Serving Christ and Connecting Catholics in Western North Carolina
Every morning, I pray the Church’s Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. Before beginning, I recite a few prayers, including one composed by St. John Paul II in 2001: “Prayer for Peace, To Mary, the Light of Hope.” It is a prayer for protection against the evils plaguing our world. One line stands out: “Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit conquer all sin: individual sin and the ‘sin of the world,’ sin in all its manifestations.”
Purgatory is one of those distinctive beliefs of Catholics not shared by our Protestant brothers and sisters. And it is a belief on full display during the month of November as the Church dedicates herself in a special way to praying for the dead.