Traditional Catholic Daily Devotional

• "The Existence of Purgatory" — From the Assumption to Advent
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Yesterday, the Church celebrated the saints in heaven. Today, she asks us to remember those still waiting to enter its fullness. All Souls’ Day carries a very personal invitation: someone you love may still need your prayers.

Christians prayed for the dead long before this commemoration appeared on the calendar. But its familiar November date took shape in the monasteries of medieval France. In 998, Saint Odilo, abbot of Cluny, directed the monasteries under his authority to remember all the faithful departed on the day after All Saints. The observance gradually spread through the Western Church.

The placement makes sense. First, we rejoice with the Church triumphant. Then we help the souls in purgatory, who have died in God’s friendship but still need purification. Their salvation is assured. Their suffering is real. And through prayer, almsgiving, and especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we can help them.

One remarkable development came during the First World War. In 1915, Pope Benedict XV extended to priests throughout the Church the privilege of offering three Masses on All Souls’ Day. Amid so much death, the Church multiplied her greatest prayer for the departed.

Around that prayer grew some memorable local customs.

In England, people went “souling” around All Saints and All Souls. Poor neighbors and children visited houses asking for food, receiving small “soul cakes.” In return, they offered prayers for the household’s departed relatives. Charity reached in both directions: food for the hungry, prayers for the dead.

In Sicily, November second became a day children eagerly anticipated. Families prepared gifts and baskets of sweets, traditionally described as presents from deceased relatives. Among the treats were painted sugar figures and frutta martorana, almond sweets shaped and colored to resemble real fruit. This was family folklore, rather than Church teaching, but it helped keep departed grandparents and other relatives present in children’s memories.

Underneath the cakes, flowers, and family customs lies something wonderfully practical. Love still has work to do after a funeral. We can have Masses offered, visit a cemetery, give alms, or pause over a name and say a prayer.

And the Church remembers beyond our own family circle, asking mercy for all the faithful departed, including those whom nobody else remembers.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

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If you walked into a Polish cemetery on the evening of November first, you might find it glowing with thousands of candles. Families gather around graves, bringing flowers and remembering those who have gone before them. It’s one of the most striking sights of All Saints’ Day, a feast whose history reaches back to the early Church.

Christians were celebrating the martyrs together by the fourth century. There were simply too many to give each one a separate feast. In Rome, the celebration gained a remarkable home: the Pantheon. In 609 or 610, Pope Boniface IV dedicated that former pagan temple to Our Lady and all the martyrs. Imagine the statement that made. A building once associated with Rome’s gods now honored Christians who had refused to worship them.

That dedication was celebrated on May thirteenth. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel at Saint Peter’s to all the saints, with an anniversary on November first. Under Gregory IV in the following century, the November celebration spread throughout the Western Church.

And the feast embraces far more people than those whose names appear in our missals. It honors everyone in heaven, including saints whose lives passed almost entirely unnoticed.

Over the centuries, Catholics gave this celebration some wonderfully local expressions.

In parts of Portugal, children go from house to house on November first asking for Pão por Deus, “bread for God’s sake.” Carrying bags and reciting little verses, they traditionally receive bread, cakes, nuts, or fruit. The details vary from village to village, but sharing food is at the heart of it.

In Spain, bakery counters fill with huesos de santo, “saints’ bones.” These little sweets traditionally have a marzipan exterior and a sweet egg-yolk filling. Apparently, even bones can become an occasion for good Catholic baking. Families also bring flowers to the cemetery, linking the feast with the remembrance of their dead.

Those cemetery customs overlap with All Souls’ Day on November second, but the Church makes a beautiful distinction. On All Saints, we rejoice with the blessed in heaven and ask their prayers. On All Souls, we pray for the faithful departed still being purified.

Together, the days remind us that our family in Christ reaches beyond the people we can see. Some are already home. Others still need our prayers. And we are walking toward the same heavenly homeland.

