Re: Confused Catholic [Long post]

[gell]

Something else that bothers me is the effectiveness of prayer. I have no quarrel with the claim that every prayer is answered perfectly. This is moreso in relation to the apparent effectiveness of particular prayers and how they should be said. Take this prayer for example:

“Eternal Father, I offer You the most Precious Blood of Your Divine Son, Jesus Christ, 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.”

First of all, I don’t really understand the part in bold. Can anyone explain it to me? If you don’t know already, this is the Prayer of St Gertrude, and it was apparently given to her by Jesus and each time it is said 1000 souls are meant to be delivered from purgatory. Wow… that is quite a big claim. I did a couple of google searches and what really bothers me is that the claim regarding its effectiveness is constantly said without any supporting evidence. Apparently, it has the “Approval and Recommendation signed by M. Cardinal Pahiarca”. But what does that mean? Does that mean the CHURCH approves it or does the individual Cardinal approves of it? WHY does he and/or the Church approve it? It seems I can’t get a succinct answer to this without burying my head in pages and pages of material, 99% of which won’t answer this very basic and intuitive question. Surely you can’t just believe it because it is related to the Catholic Church in some way or form. The reason I feel I am Catholic is because this religion actually makes sense. God’s true religion has to make sense… yet here I am given a prayer that apparently frees ONE THOUSAND souls from purgatory yet no one seems to really bother saying why this particular prayer has any validity. Why?

Another aspect I don’t fully understand is a prayer like this one to the Divine Mercy. According to St Faustina’s diary, Jesus said:

"When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion. This is the prayer: ‘O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You.’ "(186 - 187)

Conversion can come in many shapes and forms. I find this somewhat ambiguous- does this mean a FULL conversion or simply a small turning towards God or anything in between? If it is the former, then wouldn’t that mean that it is only appropriate to say this prayer once? If God answers all prayers perfectly, isn’t it completely redundant, if not annoying for Jesus, to ask for the same thing over and over again if Jesus has already said that he will grant it. So if it is the former, shouldn’t the prayer only be said once for each person it is directed at?

Also, would it be appropriate for me to say one of these prayers if I did not have full faith in the claims?

edit: Just as a side note, my post was moved here, even though only half of it relates to the Divine Mercy (and it’s not really in regards to the chaplet per say).

 

[Michael_Francis]

Post on the Divine Mercy Chaplet moved to Spirituality Forum
Confused Catholic: The Divine Mercy Chaplet

MF

 

[PhilotheaZ]

Remember, this is part of private revelation. You are free to pray the prayer if it appeals to you, or to pray in a different way if you prefer.

Some thoughts that may shed some light on your questions:

• Perhaps the Cardinal’s approval was for the *content *of the prayer (i.e., the prayer itself is free of doctrinal error), rather than his assurance of the release of a certain number of souls from Purgatory.
• Perhaps the promise was being made to the recipient of the private revelation, and by extrapolation we hope that God will be similarly generous in His mercy when we pray the prayer.
• Perhaps the “one thousand souls” is figurative (meaning “lots of souls”) rather than literal (exactly 1,000).

I’m no expert on this. In any case, when I pray any prayer that has an indulgence or a promise attached to it, I leave the accounting to God and simply trust that, in His mercy, He will make the best possible use of my efforts.

I hope this helps a little.

 

[Ilroy]

Another aspect I don’t fully understand is a prayer like this one to the Divine Mercy. According to St Faustina’s diary, Jesus said:

"When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion. This is the prayer: ‘O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You.’ "(186 - 187)

Conversion can come in many shapes and forms. I find this somewhat ambiguous- does this mean a FULL conversion or simply a small turning towards God or anything in between? If it is the former, then wouldn’t that mean that it is only appropriate to say this prayer once? If God answers all prayers perfectly, isn’t it completely redundant, if not annoying for Jesus, to ask for the same thing over and over again if Jesus has already said that he will grant it. So if it is the former, shouldn’t the prayer only be said once for each person it is directed at?

Key wording here would be Grace of Conversion. He gives the grace necessary for the person to be converted, but that person has to respond to that grace just like the rest of us. Think of grace as a gift. If you refuse to accept the gift it does you no good. If you accept the gift, open it up and use it, then you get all the benefit from that grace.