u/Cole_Townsend

I have been praying to Anima sola for an ill loved one, with great results. As I pray more to them and for them, I am getting these random thoughts, which may or may not make sense.

Anima sola is the loneliest soul in Purgatory. For reasons known only to them and God, they suffer an extraordinary ordeal in Purgatory. Think of the utter desolation and abandonment one would feel as they frantically seek an escape from the Backrooms. Anima sola is efficacious in their intercession because they are so anxious to find the relief, refreshment or release they urgently seek. It's as if, by a special design of divine Providence, they are given a final chance to perform a work of charity that may be imputed to them as if they had performed it meritoriously before their death.

Anima sola could have been in Purgatory since the Neolithic period or since last week. They could have been an temperamental hunter-gatherer, an obscure pauper, an empress, a friar, a Pope, a tapdancer, &c. As soon as they efficaciously intercede for a person in need, that person's thanksgiving and witness to divine Mercy releases the soul and another prisoner soul suddenly becomes Anima sola, who is anxious to have the same chance for release.

When praying for/to Anima sola, one can pray for three things: for the Father to remit all their debts, for the Son to cleanse all their stains, and for the Holy Spirit to heal all their wounds. Having paid the spiritual debts they incurred upon earth, they are free to leave the Prison house. Having been cleansed of all blemish that their terrestrial life may have caused on them, they can put on the "wedding garmet" and join in the Trinity's nuptial dance. Having been healed of all wounds and impairments, they have the strength to look upon the fullness of the divine Light and bathe in the eternal waters of Life eternal.

I don't know if any of this makes sense, but these thoughts rush upon me in prayer.

_____________

Anima sola, beloved of God, pray for my family's healing, so that you may appear in the divine Presence with hands full of good works. May we meet one day in the vast oceans of the eternities and rejoice in the music of the spheres. Amen.

... was what a professor's aide blurted out when she read this poem. "Oh, I'm sorry, I mean no disrespect," she continued as if suddenly realizing what she had just said outloud, "but this could've been written in the nineteenth century." At the time, being a closeted teenager at university, I was embarrassed and angry but I eventually saw the truth of her reaction. I was madly in love with a woman, a fellow student, but I now know I may have only been fooling myself. This poem was written while I was in the middle of the process of being in love with an impossibility. I did commit the stupidity of telling her my feelings, which quickly ended our friendship: a wise choice, ultimately.

Even though now I find this ineffably cringy, I am posting this poem as penance, I guess. As you may discern, I was steeped the religious culture that compelled me to remain in the closet until a mental collapse persuaded me otherwise. I don't write like this anymore, or much at all to be frank. This was a relic of my past and it's a vestige of the young man I was and who thankfully I will never have to be again.

Alex, wherever you are, I really did love you, in a way. You were the only woman who possessed my heart, however briefly. You did not make me gay: I already was that way; and that's okay. I hope you're also okay.