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Saint Alphonsus Rodríguez spent much of his life answering a door. But before he ever picked up the college keys, he had buried his wife, lost all three of his children, and watched his livelihood fall apart.

He had been a cloth merchant in Segovia, Spain. Marriage and fatherhood were his life, until a succession of deaths left him a grieving widower. When he turned toward religious life, even that door seemed closed. The Jesuits considered him too old, too poorly educated, and too frail. He tried again. Eventually, a superior recognized something the entrance requirements couldn’t measure, and Alphonsus entered as a brother in 1571.

His assignment brought him to the Jesuit college in Palma, on the island of Majorca. There he became the porter, welcoming visitors, carrying messages, finding people, and giving assistance to the poor.

You can imagine the interruptions. Just when you’ve settled down, somebody needs something. Again.

Alphonsus made those interruptions part of his prayer. When the bell rang, he would turn toward Christ with the words, “Here I am, Lord!” The person outside might need directions, food, or someone willing to listen. Alphonsus tried to receive each one as he would receive Our Lord.

One person who sought him out was a young Jesuit named Peter Claver. Peter had plenty of zeal, but wasn’t sure where to direct it. The elderly brother befriended him, talked with him about prayer, and encouraged him toward the missions in Spanish America. Peter eventually devoted his life to enslaved Africans arriving in Cartagena. The college doorkeeper had helped a future saint find his calling across the ocean.

There was also much more happening within Alphonsus than visitors could see. At his spiritual director’s urging, he recorded his interior life. His writings eventually filled eight published volumes. Behind the familiar face at the entrance was a man of profound prayer, penance, and extraordinary mystical graces. He hadn’t written to build a reputation. He was obeying his director and keeping account of God’s work in his soul.

Alphonsus died on October 31, 1617. In 1888, he and Peter Claver were canonized together. Their friendship had borne fruit in two very different places: among the suffering people of Cartagena, and at a college entrance where, day after day, someone rang the bell.

Saint Alphonsus Rodríguez, pray for us.

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Saint Germanus of Capua is one of those early Italian bishops whose life is remembered largely because of an extraordinary friendship with another saint.

And that friend was none other than Saint Benedict.

Germanus lived during the late fifth and early sixth centuries, when Italy was going through enormous changes. The Western Roman Empire had collapsed, barbarian kingdoms were taking its place, and the Church was often the one institution holding communities together.

Germanus came from a distinguished family in Capua, near Naples. According to tradition, after his father's death, he gave much of his inheritance to the poor and entered the clergy.

He eventually became Bishop of Capua around the year 516.

And almost immediately, he found himself involved in one of the biggest controversies in the Church.

For decades, Rome and Constantinople had been divided by the Acacian Schism, a dispute involving the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon and the authority of the pope. In 519, Pope Hormisdas sent a delegation to Constantinople to negotiate an end to the division.

Germanus was one of the bishops chosen for the mission.

Think about that assignment.

Traveling from Italy to Constantinople in the sixth century was no small undertaking. Germanus had to deal with imperial officials, Eastern bishops, and decades of theological and political resentment.

But the mission succeeded.

The schism ended in 519, restoring communion between Rome and Constantinople after thirty-five years of division. Germanus had helped accomplish something that generations of churchmen had struggled to achieve.

But the most famous story about Germanus comes from the end of his life.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great tells it in his Dialogues.

One evening, Saint Benedict was praying in his monastery at Monte Cassino. Suddenly, he experienced an extraordinary vision. According to Gregory, Benedict saw the whole world gathered beneath a single ray of light.

And within that light, he saw a soul being carried to heaven by angels.

It was the soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua.

Benedict immediately called one of his monks and told him what he had seen. A messenger was sent to Capua, where he discovered that Germanus had died at precisely the time Benedict had experienced the vision.

It's one of the most remarkable episodes in Gregory's account of Saint Benedict.

And it gives us an interesting glimpse into how the early Church understood the communion of saints. Two holy men, living in different places, were united in prayer so deeply that one was permitted to witness the other's entrance into eternity.

