READ ME OR RUE IT
Startling title, isn't it? Yes, I was also startled when I first saw this small book many many years ago and I started to be inspired with it and have become one of the many prayer warriors of the souls in purgatory. Even become fervent when many of my family became one of them, too.
This book written by Fr. Paul O'Sullivan tells many true stories about the Poor Souls in Purgatory. He relates incidents from the lives of the Saints to show their great sufferings, our obligation to help them, as well as the many helps and graces which they obtain for their benefactors in return.
This little book, READ ME OR RUE IT, needs to be spread far and wide. It will
lead to a powerful link between ourselves and the "Church Suffering," our brothers and sisters
in Christ who suffer the torments of Purgatory
– a powerful bond of holy charity whereby we
shall please God, send souls to Heaven, and obtain for ourselves and our families a host
of priceless graces and blessings.
Several prayers for the Poor Souls are given at the end of the
booklet including a Novena for the Poor Souls in Purgatory for each day of the
week and the Litany for the Poor Souls.
When I started to pray the novena for the souls in purgatory, I feel happy that I have helped a lot of souls already. In my dreams, I would see some of them smiling. I can feel they are thanking me. I don't know many of them. There are also souls that come to me in my dreams asking for prayers. There were times when I became a witness to a crime and when I woke up, I pray for the person killed. It has become my habit to pray for someone I see in my dreams. I just knew in my heart they are souls asking for prayers.
My job required me to transfer to another town, and this made me live on my own. Sleeping in a room alone. I am really afraid of ghost. My father died when I was still a child and I remember I told him not to show himself to me as a ghost, only in my dreams.
I still continue to pray my novena for the souls then. But I started to hear their messages not only in my dreams any more. I would wake up at the middle of the night and really feel their presence. It really scared me. A ghost in my room! Good thing I didn't see them. I prayed for them immediately, whoever they are and the scary feeling would go away.
Then one night I got tired of feeling scared of sleeping. I woke up in the middle of the night from a scary dream. I was trembling. I still managed to pray for the soul. But I was really furious. I feel that they are around and I said angrily. "I know that you ask for prayers, but you know I am afraid of ghost! I don't like being scared always! Can you stop doing this to me! Ask me to pray for you but don't scare me!" I stopped praying my novena. But I didn't miss my daily prayer for them, especially in my rosary.
It worked! Since then, I haven't dreamed of scary scenes. I even started to pray the novena again. Honestly I missed it, too. My dreams are more on simple or happy dreams about them.
I remember one dream I had a few years ago. I was in a small road. With me were lots of white robed men standing. They didn't notice me. They all seemed to be heeding the highway a few footsteps away. While I was walking between them, suddenly a man turned his head and smiled at me. I was surprised. After I smiled back, I woke up. It was still midnight and I wasn't scared.
The souls in purgatory could no longer pray for themselves. This is why they need us to pray for them. But they could pray for us. Imagine if they become saints, we have saints already praying for us even if we don't ask them to.
Aside from asking them to pray for me, I also ask their help in simple things like finding something, and especially for accompanying me when I go home alone at night. Some wonders that they do that is found in the book, Read me or Rue It, I experienced them happening to me, too.
So let us not forget to include them in our prayers. Remember the Golden Rule - "Do unto others what you would like others do unto you."
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You can download the book for free here.
