more effective than anything that those in purgatory can do for themselves, just as the prayers of those in heaven on our behalf are more effective than our own.
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I have no problem with any of what you said. I agree with every word of it. If the numbers really don’t matter and it is just an idea that prayer greatly helps the people in purgatory then it is fine by me. In fact I like it then. I think prayer for those who have died is one of the greatest things we can do.
 
My problem with it (St. Gertrude prayer) is something different…

Number of people who have died is thought to be approx 300 x number of people currently alive = 1800 billion. So that is the maximum number of people in purgatory (assuming they are all still there which is unlikely).

Number of Catholics in the world = 1.2 billion. Let’s say 1 in every 200 Catholics in the world decided to say this prayer once a day (= 6 million Catholics - there’s almost that many in Australia alone). Then each day 6 million x 1000 = 6 billion souls are being released from purgatory. So in a year purgatory will be empty and the St. Gertrude prayer won’t work any more. (If people pray the St Gertrude prayer when there is no one in purgatory - how can it work? But by the above it is easy for purgatory to become empty within a year if the St. Gertrude prayer works. Seems to conflict with itself?) That’s why it is hard for me to believe.

You could say that God ‘knew in advance’ that there would never be enough people praying the St. Gertrude prayer to empty purgatory. But that goes against free will because we can pray whenever we want. So still no explanation.
 
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Flopfoot:
My problem with it (St. Gertrude prayer) is something different…

Number of people who have died is thought to be approx 300 x number of people currently alive = 1800 billion. So that is the maximum number of people in purgatory (assuming they are all still there which is unlikely).

Number of Catholics in the world = 1.2 billion. Let’s say 1 in every 200 Catholics in the world decided to say this prayer once a day (= 6 million Catholics - there’s almost that many in Australia alone). Then each day 6 million x 1000 = 6 billion souls are being released from purgatory. So in a year purgatory will be empty and the St. Gertrude prayer won’t work any more. (If people pray the St Gertrude prayer when there is no one in purgatory - how can it work? But by the above it is easy for purgatory to become empty within a year if the St. Gertrude prayer works. Seems to conflict with itself?) That’s why it is hard for me to believe.

You could say that God ‘knew in advance’ that there would never be enough people praying the St. Gertrude prayer to empty purgatory. But that goes against free will because we can pray whenever we want. So still no explanation.
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I think it’s the intent that counts. Actually, I read that the last part, “for sinner everywhere…” etc. was added later and was never actually ‘endorsed’ by anyone in the Church. And Jesus apparently never said 1000 souls, just “a great many”, I believe…

I have no problem with formal prayer, because I think of that old lady who simply believed she could be healed if she touched Jesus’ robe. Maybe it’s just that simple… 🙂
 
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