Purgatory: Doctrinal, Historical, and Poetical Part 8

Most likely it is a great false flattery, and that you will never be good enough to go there at all. Why, positively, you do not recognize your own good fortune when you are told of it. And none but the humble go there. I remember Maria Crocifissa was told that although many of the Saints while on earth loved G.o.d more than some do even in heaven, yet that the greatest saint on earth was not so _humble_ as are the souls in Purgatory. I do not think I ever read anything in the lives of the Saints which struck me so much as that....

But we not only learn lessons for our own good, but for the good of the Holy Souls. We see that our charitable attentions toward them must be far more vigorous and persevering than they have been; for that men go to Purgatory for very little matters, and remain there an unexpectedly long time. But their most touching appeal to us lies in their helplessness; and our dear Lord, with His usual loving arrangement, has made the extent of our power to help them more than commensurate with their inability to help themselves.... St. Thomas has taught us that prayer for the dead is more readily accepted with G.o.d than prayer for the living. We can offer and apply for them all the satisfactions of our Blessed Lord. We can do vicarious penance for them. We can give to them all the satisfaction of our ordinary actions, and of our sufferings. We can make over to them by way of suffrage, the indulgences we gain, provided the Church has made them applicable to the dead. We can limit and direct upon them, or any one of them, the intention of the Adorable Sacrifice. The Church, which has no jurisdiction over them, can yet make indulgences applicable or inapplicable to them by way of suffrage; and by means of liturgy, commemoration, incense, holy water, and the like, can reach efficaciously to them, and most of all by her device of privileged altars. .... All that I have said hitherto has been, indirectly, at least, a plea for this devotion; but I must come now to a more direct recommendation of it.

It is not saying too much to call devotion to the Holy Souls, a kind of centre in which all Catholic devotions meet, and which satisfies more than any other single devotion our duties in that way; because it is a devotion all of love, and of disinterested love. If we cast an eye over the chief Catholic devotions, we shall see the truth of this. Take the devotion of St. Ignatius to the glory of G.o.d. This, if I may dare to use such an expression of Him, was the special and favorite devotion of Jesus. Now, Purgatory is simply a field white for the harvest of G.o.d's glory. Not a prayer can be said for the Holy Souls, but G.o.d is at once glorified, both by the faith and the charity of the mere prayer. Not an alleviation, however trifling, can befall any one of the souls, but He is forthwith glorified by the honor of His Son's Precious Blood, and the approach of the soul to bliss. Not a soul is delivered from its trial but G.o.d is immensely glorified.

Again, what devotion is more justly dear to Christians than the devotion to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus? It is rather a family of various and beautiful devotions, than a devotion by itself. Yet see how they are all, as it were, fulfilled, affectionately fulfilled, in devotion to the Holy Souls. The quicker the souls are liberated from Purgatory, the more is the beautiful harvest of His Blessed Pa.s.sion multiplied and accelerated. An early harvest is a blessing, as well as a plentiful one; for all delay of a soul's ingress into the praise of heaven is an eternal and irremediable loss of honor and glory to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. How strangely things sound in the language of the Sanctuary! yet so it is. Can the Sacred Humanity be honored more than by the Adorable Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s? And here is our chief action upon Purgatory....

Devotion to our dearest Mother is equally comprehended in this devotion to the Holy Souls, whether we look at her as the Mother of Jesus, and so sharing the honors of His Sacred Humanity, or as Mother of mercy, and so specially honored by works of mercy, or, lastly, as, in a particular sense, the Queen of Purgatory, and so having all manner of dear interests to be promoted in the welfare and deliverance of those suffering souls.

Next to this we may rank devotion to the Holy Angels, and this also is satisfied in devotion to the Holy Souls. For it keeps filling the vacant thrones in the angelic choirs, those unsightly gaps which the fall of Lucifer and one-third of the heavenly host occasioned. It multiplies the companions of the blessed spirits. They may be supposed also to look with an especial interest on that part of the Church which lies in Purgatory, because it is already crowned with their own dear gift and ornament of final perseverance, and yet it has not entered at once into its inheritance as they did. Many of them also have a tender personal interest in Purgatory. Thousands, perhaps millions of them, are guardians to those souls, and their office is not over yet.

