Direct your intention by means of the following Offering from "The Raccolta."
Indulgenced Prayer to be Said at the Beginning of Mass
ETERNAL Father, I unite myself with the intentions and affections of our Lady of Sorrows on Calvary, and I offer Thee the sacrifice which Thy beloved Son Jesus made of Himself on the Cross, and now renews on this holy altar: i. To adore Thee and give Thee the honor which is due to Thee, confessing Thy supreme dominion over all things, and the absolute dependence of everything upon Thee. Thou Who art our one and last end. 2. To thank Thee for innumerable benefits received. 3. To appease Thy justice, irritated against us by so many sins, and to make satisfaction for them. 4. To implore grace and mercy for myself, for ... , for all afflicted and sorrowing, for poor sinners, for all the world, and for the holy souls in purgatory.
Indulgence of 300 days. — Pius X, July 8, 1904.
The practice of offering up the Holy Sacrifice for the suffering souls in purgatory comes down to us from the earliest Christian times. Thus, Tertullian, the great Christian apologist of the third century, remarks: " We make our oblations (that is, we offer up Holy Mass) for the dead on their anniversary day." Holy Church has ever laid much stress upon this pious and charitable custom. At his ordination every priest has the chalice placed in his hands, with an admonition that it is thenceforth for him to say Mass for the living and for the dead. And the Rubrics of the Roman Rite direct with much insistency that
