This issue looks at Works of Mercy.  Andrew Marmion has written three lovely yet thoughtful articles, finishing with a poem written after his first visit to Auschwitz.

Our call as Christians is to make our life’s work one of Mercy through prayer, sacrifice and action. Throughout Scripture we are called to come to the assistance of the poor:

The Holy Souls Crusade started in 2001 with the intention of promoting the needs of the Souls in Purgatory – a Spiritual Work of Mercy. In 2004 that promotion developed further by bringing pilgrims to Garabandal, a beautiful place way up in the Cantabrian Mountains which reportedly had been ‘host to Our Blessed Lady’ during the 1961-1965 four-year period of apparitions to four young girls in the village. This little village has had a beautiful centuries-old tradition of daily ringing a hand-bell throughout the village reminding all to pray for the Souls in Purgatory. During the Spanish Civil War, the villagers housed Priests ‘on the run’ and hid the Blessed Sacrament and the church valuables.

In 2006 an inner urgency brought us to the Shrine of the Divine Mercy and Auschwitz. Here we were faced with a deep insight into the need to pray for the whole world, especially those who bring about human disasters through war, extermination, genocide, infanticide. Since then the Holy Souls Crusade has organized pilgrimages to Krakow in Southern Poland, hoping that our pilgrims will return home with a hunger to promote devotion to the Divine Mercy. 

This promotion of the needs of all souls – those on earth in need of conversion, and those in Purgatory in need of prayers for their happy release – is encompassed within the Spiritual works of Mercy. 

Also in 2006 the Holy Souls Crusade opened the door to the Corporal Works of Mercy by sending money to the Church in Need so that each year 100 Holy Masses could be offered for the souls in Purgatory. These funds, in turn, are used throughout the world to help communities in need. 

An article sent to Ireland’s Eye in early 2006 has opened another door for us. We are in the process of adding a third aspect to our work which will now have Promotion, Pilgrimage and Projects. The full story can be found inside this newsletter.

We can describe works of mercy as loving actions done to help our neighbour concerning spiritual and bodily needs. We can say that the corporal works of mercy are concerned with feeding the hungry, finding shelter for the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the ill and imprisoned together with burying the dead. Among these, assisting the poor is an important witness to charity and is associated with the works of justice, which is pleasing to Almighty God. We recognise the presence of Jesus in the needy, and come to His aid.
 
On one occasion, St. Faustina, answered the door to a poor young man. Taking pity on him, she brought him in to feed him. When the young man had finished eating, he disappeared much to the amazement of the saint. She learned from that that Christ is present in the poor and needy just as he is present in all of us, worthy or unworthy, saint or sinner. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we are exhorted not to judge our neighbour, a fault which the majority of us are guilty, at least from time to time.
 
Closely associated with the corporal works of mercy are those of the spirit. The Catechism informs us that consoling and comforting, advising and instructing are considered among these, and just as the world seems to grow harder and compassion seems to wane, so also there is less availability for spiritual needs to be met. The simple building of a church in Africa, which the Holy Souls Crusade is considering in order to help university students, could be considered both a spiritual and corporal work of mercy: coming to their aid in both a spiritual and physical manner.
 
I believe that prayerful intercession is closely related to this, and all is incorporated in devotion to the Divine Mercy. We can ask Jesus to be merciful to us in meeting all our needs both physical and spiritual whilst simultaneously learning by the grace of God to reflect that mercy to the world. God is not asking us all to be St. Faustinas and St. Pios, but he is asking us to be saints in the world, to reflect his love and mercy to our world aching for love, longing for God, despite it being steeped in its own misery. 
 
Many people believe that they cannot become saints. In some cases this is a result of false humility, and perhaps such an attitude can provide us with the excuse not to try. But, by virtue of our baptism, we are saints. We make up the Body of Christ which is called ‘holy’. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and are called to become increasingly like Christ, so that he may be made all the more present to the world through our kindness, through our love and mercy. Sin may be an obstruction to holiness, but it does not have the last say, just as death does not. The forgiveness and grace of God is an overflowing stream always available to the repentant and sincere of heart. We can all play a part in God’s plan of spreading his love and mercy in the world, and perhaps it is because this has been left largely untried in our day that human hearts are hardening. It is up to Christians to demonstrate love and mercy, even when faced with injustice, so that we can provide others with the opportunity to come to the feet of Christ, and be bathed in the rays from his Sacred Heart, the rays of the Divine Mercy.