Thousands have clients there who were especially devoted to them in life. Will St. Raphael, who was so faithful to Tobias, be less faithful to his clients there? Whole choirs are interested about others, either because they are finally to be aggregated to that choir, or because in life-time they had a special devotion to it. Marie Denise, of the Visitation, used to congratulate her angel every day on the grace he had received to stand when so many around him were falling. It was the only thing she could know for certain of his past life. Could he neglect her, if by the will of G.o.d she went to Purgatory? Again, St.

Michael, as prince of Purgatory, and Our Lady's regent, in fulfilment of the dear office attributed to him by the Church in the Ma.s.s for the Dead, takes as homage to himself all charity to the Holy Souls; and if it be true, that a zealous heart is always a proof of a grateful one, that bold and magnificent spirit will recompense us one day in his own princely style, and perhaps within the limits of that his special jurisdiction.

Neither is devotion to the Saints without its interests in this devotion for the dead. It fills them with the delights of charity as it swells their numbers and beautifies their ranks and orders. Numberless patron saints are personally interested in mult.i.tudes of souls. The affectionate relation between their clients and themselves not only subsists, but a deeper tenderness has entered into it, because of the fearful suffering, and a livelier interest, because of the accomplished victory. They see in the Holy Souls their own handiwork, the fruit of their example, the answer to their prayers, the success of their patronage, the beautiful and finished crown of their affectionate intercession.

Another point of view from which we may look at this devotion for the dead, is as a specially complete and beautiful exercise of the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which are the supernatural fountains of our whole spiritual life. It exercises faith, because it leads men not only to dwell in the unseen world, but to work for it with as much energy and conviction as if it was before their very eyes. Unthoughtful or ill-read persons almost start sometimes at the minuteness, familiarity, and a.s.surance with which men talk of the unseen world, as if it were the banks of the Rhine, or the olive-yards of Provence, the Campagna of Rome, or the crescent sh.o.r.es of Naples, some place which they have seen in their travels, and whose geographical features are ever in their memory, as vividly as if before their eyes. It all comes of faith, of prayer, of spiritual reading, of knowledge of the lives of the Saints, and of the study of theology. It would be strange and sad if it were not so. For, what to us, either in interest or importance, is the world we see, to the world we do not see? This devotion exercises our faith also in the effects of the sacrifice and sacraments, which are things we do not see, but which we daily talk of in reference to the dead as undoubted and accomplished facts. It exercises our faith in the communion of Saints to a degree which would make it seem impossible to a heretic that he ever could believe so wild and extravagant a creed. It acts with regard to indulgences as if they were the most inevitable material transactions of this world. It knows of the unseen treasure out of which they come, of the unseen keys which open the treasury, of the indefinite jurisdiction which places them infallibly at its disposal, of G.o.d's unrevealed acceptance of them, and of the invisible work they do, just as it knows of trees and clouds, of streets and churches--that is, just as certainly and undoubtingly; though it often can give others no proof of these things, nor account for them to itself.... It exhibits the same quiet faith in all those Catholic devotions which I mentioned before as centering themselves in this devotion for the dead.

Neither is this devotion a less heroic exercise of the theological virtue of hope, the virtue so sadly wanting in the spiritual life of these times. For, look what a mighty edifice this devotion raises; lofty, intricate, and of magnificent proportions, into which somehow or other all creation is drawn, from the little headache we suffer up to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, and which has to do even with G.o.d Himself. And upon what does all this rest, except on a simple, child- like trust in G.o.d's fidelity, which is the supernatural motive of hope?

We hope for the souls we help, and unbounded are the benedictions which we hope for in their regard. We hope to find mercy ourselves, because of our mercy; and this hope quickens our merits without detracting from the merit of our charity.... For the state of the dead is no dream, nor our power to help them a dream, any more than the purity of G.o.d is a dream, or the Precious Blood a dream.

