Announcement: Rorate Caeli to begin New Purgatorial Society
Last week, my aunt lost her battle with cancer, and went to her eternal reward. When I received the sudden news, I prayed to Our Lady that her reward be Heaven, and then I quickly took to Twitter and Facebook to ask friends and family to pray for the repose of her soul.
When I was finished, I thought about how difficult it is to get people to pray for deceased loved ones, especially in today's society when even most Catholics wrongly believe everyone outside of murderers and rapists are automatically going to Heaven and thus are not in need of prayers. And I thought how wonderful it would be if there was a Purgatorial Society to turn to -- a free one as well.
I am now happy to announce the official launch of the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society!
This is where traditionals get to show we're traditional by more than just driving a couple of hours to the closest TLM -- we get to prove our traditional chops the old-fashioned way, by praying for others.
For those who want prayers for their loved ones, some ground rules: 1.) the person must have died within the last month [see below for update]; 2.) Send notice of recent deaths to me directly at my contact info on my profile page, not other contributors to this site, as I am taking on this duty; 3.) Send the info as text in an email as follows: the subject line should read "Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society" and the body of the email should simply be the first and last name of the deceased and the state and country of origin of the deceased. Example:
Having everyone submit them in this fashion will save me a lot of formatting time. And feel free to add as many names from the last month as you wish.
Each week, most likely every Friday, I will post the entire list I received that week. Then, all our readers will have to do is simply pray for the entire list, asking Our Lord to grant eternal rest and perpetual light on "all the souls in the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society."
While I will only post the list for the week, all the souls from the weeks before will forever be members of the Society, and will therefore reap the benefits of the prayers as long as we continue this effort.
Please feel free to start sending me your names now. And everyone please consider praying for the deceased -- one of the selfless spiritual works of mercy that truly make traditional Catholics traditional.
UPDATE: The response to the announcement of this Society has already been strong. I will post the first list of names this Friday. If you have emailed me, rest assured, those names will be added to the list -- I just can't respond affirmatively to all emails. Also, there will not be a listserve function to this -- you have to check this site each Friday for the list. I have also been asked that, just for this first posting of names, that loved ones who died in the last year be allowed, and I have agreed. So please feel free to send me names, properly formatted, of all your loved ones who passed over the last year. If you want to go back throughout time, just say the family name, eg: "The Jones family." Last, if you are a priest and would like to offer a weekly, monthly or even just one Traditional Latin Mass for the souls of this Society, please email me at athanasiuscatholic@yahoo.com.
