Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Saint Bernard in his life of St. Malachi, relates the following in story:
The saint relates that one day he saw his sister, who had been dead for some time. She was doing her purgatory in the cemetery.[1] On account of her vanity and the attention she had devoted to her hair and body, she had been sentenced to reside in the very grave where she had been buried, and to witness the dissolution of her body. The saint offered the Sacrifice of the Mass for her for thirty days; at the end of this period, he saw his sister again. This time she had been sentenced to complete her purgatory at the gate of the church, doubtless because of her irreverent demeanor in the holy place; perhaps she had distracted the faithful from the Sacred Mysteries in order to draw eyes and appreciation to herself. She was exceedingly sad, wearing a mourning veil, and was in extreme anguish. The saint offered the Sacrifice once more for thirty days, and she appeared to him for the last time in the sanctuary, with unruffled countenance, radiant in a white robe. The bishop knew by this sign that his sister had gained her deliverance.
This story records the universal custom, which prevailed from the very first ages of the Church, of praying for the dead over a period of thirty days. On this point, Christianity had merely followed the Mosaic custom.
The Patriarch Jacob, on his deathbed, said to his sons, “Bury me in the double cave…over against Mambre, in the land of Chanaan”; and the grandsons of Isaac mourned their father for thirty days. On the death of the high priest Aaron and his brother Moses, the people again observed this thirty days’ mourning; and the pious custom of praying for the dead for a whole month soon became a law of the chosen people.
St Clement stated that St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, like to have prayers said for the relief of the dead, and St. Dionysius describes. In magnificent terms, the stateliness with which the faithful celebrated the funeral rites. From the very first centuries, the Church encouraged prayers for a month after the deaths of the faithful, in memory of the thirty days’ mourning observed under Mosaic law.
Gregorian Masses are a series of Holy Masses traditionally offered for an individual soul, on 30 consecutive days as soon as possible after a person’s death.
The custom of offering Gregorian Masses for a particular soul recognizes that few people are immediately ready for heaven after death, and that, through the infinite intercessory power of Christ’s sacrifice, made present in Holy Mass, a soul can be continually perfected in grace and enabled to enter finally into the union with the Most Holy Trinity – our God, Who is Love Itself.
St. Gregory the Great, in his “Dialogues”, maintained that purgatory is not a fixed place, and that a large number of deceased souls atone for their faults on earth, and in the same place where they sinned the most frequently. Whether by reason of the gravity of their sins or through a special dispensation of divine wisdom, there are considerable number of other souls who do not languish in that prison, but undergo their punishment on earth, and in that place where they had sinned. This interpretation, which comes from great theologians, explains and confirms a multitude of apparitions and revelations made to the saints, several of them having marks of truth that make it impossible to dismiss them.
[1] Purgatory is not restricted to one single place.