As to the charity of this devotion, it dares to imitate even the charity of G.o.d Himself. What is there in heaven or on earth which it does not embrace, and with so much facility, with so much gracefulness, as if there were scarcely an effort in it, or as if self was charmed away, and might not mingle to distract it? It is an exercise of the love of G.o.d, for it is loving those whom He loves, and loving them because He loves them, and to augment His glory and multiply His praise.... To ourselves also it is an exercise of charity, for it gains us friends in heaven; it earns mercy for us when we ourselves shall be in Purgatory, tranquil victims, yet, oh! in what distress! and it augments our merits in the sight of G.o.d, and so, if only we persevere, our eternal recompense hereafter. Now if this tenderness for the dead is such an exercise of these three theological virtues, and if, again, even heroic sanct.i.ty consists princ.i.p.ally in their exercise, what store ought we not to set upon this touching and beautiful devotion?

Look at that vast kingdom of Purgatory, with its empress-mother, Mary!

All those countless throngs of souls are the dear and faithful spouses of Jesus. Yet in what a strange abandonment of supernatural suffering has His love left them! He longs for their deliverance; He yearns for them to be transferred from that land, perpetually overclouded with pain, to the bright sunshine of their heavenly home. Yet He has tied His own hands, or nearly so. He gives them no more grace; He allows them no more time for penance; He prevents them from meriting; nay, some have thought they could not pray. How, then, stands the case with the souls in the suffering Church? Why, it is a thing to be meditated on when we have said it--they depend almost more on earth than they do on heaven, almost more on us than on Him; so He has willed it on whom all depend, and without whom there is no dependence. It is clear, then, that Jesus has His interests there. He wants His captives released.

Those whom He has redeemed He now bids us redeem, us whom, if there be life at all in us, He has already Himself redeemed. Every satisfaction offered up to G.o.d for these suffering souls, every oblation of the Precious Blood to the Eternal Father, every Ma.s.s heard, every communion received, every voluntary penance undergone; the scourge, the hair- shirt, the p.r.i.c.kly chain, every indulgence gained, every jubilee whose conditions we have fulfilled, every _De Profundis_ whispered, every little alms doled out to the poor who are poorer than ourselves, and, if they be offered for the intention of these dear prisoners, the interests of Jesus are hourly forwarded in Mary's Kingdom of Purgatory.... There is no fear of overworking the glorious secretary of that wide realm, the blessed Michael, Mary's subject. See how men work at the pumps on ship-board when they are fighting for their lives with an ugly leak. Oh! that we had the charity so to work, with the sweet instrumentality of indulgence, for the Holy Souls in Purgatory! The infinite satisfactions of Jesus are at our command, and Mary's sorrows, and the Martyr's pangs, and the Confessor's weary perseverance in well- doing! Jesus will not help Himself here, because He loves to see us helping Him, and because He thinks our love will rejoice that He still leaves us something we can do for Him. There have been Saints who have devoted their whole lives to this one work, mining in Purgatory; and, to those who reflect in faith, it does not seem, after all, so strange.

It is a foolish comparison, simply because it is so much below the mark; but on all principles of reckoning, it is a much less work to have won the battle of Waterloo, or to have invented the steam-engine, than to have freed one soul from Purgatory.

WHY THE SOULS IS PURGATORY ARE CALLED "POOR" SOULS.

FATHER MULLER, C.S.S.R. [1]

[Footnote 1: Charity to the Holy Souls in Purgatory]

We have just seen that the Jews believed in the doctrine of Purgatory; we have seen that their charity for the dead was so great that the Holy Ghost could not help praising them for it. Yet for all that, we may a.s.sert in truth that the people of G.o.d under the Old Law were not so well instructed in this doctrine as we are, nor had they such powerful means to relieve the souls--in Purgatory as we have. Our faith, therefore, should be more lively, and our charity for the souls in Purgatory more ardent and generous.