I believe that we can invoke the angels under the title of Angels of the Divine Mercy. Perhaps there are some who are puzzled by this. Please, allow me to explain. We know that the holy angels past the test when tempted to think that they were greater than God and so reject his reign. Their freedom put to the test, they lovingly chose the reign of God, and humbly serve him for eternity. Therefore, the angels can identify themselves with us, as they know the seduction of temptation. Given their purely spiritual nature and great intelligence they were only tested once. Their choice, completely irrevocable, has won for them an eternal bliss. Likewise, they are interested in us; they want us to share the beatific vision with them. 
 
We know that the holy angels are servants and messengers of God. This is apparent throughout the scriptures. They even ministered to our Blessed Lord in times of great need, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane. Just as a fallen angel played his part in the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, so in another Garden, the holy angels come to the assistance of the Son of God. This must be so, since all angels belong to  Jesus: ‘When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him...’ Mt 25:31. As such, they share an intimate relationship with God, not only reflecting his glory, but all his other attributes: the holy angels are also mirrors reflecting the mercy of God.
 
The angels have been present to humanity since creation, and more importantly, throughout salvation history, serving the divine plan. They serve us with great reward, and the only thanks they want is that we grow in the likeness of Christ, their divine master, and come home to our eternal reward to share the beatific vision with them. They are involved in the life of the Church, and solicitous care as guardian angels mirrors the mercy of God who gives them to watch over us. They burn with the love of God, instruct us in how to avoid evil and choose what is good, while also protecting us from harm. They would have us be merciful to our neighbours, to everyone we come in contact with so that we too might mirror the mercy of God. I believe that our prayer enables them to help souls, to help them snatch souls from Satan. They work tirelessly because their love for God is so great. Let us imitate their example, pray more, sacrifice more so that the angels may be enabled to save more souls for God and thus be carried to his eternal and merciful heart. Let us pray:

Angels of love and mercy, mirrors of the Divine Mercy of Jesus, help me in my time of need, deflect the attacks of Satan and his hordes, and come shield me from their malicious temptations. Angels of goodness, those who adore the Blessed Trinity in spirit and in truth, defend me and those I love, save all souls and protect the unwary from the malice of the enemy. Guide me and mine, protect us, love us, show us the way to go, so that every footstep accomplishes the Divine Will and brings us closer to our heavenly homeland.  

I was privileged to go to Poland and the Divine Mercy Shrine with Mary and Aidan for the first time in September. The experience was powerful and unforgettable. The shrine is a place of great prayer and peace. The sisters were delightful, especially Sister Gaudia who shared a lot with us and gave our group a very inspired and interesting talk. She even came to wish us goodbye when we were returning home.
 
Interestingly, being at the shrine prepared us pilgrims for the visit to the infamous and notorious death camp Auschwitz, a place that cannot afford to fade from human memory. It is was a barbaric place where the opposite of God’s loving mercy was carried out. The most monstrous tortures, experiments and murders were carried out in the name of bettering the human race (the Arian Race) and as part of Hitler’s plan to expand Germany’s into the Slavic nations. Wholesale slaughter was the result. 
 
When I arrived in Auschwitz I expected to sense the presence of evil lingering, but instead, an atmosphere of peace reigned there. Then I remembered what one of the priests accompanying us said: the ground on which we will stand is holy ground. Yes, terrible crimes were carried out there, but many good and holy people were martyred there, including little children, the innocent ones of God. Two examples are that of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who took pity on one of his fellow prisoners and took his place in the ‘death block’ where, after several days of starvation, he was given a lethal injection. The other is that of Edith Stein and her sister who were gassed with many others since, although Christians, they were of Jewish descent. Similarly, many Jews and other God fearing people also died there and are now singing the praises of God.
 
So, despite Hitler and, ultimately, the Devil’s plan, God was at work. Countless atrocities were occurring, but God was present to his people in their direst moment and  Auschwitz was an intense battlefield for the salvation of souls. Could we even say that through the prayers of those good people martyred there, some of the S.S. soldiers working in the camp were saved? Only God knows. Our human weakness and sense of outrage may cry out for their damnation, but we must remember that the perpetrators were also children of God who wept as much over them and what they had become, as well as over the people they were torturing and killing.

Perhaps the greatest sign of God’s presence to his suffering people was the presence of the Divine Mercy devotion in many of the work camps and death camps. People who had this devotion took it with them, others who were being arrested and sent to Auschwitz were given these prayer cards by others. Jesus, the Divine Mercy was a t the centre of this evil shedding his rays of light and mercy, offering his solace and comfort, and how he must have suffered in the midst of all that evil.

The hardest part of the journey for me was the evidence of children having suffered. Many went straight to the gas chambers with their parents, but others were used for labour, sometimes very dangerous jobs, whilst others were used for experiments by Dr. Mengele. How could a doctor, sworn to heal and preserve human life, perform experiments (especially on twins and triplets) hour after hour, each day for years on end? How could a human being descend to the depths of such wickedness? It is a shuddering example of how evil can make an inroad so far into the human soul if it is allowed, and it is a warning to all of us to shun what is evil, even the littlest of sins, and choose what is good and leads to a life of holiness.
 