Germanus died around the year 540, and devotion to him became especially strong in southern Italy. His relics were eventually honored at Monte Cassino, the great Benedictine abbey whose founder had witnessed his passing.

Germanus had been a diplomat, a bishop, and a defender of Church unity.

But the story that endured wasn't about his negotiations with emperors.

It was about a monk watching his friend go to heaven.

Saint Germanus of Capua, peacemaker of the Church and holy friend of Saint Benedict, pray for us.

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Saint Gaetano Errico is one of those Italian saints who spent nearly his entire life in one neighborhood, yet managed to build something that eventually spread across the world.

He was born in 1791 in Secondigliano, a working-class district outside Naples. His father made pasta, his mother worked as a weaver, and Gaetano was one of nine children.

There wasn't much money to spare.

But from an early age, Gaetano wanted to become a priest. He was ordained in 1815 and returned to Secondigliano, where he began teaching, preaching, hearing confessions, and caring for families who were struggling to get by.

And he became particularly interested in one thing.

Getting people back into the confessional.

Gaetano believed that many Catholics stayed away from confession not because they had stopped believing, but because they were frightened, ashamed, or convinced that God could never forgive what they had done.

He wanted to change that.

He became known for spending enormous amounts of time hearing confessions, patiently encouraging people who hadn't approached the sacrament in years.

But the most interesting part of his story began during a retreat.

In 1818, Gaetano traveled to Pagani, where he prayed at the tomb of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, the great moral theologian and founder of the Redemptorists.

According to Gaetano's own account, Alphonsus appeared to him and told him that God wanted him to establish a new religious congregation.

Gaetano was understandably overwhelmed.

He was a young parish priest with limited resources, and founding a religious order was hardly a small undertaking.

But he began working toward it.

He first built a church in Secondigliano dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which became the center of his new community. Eventually, in 1833, he founded the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Notice the plural.

Hearts.

Gaetano wanted his priests to contemplate both the love of Christ and the maternal compassion of His Blessed Mother. Their mission would be preaching, parish missions, religious instruction, and especially the sacrament of Penance.

The congregation faced years of financial difficulties, opposition, and uncertainty. Gaetano often had to keep the work going with very little money and even fewer assurances that it would succeed.

But he remained in Secondigliano.

That's one of the striking things about his life.

While other great missionaries crossed oceans, Gaetano kept returning to the same streets, the same families, and the same confessional.

He died in 1860, after forty-five years of priestly ministry.

His remains are still venerated in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Secondigliano, and the congregation he founded continues its work in several countries.

Gaetano understood that you don't always have to travel far to find a mission field.

Sometimes it's the neighborhood where you grew up.

And sometimes the greatest miracle is helping someone who has been away from confession for twenty years finally believe that God still wants him back.

Saint Gaetano Errico, apostle of confession and devoted servant of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, pray for us.

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Saints Simon and Jude share a feast day on October 28, and there's something rather interesting about these two Apostles.

They're among the Twelve, yet the Gospels tell us almost nothing about either of them.

Simon is called "the Zealot," which may suggest an association with Jewish religious nationalism, although it could simply describe his enthusiasm for the Law. Jude, meanwhile, is identified as Thaddeus and is traditionally associated with the short Epistle of Saint Jude in the New Testament.

But what happened to them after Pentecost?

That's where the traditions become much more interesting.

According to ancient Christian accounts, Simon preached in Egypt and other parts of North Africa, while Jude carried the Gospel into Mesopotamia and Persia. Later traditions bring the two Apostles together in Persia, where they preached, converted many people, and eventually suffered martyrdom.

Their deaths are traditionally described in rather gruesome ways.

Simon is sometimes said to have been sawed in half, which explains why religious art frequently depicts him holding a saw. Jude is often shown carrying a club or axe, recalling the instrument traditionally associated with his martyrdom.

But Jude has another distinction.

He became the patron saint of hopeless causes.

And there's a wonderfully curious explanation for that.

