St. Gertrude and the Purgatory Prayer

Today is the Feast of St Gertrude of 'This prayer will release 1,000 souls from Purgtory' fame. Fr Zed explains what the Church says about it.

From Fr Z's Blog

Sometimes I get questions about certain practices or prayers.  Someone might find a slip of paper saying, “Pray this and X will happen.”  Some will ask me about prayers that receive X number of days off of Purgatory.

There is a prayer associated with today’s saint, St. Gertrude “the Great” about which a claim is made that it will release from Purgatory 1000 souls.

St. Gertrude was a 13th c. Benedictine, saint and mystic.  She received private revelations.  She is often called “the Great”.  She was an early promoter of veneration of Sacred Heart with a powerful concern for the souls in Purgatory..

Here is the prayer:

“Eternal Father, I offer You 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, for those in my own home, and in my family. Amen.”

That’s a lovely prayer.  It is attributed to St. Gertrude the Great.

Nowhere in the writings that have come down to us did Gertrude make the claim about 1000 souls.

For the last couple centuries the Church has tried to weed out specious claims that have attached themselves to certain pious practices.   This is precisely one of those claims.   For this reason the Church abolished the “Toties Quoties” indulgences, etc. (practices by which one could gain any number of plenary indulgences in a day).

None of this means that the prayer is a bad prayer.  Claims about it are bad.  We can say the same for perfectly acceptable prayers on old holy cards that say that a certain number of days reduced for Purgatory (or other time measures) are obtained.

Number of souls or of days?  No.  But the prayers can still be good!

Pope Leo XIII tried to suppress a virtual superstition of the nearly “magical” effects of the simple recitation of prayers to free various numbers of souls from Purgatory.  You can find his acts in Acta Sanctae Sedis, which was the instrument of promulgation of documents of the  Holy See.  It’s name eventually changed to Acta Apostolicae Sedis, which is what it is called now.   In ASS 31 (1898-99) and ASS 32 (1899-1900).  At AAS 32 on p. 243 on Rule 8 we find a condemnation of cards or pages that promise that many souls will be released from Purgatory due to the recitation of a prayer.

The Church gets to establish what indulgences are effective and can be used.  The current general grants are found in the Manual of Indulgences.  Everyone should have a copy to reference.