Nigerian Sede

St. Theodore, Martyr (306) He was a soldier serving in the Roman army at Amasea. When he refused to join in pagan rites of worship, he was arrested and thrown into prison, then condemned to death and, after cruel tortures, he was executed by being thrown into a furnace.

"Those who say that the relics of the saints are not worthy of veneration, that it is useless for the faithful to honor them, that it is vain to visit the memorials or monuments of the saints in order to obtain their aid, are absolutely to be condemned" - Council of Trent

St. Charles Borromeo (1584) St. Charles was raised up by God to be one of the chief instruments of the true reformation of the Church in the sixteenth century. It was greatly owing to his wisdom that the Council of Trent was happily concluded. Made a cardinal at the age of 23, he soon became archbishop of Milan. He held synods and councils, established colleges and communities, renewed the spirit of his clergy and of monasteries, and founded asylums for the poor and orphans. The most remarkable of his works was the creation of diocesan seminaries whose rules were adopted in all those that were instituted later.

The Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed After having celebrated the glory of the saints who are the Church triumphant in heaven, the Church remembers the poor souls who equally belong to her. Nowhere in the Liturgy is more affirmed the mysterious unity which exists between the Church triumphant, the Church militant and the Church suffering, and never is better fulfilled the double duty of charity and justice incumbent on every Christian by virtue of his membership of the mystical body of Christ. It is through the very consoling dogma of the Communion of Saints that the merits and suffrages of the saints may benefit others. Without diminishing Divine Justice, which is rewarded in full after death, the Church can join her prayers here on earth to those of the Church in heaven and supply what is wanting in the souls in Purgatory, by offering to God for them, by the Holy Mass, by indulgences, by the alms and sacrifices of her children, the superabundant merits of Christ’s passion and of His mystical members. Wherefore the Liturgy, the centre of which is the sacrifice of Calvary continued on the altar, has always used this pre-eminent means of exercising in favour of the departed the great law of charity; for it is a precept of charity to relieve our neighbour’s wants as if they were our own. The Liturgy of the dead is one of the most beautiful and consoling of all. - St. Andrew Missal

"Denial of Purgatory opposes the holy Scriptures, tradition, and reason. The holy Scriptures teach that there is a purgatory: it is related in the Second Book of Machabees, that Judas Machabeus sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem, to be used in the temple, to obtain prayers for those who fell in battle, for he believed it a good and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins. But for what dead shall we pray? Those in heaven do not require our prayers; to those in hell they are of no avail; we must then pray for those who are in the place of purification. Christ speaks of a prison in the future life, from which no man comes out until he has paid the last farthing. (Matt. v. 25, 26.) This prison cannot be hell, because from hell there is never any release; it must be then a place of purification. Again Christ speaks of sin which shall be forgiven neither in this world nor in the next, (Matt. xii. 32.) from which it follows that there is a remittance of some sins in the next world; but this can be neither in heaven nor in hell, consequently in purgatory. As the council of Trent says, (Sess. 6. c. 30.) the Church has always taught, according to the old tradition of the Fathers, in all her councils, that there is a purgatory, and every century gives proofs of the continual belief of all true Christians in a purgatory. Finally, man's unblinded reason must accept a purgatory; for how many depart this earth before having accomplished the great work of their own purification? They cannot enter heaven, for St. John tells us: There shall not enter into it any thing defiled. (Apoc. xxi. 27.) The simple separation of the soul from the body does not make it pure, yet God cannot reject it as He does the soul of the hardened sinner in hell; there must then be a middle place, a purgatory, where those who have departed not free from stain, must be purified. See how the doctrine of the Church, reason and the holy Scriptures all agree, and do not let yourself be led away by false arguments from those who not only believe in no purgatory, but even in no hell, so that they may sin with so much more impunity." - Fr. Leonard