When I walked around the various barracks that housed many displays of the clothing, shoes, suitcases, even spectacles, shaving brushes and toothbrushes of the many victims, I was appalled and deeply saddened. These items were ordinarily sent back to Germany for further use. The S.S. evil when further, by harvesting the bodies of their victims: the cutting of long hair to be used for blankets, the tailoring of men’s suits and stuffing of mattresses; removal of gold teeth; and the stripping of the corpses of any jewellery they may be wearing. The death camps were like factories where even human ash was not wasted. The excess was used on farmland as fertiliser.

All of this tells us that much prayer and penance is needed. The cry at Neuremberg was that never again would anything like this be allowed to happen. Yet, we have seen it several times since for example, the killing fields of Cambodia, and in our own day we will remember the likes of the slaughter of Christians in East Timor, the slaughter in Rawanda, the terrible atrocities when Yugoslavia was dividing into separate countries, and sadly, Darfur, which is happening as I write this together with other places in the world such as Burma. The human race has obviously not learned from World War Two because the larger part of humanity has turned its back on God. Only if we turn back to him with sincere hearts can the healing of the nations truly begin, and this begins with each individual.

I would like to end this article with a poem I wrote on the day I went to Auschwitz, expressing the taking of the most innocent of lives, but that death is not the end. Suffering and death do not have the final say, but entering into the presence of God swamps and drowns out all that seeks to overwhelm us.

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How You Can Help the Souls in Purgatory

1. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the highest form of prayer that we can offer for the needs of the Holy Souls. It has been quoted that one Mass attended in our lifetime is worth hundreds offered for us after our death. 
2. Healing the Family Tree Masses are most beneficial both to those who attend and the ancestors of those attending. Many wonderful healings have been reported. 
3. If possible, parishes could aim to have a monthly Mass specifically for the Holy Souls. 
4. Spend some time in Eucharistic Adoration or doing the Stations of the Cross in a Church specifically for the Souls in Purgatory. 
5. Pray the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Chaplet of the Holy Souls daily, if possible. 
6. Recite special prayers for the Holy Souls like the one given to St. Gertrude below which carries the promise of the release of 1,000 souls from Purgatory each time it is prayed. 
7. Offer this invocation throughout the day: “Jesus and Mary I love You, save souls”. 
8. Form prayer groups which include prayers for the Holy Souls. 
9. Offer up aches, pains and sufferings for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. 

Prayer of Saint Gertrude the Great

Eternal Father, I offer You the most Precious Blood of Your Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for all sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in 
my own home and within my own family. Amen 

Annual Holy Souls Crusade Retreat

Sunday 7th November 2004 from 2pm – 6pm 
The Blessed Sacrament Chapel, Knock Shrine, County Mayo, Ireland 

2pm. Stations of the Cross (outside if dry – Old Church if raining), 
Blessed Sacrament Chapel - 2-30 Rosary, Mass 3pm followed by Eucharistic Adoration, followed by a talk on the Souls in Purgatory with Guest Speaker 

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We invite additions to this column to promote special Masses and prayers for the Holy Souls in your area. Below is just a start to this column, with your help it will grow and as it does we hope to start a country-by-country and parish-by-parish list on the website showing Masses, Rosaries, Prayer Groups etc. dedicated for the Holy Souls. Please send us your information and we will include it: 

http://www.holysoulscrusade.org/ 
Email: mary@holysoulscrusade.org 

Ireland: 

St. Cornan’s Church, Kilcornan, Clarinbridge, County Galway 
Every Thursday at 3pm – Fr. Martin Keane 
Healing the Family Tree Mass and Eucharistic Adoration 

Abbey Parish, Loughrea 
The third Thursday of the month 8pm – Fr. Cathal Stanley 
Healing the Family Tree Mass 

Northern Ireland: 

Monthly Rosary and Prayers for the Holy Souls 
St. Bridget’s Church, Carnhill, Derry – 1st Sunday of the month at 5pm 
Longtower Church, Derry – 1st Sunday of the month at 5pm 
Contact Matt Dalton, Ph: 00353 74 9368014 

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CONTACTS
Founders: Aidan & Carolyn Bond, 45 Dunard, Craughwell, Co. Galway Ph: +353 91-876737 
Treasurer: Carolyn Bond, 45 Dunard, Craughwell, Co. Galway Ph: +353 91-876737 
Secretary, Mary Mullins, Cregmore, Claregalway, Co. Galway Ph: +353 91 798407 
Email: 
Website: http://www.holysoulscrusade.org