The Holy Souls: The Question Lucia Asked at Fatima
Adapted from an article published by America Needs Fatima
On the 13th of May 1917, three shepherd children were minding their sheep in a hollow called the Cova da Iria when a Lady dressed in white, more brilliant than the sun, appeared above a small holm oak. “I am from Heaven,” she told them.
Lucia, the eldest, was ten, and she asked the Lady the questions a child would ask. Would she go to Heaven? Yes, she would. And Jacinta? She would go too. And Francisco? He would also go, but first he would have to say many Rosaries.
Then Lucia remembered two friends of hers who had died not long before, and she asked about them too. One of them, the Lady said, was in Heaven. Of the other, a girl named Amelia, she said:
“She will be in purgatory until the end of the world.”
A hard answer
It was given to a child, on the first day Our Lady came to Fatima. It tells us that purgatory is real, and that a soul may wait there a very long time for the help of our prayers. On the 2nd of November, All Souls’ Day, the whole Church remembers those souls.
What is purgatory?
Every sin leaves two things behind it: guilt, and a debt of punishment owed to God. Confession takes away the guilt, and with it the eternal punishment of mortal sin, but some temporal punishment can remain, to be paid by prayer, penance and good works in this life, or in purgatory after it. As Luis and Gustavo Solimeo put it, “If Purgatory did not exist to remove the stain of sin from imperfect souls, the only alternative would be Hell.”
The souls there suffer in two ways. For a time they are kept from the sight of God, which is the pain of loss, and they also suffer the pain of sense. According to Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine, the Solimeos write, “the least pain of Purgatory is worse than the greatest of this life.”
Why are they called holy?
The souls in purgatory died in God’s grace and are certain of Heaven, which is why the Church calls them the holy souls. Saint Catherine of Genoa, a mystic who died in 1510, wrote of their joy alongside their pain: “I believe no happiness can be found worthy to be compared with that of a soul in Purgatory except that of the saints in Paradise.”
Where does the Church teach it?
Long before Christ, Judas Machabeus sent money to Jerusalem so that sacrifice could be offered for the sins of his soldiers who had fallen in battle. Scripture draws the lesson: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins” (2 Machabees 12:46). In 1563 the Council of Trent taught that there is a purgatory, and that “the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar.”
How did All Souls’ Day begin?
The day began in a monastery. In 998, Saint Odilo, the Abbot of Cluny, made the commemoration of all the faithful departed on the 2nd of November binding on every monastery under him, and in time the whole Church came to keep it. The whole month of November has long been given to praying for the holy souls. In 1915, during the First World War, Pope Benedict XV allowed every priest to offer three Masses on All Souls’ Day.
Can the living help them?
The saints in Heaven, the souls in purgatory and the faithful on earth are joined in the Communion of Saints, and so our prayers, sacrifices and good works can be offered for the dead. As the Council of Trent taught, the greatest help of all is the Mass.
What Saint Teresa saw at Valladolid
Saint Teresa of Ávila tells a story in her Book of the Foundations that shows what a single Mass can do. In 1568 a nobleman, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, gave her a house at Valladolid for a new convent. Not long afterwards, in her words, “he was struck by a sudden illness that took away his speech,” and he died far from where she was.
Teresa understood that “he would not leave purgatory until the first Mass was said there.” At the first Mass said in the new house, she saw him appear, “his face joyful and resplendent.” “With hands folded,” she wrote, “he thanked me for what I had done so that he could leave purgatory and go to heaven.”
The Rosary for the holy souls
Saint Louis de Montfort tells the story, as it came down to him, of Alexandra, a young noblewoman whom Saint Dominic brought back to God and enrolled in the Confraternity of the Rosary. After her death she appeared to Saint Dominic, told him she had been condemned to seven hundred years in purgatory, and begged him and the Confraternity to pray for her. They did, and two weeks later she appeared to him again, radiant and released from purgatory, and asked him to keep spreading the Rosary.
At Fatima, Our Lady asked for the Rosary to be prayed every day. It is one of the simplest gifts we can give the holy souls.
What you can do this November
Here are some ways to help the holy souls this month.
Go to Mass on All Souls’ Day, the 2nd of November, and have a Mass offered for someone you have lost.
Visit a cemetery on any day from the 1st to the 8th of November and pray for the dead. On each of those days the Church grants a plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory.
On All Souls’ Day, visit a church or an oratory and pray an Our Father and the Creed, for the same indulgence.
For each plenary indulgence, the usual conditions apply: sacramental Confession, Holy Communion, a prayer for the Pope’s intentions, and freedom from attachment to sin.
Keep them in your prayers
Pray the Rosary for the holy souls, and ask your family to pray it with you.
If your parish keeps a list of the dead to be remembered at Mass in November, add the names of your departed loved ones to it.
All Souls’ Day is also the last day of Our Lady’s mission in Papua New Guinea, which began this year in the Highlands, where fighting between tribes has left whole villages in ruins. Remember those who have died there in your prayers. You can read about her mission in Crowned in Every Village: Our Lady of Fatima’s Walkabouts in Papua New Guinea.
A prayer for the holy souls
Pray it for those you have lost, and for the souls who have no one to pray for them:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
References
[1] The Real Truth About Purgatory - America Needs Fatima. By Luis and Gustavo Solimeo, from their book Life After Death. For guilt and temporal punishment, the two pains of purgatory, Saint Catherine of Genoa and the Communion of Saints.
[2] Fatima - EWTN. For the first apparition on the 13th of May 1917, and Lucia’s questions about Heaven and about her two friends.
[3] Proofs of Purgatory - America Needs Fatima. For Amelia’s name and Our Lady’s words about her.
[4] 2 Maccabees 12:46 - Devout.org. For the verse in the Douay-Rheims translation.
[5] The Twenty-fifth Session - Hanover Historical Texts Project. For the Council of Trent’s decree on purgatory, in J. Waterworth’s translation.
[6] Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day) - Vatican News. For Saint Odilo of Cluny and the year 998.
[7] Solemnity of All Souls - America Needs Fatima. For the spread of the commemoration to the whole Church, and November as the month of the holy souls.
[8] Three Masses on All Souls’ Day - Diocese of Westminster. For Pope Benedict XV’s permission in 1915.
[9] The Foundations, chapter 10 - Carmelite Quotes. For Saint Teresa’s account of Don Bernardino de Mendoza, in the Kavanaugh and Rodriguez translation.
[10] Pray the Rosary - America Needs Fatima. For Saint Louis de Montfort’s account of Alexandra.
[11] Praying for the Dead and Gaining Indulgences During November - Catholic Culture. For the November indulgences, from the Enchiridion of Indulgences (1999).
Last updated: 26 October 2026 05:45