A short time ago a fervent young priest of this country had the following conversation with a holy Bishop on his way to Rome. The Bishop said to him: "You make mementoes now and then, for friends of yours that are dead--do you not?" The young priest answered: "Certainly, I do so very often." The Bishop rejoined: "So did I, when I was a young priest. But one time I was grievously ill. I was given up as about to die. I received Extreme Unction and the Viatic.u.m. It was then that my whole past life, with all its failings and all its sins, came before me with startling vividness. I saw how much I had to atone for; and I reflected on how few Ma.s.ses would be said for me, and how few prayers. Ever since my recovery I have most fervently offered the Holy Sacrifice for the repose of the pious and patient souls in Purgatory; and I am always glad when I can, as my own offering, make the 'intention' of my Ma.s.ses for the relief of their pains."

Indeed, dear reader, no one is more deserving of Christian charity and sympathy than the poor souls in Purgatory. They are _really_ POOR _souls_. No one is sooner forgotten than they are.

How soon their friends persuade themselves that they are in perfect peace! How little they do for their relief when their bodies are buried! There is a lavish expense for the funeral. A hundred dollars are spent where the means of the family hardly justify the half of it.

Where there is more wealth, sometimes five hundred or a thousand, and even more, dollars are expended on the poor dead body. But let me ask you what is done for the _poor living soul_? Perhaps the poor soul is suffering the most frightful tortures in Purgatory, whilst the lifeless body is laid out in state, and borne pompously to the graveyard. You must not misunderstand me: it is right and just to show all due respect even to the body of your deceased friend, for that body was once the dwelling-place of his soul. But tell me candidly, what joy has the departed, and, perhaps, suffering soul, in the fine music of the choir, even should the choir be composed of the best singers in the country? What consolation does the poor suffering soul find in the superb coffin, in the splendid funeral? What pleasure does the soul derive from the costly marble monument, from all the honors that are so freely lavished on the body? All this may satisfy, or at least seem to satisfy, the living, but it is of no avail whatever to the dead.

Poor unhappy souls! how the diminution of true Catholic faith is visited upon you while you suffer, and those that loved you in life might help you, and do not, for want of knowledge or of faith!

Poor unhappy souls! your friends go to their business, to their eating and drinking, with the foolish a.s.surance that the case cannot be hard on one they knew to be so good! Oh, how much and how long this _false charity_ of your friends makes you suffer!

The venerable Sister, Catherine Paluzzi, offered up, for a long time, and with the utmost fervor, prayers and pious works for the soul of her deceased father. At last she thought she had good reason to believe that her father was already enjoying the bliss of Paradise. But how great was her consternation and grief when Our Lord, in company with St. Catherine, her patroness, led her one day, in spirit, to Purgatory.

There she beheld her father in an abyss of torments, imploring her a.s.sistance. At the sight of the pitiful state the soul of her father was in, she melted into tears; she cast herself at the feet of her Heavenly Spouse, and begged Him, through His precious Blood, to free her father from his excruciating sufferings. She also begged St.

Catherine to intercede for him, and then turning to Our Lord, she said: "Charge me, O Lord, with my father's indebtedness to Thy justice. In expiation of it, I am ready to take upon myself all the afflictions Thou art pleased to bestow upon me." Our Lord graciously accepted this act of heroic charity, and released at once her father's soul from Purgatory. But how heavy were the crosses which she, from that time, had to suffer, may be more easily imagined than described. This pious sister seemed to have good reason to believe that her father's soul was in Paradise. Yet she was mistaken. Alas! how many are there who resemble her! How many are there whose hope as to the condition of their deceased friends is far more vain and false than that of this religious, because they pray much less for the souls of their departed friends than she did for her father.

It is related in the life of St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi, that one day she saw the soul of one of her deceased sisters kneeling in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, in the church, wrapped up in a mantle of fire, and suffering great pains, in expiation of her neglecting to go to Holy Communion on one day, when she had her confessor's permission to communicate.

