Requiescant in pace. On All Souls' Day we offer this prayer for those who are not only Saints, but Saints on the very threshold of Paradise, waiting to be admitted to the immediate presence of God. It is always a privilege to do a service to the friends of God; it is so, above all, when those who need our help will in a short time behold His Face in Heaven, and will gratefully remember for all eternity each little prayer offered in their behalf.

These Saints waiting for Heaven cry out to us to help them. They have a claim on us by reason of the intensity of their suffering. No words can tell all that they suffer, and their very love of God increases their pain. Every compassionate heart will desire to do something to relieve them, and to shorten the time of their banishment. Yet how little I do for them!

They are, moreover, unable to help themselves. We always feel a more tender sympathy for those who cannot move a finger to relieve their own sufferings. Their helplessness appeals to our generosity. If we saw one, whom "we knew to be a Saint, enduring some affliction in which he could do nothing in his own behalf, we should be eager to assist him. The Holy Souls are utterly helpless; their own prayers avail them nothing. To us they look for aid, for an abridgment of their time of punishment. Do I respond to their appeal as I ought? Endeavor to increase in sympathy for the Souls in Purgatory.