Saint Gertrude Prayer and Chaplet

[s.cono]

Last month while I was looking for ways to expand on praying for the poor souls in purgatory, I came across the prayer of Saint Gertrude the Great, and began reciting it with my daily prayers. It goes like this:

“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”

I also became aware of the chaplet of the same prayer, which can be said using a standard five decade rosary.

What I find a little odd is the way the prayer is constructed. Up to the part “for sinners everywhere” I get it. But then it goes on to state more examples of sinners (. . . “in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family.”)

I think “for sinners everywhere” would include the specific examples that follow it.

I wonder why the other examples were tagged on. Wouldn’t it make more sense if it read “in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family, and for sinners everywhere.”

I’m probably making more out of this than I should, but I couldn’t help but notice this when I prayed it as a chaplet, and had to recite it 50 times.

 

[CatholicSpirit]

I appreciate your mentioning of this great and powerful prayer. Saint Gertrude the Great was a mystic and that is pretty cool to me. Does it free one thousand per each of the 50 times you prayed it? I would hope so…

 

[TheLittleLady]

The whole “Pray this and X will happen” is superstition. Pray the prayer and God will apply those prayers where they are needed.

 

[s.cono]

I hope it does, too. I have read that it is supposed to, but being a private revelation, nobody can really say.

Just for fun, I got a little curious. It is estimated that 108 billion human beings have lived on earth thus far. Of course they have not all gone on to purgatory, but if they all did, it would only take 2,160,000 recitations of the chaplet to release every one of them. I bet worldwide there are at least that many recitations of the chaplet in a single year. Now that is one powerful chaplet.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

There is actually a website that counts up repetitions of the St. Gertrude Prayer in an attempt to cover all the human beings who ever lived. You can add your prayers to it. It’s at 71 percent.

(Note: I agree with the comment above about it being “superstition” to think like this, so I post the website only for fun. If it gets people to pray, that’s a good thing.)

http://mtep.com/index.html

 

[s.cono]

Thanks for sharing that, Tis_Bearself.

I guess I’m not as weird as I thought, pondering such things.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Now, to address your question about the wording…

When I pray my personal prayers, I often say something like, "I pray for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, especially X, Y and Z (<----names of my deceased spouse, parents, in-laws, good friends, somebody who just died, anyone else I’m especially praying for), and all the Forgotten Souls who have no one to pray for them, and all the ______ (<—insert name of some group I especially might want to pray for on that day such as all deceased Presbyterians, all deceased priests, all deceased Jesuits, etc.) "

Obviously when I prayed for “all the Holy Souls in Purgatory”, all these individual people and groups were covered already, but I just felt like calling them out for emphasis for some reason.

So St. Gertrude’s Prayer is doing the same thing. “for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the Universal Church, in my own home and in my family.” It’s just emphasizing the sinners in the Universal Church, home, and family. I see it as a little reminder that people in your church, home and family actually do sin, that “sinners everywhere” Is not some vague impersonal mass of People Different From Us out there somewhere committing their sins.

I find it especially sobering to pray the “in my own home” part given that since my husband died, there is nobody “in my own home” except me and the cats, and cats cannot commit sin, so I’m basically praying for myself.

 

[s.cono]

Thank you. Your explanation makes perfect sense to me.

I say a rosary each day for the Holy Souls with my own specific intentions. . . Family members, friend’s relatives, etc… I always ask the Blessed Mother to include her own intentions, as well, especially when I can get an indulgence for someone, or for someone Mary chooses. My wife and I pray the rosary together, so can get the indulgence for a family rosary every day I can make It to communion. Thanks as always for your (name removed by moderator)ut.