Because Jude shared a name with Judas Iscariot, Christians were sometimes reluctant to invoke him, fearing confusion with the Apostle who betrayed Christ. According to later devotional tradition, this meant Jude received fewer prayers than the other Apostles.

So when people finally did turn to him, it was often because they had exhausted every other possibility.

The association grew, and Jude became one of the Church's most beloved patrons for desperate situations.

His devotion became especially strong in the twentieth century. In Chicago, a Claretian priest established a national shrine to Saint Jude in 1929, during a period when economic hardship was beginning to overwhelm American families. As the Great Depression deepened, thousands turned to Jude for help.

Today, devotion to him remains enormous throughout the Americas, especially in Mexico, where crowds gather at churches dedicated to San Judas Tadeo on the twenty-eighth of each month.

There's also an interesting artistic detail. Jude is often depicted holding a small image of Christ against his chest. This recalls the ancient tradition of King Abgar of Edessa, who sought healing from Jesus and received an image associated with His holy face. Later accounts connect Jude with bringing Christ's image and the Gospel to Edessa.

Simon and Jude never became as famous as Peter, Paul, or John.

But their memory traveled across continents.

One became associated with the courage of martyrdom.

The other became the Apostle people call upon when everything seems lost.

Saints Simon and Jude, faithful Apostles of Christ and companions in martyrdom, pray for us.

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Saint Frumentius of Axum helped bring Christianity to Ethiopia, and his story begins with a shipwreck, a royal palace, and two young brothers who found themselves very far from home.

Frumentius lived during the fourth century and came from the eastern Mediterranean, probably the city of Tyre. As a young man, he and his brother Aedesius accompanied a Christian scholar named Meropius on a voyage along the Red Sea.

Then disaster struck.

Their ship stopped along the African coast, where the travelers were attacked. Most of the party was killed, but the two boys survived and were taken to the royal court at Axum, in what is now northern Ethiopia.

And here's where the story takes an unexpected turn.

Rather than remaining ordinary captives, the brothers impressed the king with their intelligence and abilities. Aedesius became a royal cupbearer, while Frumentius was entrusted with important administrative responsibilities.

Eventually, Frumentius became a trusted adviser to the royal family.

When the king died, his widow asked Frumentius to help govern the kingdom and educate the young prince, Ezana.

Imagine that.

A Christian boy who had arrived as a captive was now helping raise the future king of one of Africa's most powerful kingdoms.

Frumentius used his position to encourage Christianity. He helped Christian merchants establish places of worship and gradually introduced the faith to people at court.

When the young king was old enough to rule, Frumentius traveled to Alexandria and met Saint Athanasius, the great defender of Christ's divinity.

Frumentius explained that Christianity was taking root in Axum and asked for a bishop.

Athanasius listened carefully.

Then he made a rather surprising decision.

He consecrated Frumentius himself.

Frumentius returned to Ethiopia as its first bishop and continued evangelizing the kingdom. Under King Ezana, Christianity became the religion of the royal court and eventually took root throughout the country.

There's a remarkable piece of evidence for this transformation.

Early coins of King Ezana displayed traditional pagan symbols. Later coins began featuring the Christian cross. You can actually see the kingdom's conversion reflected in its money.

Ethiopian Christians remember Frumentius by the affectionate title Abba Salama, meaning "Father of Peace." He is also called Kesate Birhan, or "Revealer of Light."

His influence lasted far beyond his lifetime.

Ethiopia developed one of the world's oldest continuous Christian traditions, preserving ancient liturgical practices, distinctive sacred art, and extraordinary churches carved directly into rock.

Even today, the Ethiopian Church remembers the young foreigner who arrived through tragedy and became the father of its Christian faith.

Frumentius never planned to become a missionary to Ethiopia.

He was simply trying to survive a terrible journey.

But God turned that unexpected arrival into the beginning of a Christian civilization that has endured for nearly seventeen centuries.

Saint Frumentius of Axum, Father of Peace and Apostle of Ethiopia, pray for us.

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