[armydoc]

We pray to ease their suffering.

Why would you pray for that? Isn't the suffering in Purgatory a good and necessary thing? Wouldn't the appropriate prayer be for a full, cleansing dose of suffering?

[sneakers]

It is always good to pray for mercy.

[Mad Dawg]

Wow! Good question!

I'm going to work my PT analogy to death here, because I really think Physical Therapy is a fine analogy to Purgatory.

And I'm remembering when the lovely young lady came up to me and invited me to lie on the funny skinny bed, and I'm thinking, "Wow, this just gets better and better!" ...

and then she tries to tear my arm out of its socket.

And for the first several sessions, I'm busy doing my Zen thing and saying, "I can handle this, I can handle this," until I caught a glimpse of her looking at me and realized that she was watching my face and gauging how far out of its socket she was going to tear my arm today by how anguished I looked.

So then I figured I should keep doing the Zen thing and let her yank away because it would speed up the process, maybe, I guess. But I'm here to tell you, that was NOT an easy decision.

Humor and braggadocio aside, it seems both physical and psycho therapy usually involve the patient suffering to get well. Certainly in psycho therapy one can prolong the suffering and delay its benefits. And I once had a patient who pretty much decided he'd rather be effectively paralyzed than man up and get weaned from the pain-killers and do what was necessary to get well again. So here was a guy who was resisting some suffering now and thus certifying more suffering later.

So I think we can see that there is good pain, well-handled pain, and there is not so good and not so well-handled pain. In a way, handling the pain of therapy well in the long run does ease one's pain, though at the time, despite one's extremely impressive manliness and fortitude and testosterone and all, there are still a few tears leaking out the corners of the eyes.

Does that come close to the question?

[Salvation]

Since we all pray for people to ease our suffering on earth — I know I posted a prayer thread for myself for my hip replacement surgery — doesn’t it make perfect sense to pray for those souls who are suffering in Purgatory?

[Salvation]

Since we all pray for people to ease their suffering on earth

— I know I posted a prayer thread for myself for my hip replacement surgery —

doesn’t it make perfect sense to pray for those souls who are suffering in Purgatory?

[Salvation]

Have you ever asked anyone to pray for you?