The Venerable Bede relates that it was revealed to Drithelm, a great servant of G.o.d, that the souls of those who spend their whole lives in the state of mortal sin, and are converted only on their death-bed, are doomed to suffer the pains of Purgatory to the day of the last judgment.

In the life and revelations of St. Gertrude we read that those who have committed many grievous sins, and who die without having done due penance, are not a.s.sisted by the ordinary suffrages of the Church until they are partly purified by Divine Justice in Purgatory.

After St. Vincent Ferrer had learned the death of his sister Frances, he at once began to offer up many fervent prayers and works of penance for the repose of her soul. He also said thirty Ma.s.ses for her, at the last of which it was revealed to him that, had it not been for his prayers and good works, the soul of his sister would have suffered in Purgatory to the end of the world.

From these examples you may draw your own conclusion as to the state of your deceased friends and relatives. Rest a.s.sured that the judgments of G.o.d are very different from the judgments of men.

In heaven, love for G.o.d is the happiness of the elect; but in Purgatory it is the source of the most excruciating pains. It is princ.i.p.ally for this reason that the souls in Purgatory are called "poor souls," they being, as they are, in the most dreadful state of poverty--that of the privation of the beatific vision of G.o.d.

After Anthony Corso, a Capuchin Brother, a man of great piety and perfection, had departed this life, he appeared to one of his brethren in religion, asking him to recommend him to the charitable prayers of the community, in order that he might receive relief in his pains. "For I do not know," said he, "how I can bear any longer the pain of being deprived of the sight of my G.o.d. I shall be the most unhappy of creatures as long as I must live in this state. Would to G.o.d that all men might understand what it is to be without G.o.d, in order that they might firmly resolve to suffer anything during their life on earth rather than expose themselves to the danger of being d.a.m.ned, and deprived forever of the sight of G.o.d." [1]

[Footnote 1: 1 Aunal. Pp. Capuc., A.D. 1548.]

The souls in Purgatory are _poor_ souls, because they suffer the greatest pain of the senses, which is that of _fire_. Who can be in a poorer or more pitiful condition than those who are buried in fire? Now, this is the condition of these poor souls. They are buried under waves of fire. It is from the smallest spark of this purgatorial fire that they suffer more intense pains than all the fires of this world put together could produce....

Could these poor souls leave the fire of Purgatory for the most frightful earthly fire they would, as it were, take it for a pleasure- garden; they would find a fifty years' stay in the hottest earthly fire more endurable than an hour's stay in the fire of Purgatory. Our terrestrial fire was not created by G.o.d to torment men, but rather to benefit them; but the fire of Purgatory was created by G.o.d for no other purpose than to be an instrument of His justice; and for this reason it is possessed of a burning quality so intense and penetrating that it is impossible for us to conceive even the faintest idea of it.

In the year 1150 it happened that, on the Vigil of St. Cecilia, a very old monk, one hundred years of age, at Marchiennes, in Flanders, fell asleep while sacred lessons were being read, and saw, in a dream, a monk all clad in armor, shining like red-hot iron in a furnace. The old man asked him who he was. He was told that he was one of the monks of the convent; that he was in Purgatory, and had yet to endure this fiery armor for ten years more, for having injured the reputation of another.

Another reason why these holy prisoners and debtors to the divine justice are really _poor_ is because they are not able, in the least, to a.s.sist themselves. A sick man afflicted in all his limbs, and a beggar in the most painful and most dest.i.tute of conditions, has a tongue left to ask for relief. At least they can implore Heaven; it is never deaf to their prayer. But the souls in Purgatory are so poor that they cannot even do this. Those cases in which some of them were permitted to appear to their friends and ask a.s.sistance are but exceptions. To whom is it they should have recourse? Is it, perhaps, to the mercy of G.o.d? Alas! they send forth their sighs in plaintive voices.... But the Lord does not regard their tears, nor heed their moans and cries, but answers them that His justice must be satisfied to the last farthing.