With all of this talk of helping the Poor Souls in Purgatory, one might be inclined to ask a question: Can these Poor Souls, whom I am told to pray for and relieve, help me in return?

Well, there are two ways that we can consider this question. When one prays for the Poor Souls, you know that they are helped. If a particular prayer (like the St. Gertrude Prayer) promises to relieve a certain number, than that number has just been sent to Heaven, to everlasting joy and bliss - to go there and see God face to face for all eternity. And every single soul that you send from Purgatory to the joys of Heaven, owes their early release to you. You may think, though, that this is not a big deal. After all, they were going to get there eventually, weren’t they? Don't people tend to forget the good things done to them by others? And who would remember anyone on earth, while beholding God, Himself.

Well, it certainly is part of our fallen human nature to be forgetful, and therefore ungrateful, of the good things done to us and for us. But this is not the case with the Souls in Purgatory. Oh no, they will never forget who it was that released them from their pains. They are perfect now, remember? And, being in Heaven, they certainly now possess perfectly the virtue of gratitude. If you wanted to look at it through the eyes of justice, they owe you for getting them out early. But even so, justice is hardly an issue where they are concerned. They are so extremely grateful to you that they will never forget you and will always be willing to assist your soul in all of its needs. And wait until the day of your judgment! They are going to be there and beg Almighty God to be merciful to you on account of the charity you practiced towards them. Their intercession may go even farther than your salvation. They most likely will, in gratitude, ask God to shorten your time in Purgatory, as you did for them during your lifetime.

You may now think that you can only receive help from the souls that you have helped reach Heaven. While we certainly do receive their heavenly aid, the Poor Souls that are still suffering in Purgatory can also intercede for us. While they cannot help themselves, they are quite capable of interceding for us before God. And we are quite capable of interceding for them. God has ordained it so. Little prayers offered up for them, sacrifices performed, crosses borne patiently; all these things we can do, and many more, that seem "small" here on earth, but do much for those in eternity. It is said in the Bible that, "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8) Evidently, things are measured very differently in eternity, so be sure not to underestimate the "power" in seemingly ordinary things. In fact, the secret to making these little acts become powerful is when they are done for the Love of God. Offering these little things up to God, for His Love and united to His merits and suffering, make them very powerful.

One final logical point to prove that the Poor Souls can help us. The very fact that we can help them is proof of their ability to intercede. You see, the way God likes to work is this. When you’ve gotten sick or hurt yourself, do your parents ever tell you to “offer it up?” You probably think that’s their safe way of getting out of having to do something about it, since nothing really can be done but suffer through the pain. Actually, you really can “offer something up.” The reason that God has given you that pain is so that you could make reparation for your sins or even your neighbor’s sins. Well, wait a minute! Why should I suffer for the evil my neighbor has done? Why does God allow something like that? He does so that the opposite can happen. We can benefit from the good of our neighbor. If we couldn’t suffer their bad deeds, it wouldn’t be fair for us to share in their good ones. If a Saint lived in your neighborhood and prayed for you, you would receive the great spiritual and sometimes temporal benefits from his prayers and from his sheer holiness. So we can help our neighbor and they can help us. Do you see where this is heading? If God has arranged it so that we can intercede for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, He desires for them to be able to do the same for us. Have confidence in their intercession. “Confidence obtains all things,” said Our Lord to St. Gertrude the Great (the same Saint He gave the Prayer for the Poor Souls to). Rest assured, they can help us.