Saint Gertrude The Great
Feast Day: November 16
Prayer for the liberation of 1000 souls
St. Gertrude the Great was born on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 1256 in Eisleben, Germany. At the age of five, she began to attend a Cistercian monastery school in Saxony called Helfta, which is why she is also known as St. Gertrude of Helfta. St. Gertrude entered the Benedictine order at Helfta. In her writings, St. Gertrude recalls that she neglected her spiritual calling for intellectual pursuits. However, around the age of twenty-four, she began to find monotonous and feelings of anxiety and depression.
In the year 1281, St. Gertrude had her first vision, in which Jesus called her to conversion and told her, “I have come to comfort you and bring you salvation.”
She wrote, “Until the age of 25, I was a blind and insane woman… but you, Jesus, deigned to grant me the priceless familiarity of your friendship by opening to me in every way that most noble casket of your divinity, which is your divine Heart, and offering me in great abundance all your treasures contained in it.”
Pope Benedict XIV bestowed St. Gertrude with the title of “the Great” as a result of her spiritual and theological insights. At the turn of the 14th century, St. Gertrude passed away.
Catholic tradition says that Jesus promised St. Gertrude that 1,000 souls would be released from purgatory every time the following prayer is recited with devotion with love:
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
Prayers for the deceased of Saint Geltrude
Saint Geltrude, reciting these prayers together with the Office, asked the Lord how much and how acceptable the work of those who prayed in this way was to him. And the Lord replied: “I like it so much and it is as if they freed me from prison every time with these prayers a soul is freed from its pain. I will reciprocate these works of charity at the right time, according to the omnipotence of my generosity”
FIRST PRAYER
I greet you and bless you, sweetest Jesus, I adore you with all my heart and I thank you for the love you showed us with your incarnation, your birth in poverty and for having left yourself to us in the Blessed Sacrament.
Please unite this prayer of mine, which I offer you for the dear soul of the deceased (name) to the merits of your most holy life.
With the abundant grace of this prayer I wish to make up for and perfectly compensate for what this soul has neglected in your praises, prayers, virtues and good works that it should have done for your love, could have done with your grace and did not do with pure intention and perfectly. Amen
Eternal rest …
De Profundis …
SECOND PRAYER
I greet you and bless you, sweetest Jesus, I adore you and I thank you for the infinite love you showed us when you, Creator of the universe, to redeem us you made yourself a helpless victim in the hands of the men who tied you, dragged you, beat you, insulted, scourged, crowned with thorns and condemned to death, stripped, crucified, until he died a terrible death on the cross, with his heart pierced by a spear.
I unite myself to your immense love by offering you these prayers of mine and I beg you, by the merits of your most holy passion and death, to erase what the soul for which I pray to you has done against your will in thoughts, words and deeds.
I also ask you to offer to God the Father your merits, every pain and pain of your wounded body and of your sorrowful soul to make amends for the shortcomings committed by this soul and thus satisfy your justice. Amen.
Eternal rest …
De Profundis …
THIRD PRAYER
I greet you and bless you, sweetest Jesus, I adore you and thank you for the love and goodness with which you, resurrecting and ascending to Heaven, glorified our humanity already conquered by death, and placed it at the right hand of the Father. Now I pray that the soul for which I beseech you may soon participate in your glory and triumph. Amen.
Eternal rest …
De Profundis …
FOURTH PRAYER
I greet you and bless you, sweetest Jesus, I adore you and thank you for all the benefits with which you have showered your glorious Mother and all your chosen ones.
I now wish to unite myself with the love of your saints who glorify you and thank you for the salvation obtained through your Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection and I ask you to make up for it with the merits and prayers of your and our Immaculate Mother and of the saints to how much is missing for that soul to reach the blessed homeland and be able to enjoy your presence forever. Amen.
Eternal rest …
De Profundis …
Eternal Rest
Eternal Rest grant unto them (him/her), O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them (him/her). May they (he/she) rest in peace.
Amen.
De Profundis
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
Amen.
