FRIENDS OF THE SUFFERING SOULS

ENROLLING YOURSELF

This organization has been set up to assist our brothers and sisters in Purgatory by having Masses offered on their behalf.

There is only one obligation incurred in becoming a Friend of the Suffering Souls. Once you are registered as a member will be allotted one day of the year on which it will be your duty to provide a stipend to have a Mass said, on behalf of the organization, for the souls in Purgatory.

The Mass shall have a special commemoration for deceased members. The day allotted to you will usually be your birthday unless you request a special date. Shortly before your due date we will send to you a reminder of your obligation. You should then deliver to the priest of your choice to say the Mass a stipend. This stipend is usually placed in a plain envelope on which you write the intention of the Mass to be said. In this case you write:“For all the holy souls in Purgatory, especially deceased members of FOSS”. 

Members who are on the Internet will receive their reminder through email and can confirm their Mass for us in the same way. Once a year we send the reminder by email, you then arrange the Mass and confirm for us through our confirmation page that you have done so. That is all there is to it and the only thing you have to do.

To enrol yourself as a member click on the link below which will take you to the application form. Fill in the details and click the submit button.


ENROLLING THIRD PARTIES

You can also enrol other persons provided you undertake to arrange on their account the Mass they would have been obliged to arrange had they become a member in their own right. In this way you can enrol either DECEASED or LIVING third party members.


LIVING PERSONS

If you have a special love for someone and wish to make a special effort for their salvation you can enrol that person as a member of FOSS and undertake to organise the Mass each year as an act of charity on their behalf. You undertake in effect to do what they would do if he or she were a member in their own right. So each year you arrange a Mass for the Holy Souls for our novena. This Mass is arranged for the Holy Souls on their account*. In this way they will receive the gratitude of all the Holy Souls who benefit from our novena. These souls, when released into heaven, will never cease to pray for the salvation of our members. Thus the person whom you enrol as a Third Party Living Member will be especially protected by the prayers of the souls we get into heaven. This is a great act of charity in looking after not only the Holy Souls but the person that you love and on whose account you are willing to make this effort. Such a person, saved through your charity, will be eternally grateful to you.

 
DECEASED PERSONS

There is a special commemoration for Deceased Members of the Association in all of our Masses. This is fitting as it is our members who make the novena possible. We trust that all deceased persons will obtain benefit from our Masses but you can, if you wish, obtain for some deceased person the additional benefit of the special commemoration for deceased members by enrolling them as members and undertaking each year  to organise a Mass on their behalf as part of our novena. The day usually allotted for such a deceased person is the anniversary of his or her death. Because the person is deceased then as soon as they are enrolled then they are a “deceased member” and as such will be entitled to the benefits of the special commemoration.