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An Angel Frees the Souls of Purgatory by Lodovico
Carracci - c. 1610
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BY
THE BLOOD OF THY TESTAMENT SEND FORTH THY PRISONERS
Having performed the service of the Ritual at the
coffin of a young man, who received the grace of conversion on his deathbed in
a town entirely Protestant, and seeing the large number of mourners listening
attentively to the priest reciting the De Profundis and the Miserere over the
dead and sprinkling the corpse with holy water, the priest improved the
occasion by explaining what he had just prayed and done for the deceased, and
tried to impart to the gathering, that he knew to be densely ignorant of
Catholic doctrine, at least a crude idea of Purgatory. Let us suppose, he said,
you were invited to a reception which
you knew to be very exclusive, where none but the very best and noblest people
would be admitted, and you had traveled there with a lot of luggage on a bum
train, as we say, the soot and cinders flying through the open windows, soiling
your face and hands and clothes and lodging in your eyes, ears, nose, hair and
neck, certainly making you feel very uncomfortable and totally unfit to be
presented to the elite of society in evening dress and bedecked with jewels.
Where is there a sensible and decent man or woman who would want to enter that
brilliantly lighted hall in such a condition, with dirt and luggage? Why, you
would naturally in quire for a place where you could lay aside your duds and
wash and brush up. To offer a room for such purposes is a common courtesy shown
by even ordinary people. The members of high society require a long time to arrange
their toilet. Now, continued the priest,
most of us arrive at heaven, when we die, after having traveled on a bum train,
our life time, namely in our corrupt nature and sinful bodies, encumbered with
the luggage of bad habits and covered with the soot and cinders of numerous
imperfections, for in Thy sight no man living shall be justified (Ps. CXLII,
2). Appearing before the judgment seat of an all-holy God, in whose sight even
the angels are not pure (Job XV, 15), the soul cries out from the depths of its
misery in the words of the Psalmist: Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and
cleanse me from my sin. For I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me.
It realizes that it is about to be ushered into the highest society possible,
into the society of the angels and saints, whom St. John saw in white garments;
that it will be presented to the Immaculate Queen, the lily without spot; in a
word, that it will be introduced to the court of the King of kings. There shall
not enter into it anything defiled (Apoc. XXI, 27). A soul, therefore, with the
slightest imperfection in Heaven would be an object of horror to itself and to
others. Hence, when it has departed this world contaminated and saturated, as
it were, with its own wickedness, it naturally longs for a place to be cleansed
from every defilement, where it shall be made whiter than snow. Such a place,
my clear friends, we Catholics call Purgatory. In Heaven there is no place for
preparation. It is an immediate reward for perfection already attained. We
often hear people say that if this or that person is admitted to Heaven they do
not want to go there. Even we, who are fully aware of our faults, would be
unwilling to put up in Heaven with the imperfections of others. With how much
greater right must not God, Who created Heaven for the perfect enjoyment of the
elect, demand that we be perfect before we enter Heaven. Be ye perfect even as
your Father which is in heaven is perfect Which is more unlike a Christian and
harder to believe, that all those persons whom we dislike or with whom we would
not associate, will go to Hell to suffer eternally, or that they will go to
Purgatory to suffer for a time, and prepare for an eternity of blessedness? Again,
we are enjoined not only to be perfect, but Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy
whole mind. This is a commandment, and we cannot enter Heaven until we have fulfilled
this commandment. But where is he who, at the hour of death, can say he has
done this? Is not rather the sentiment, this world is good enough for me
commonly entertained and often expressed? How few really hunger after justice
and seek the things that are above and therefore deserve the title of blessed?
It is true, to see God is to love Him. But we must love Him before we can see
Him and love Him with our whole heart before we can enjoy His perfections in
heaven. What manner of love would that be and what satisfaction to God, if He
had to force us at the moment of death to love Him? Freed from all earthly
attachments, which it now realizes did not fully satisfy it, the soul in
Purgatory yearns with an intense longing after the presence of its Maker and
Redeemer and with a love of God that, in the words of St. Francis de Sales, gives
birth to cruel sufferings. After this rather homely exposition of the Catholic
doctrine of Purgatory, those benighted people remarked that the Catholic idea
of the matter was all right.
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| Dante and Virgil encounter Sordello in purgatory by Cesare Zocchi (1896) |
Purgatory is a school of perfection, but it is
also a school of pain, that is, of punishment and suffering. As such it is
characterized by our Lord, who calls it a prison. Thou shalt not go
out from thence till thou repay the last farthing (Math. V, 26), and by St.
Paul who defines the state of that prison, but he himself shall be saved, yet
so as by fire (I Cor. Ill, 15). According to St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Bernard,
and other Fathers of the Church, the pains of Purgatory exceed in intensity all
earthly torments. I do not think, says St. Catherine of Genoa in her treatise
on Purgatory, that any joy can be found to be compared with that of the souls
in Purgatory, unless it be that of the saints in Paradise. And this joy is
augmented every day, thanks to the influence of God on these souls, which
constantly increases in pro portion as the hindrance to its action on them
diminishes. At the same time, they suffer such an exceeding great pain that no
tongue can describe it; and no intellect could understand it in the very
smallest degree, if God did not make it known by a special favor. In short, the
souls in Purgatory unite two things which seem to us irreconcilable: they enjoy
an extreme pleasure and at the same time suffer cruel torments; and these two
effects do not neutralize each other. This statement of St. Catherine will be
better understood by those who are well versed in the science of the saints; as
we find a similar relation of pain and joy in the lives of the saints here on
earth. After her heart had been pierced with a dart of love by an angel, St.
Teresa says: The pain thereof was so
intense, that it forced deep groans from me; but the sweetness which this
extreme pain caused in me was so excessive, that there was no desiring to be
free from it; nor is the soul then content with anything less than God. This is
not a corporal but a spiritual pain, though the body does not fail to
participate a little in it, yea, a great deal. I could not understand how it
was possible that pain and joy could be united; that corporal pain and
spiritual joy were compatible, I knew very well; but that so excessive a
spiritual pain should be compatible with so extraordinary a spiritual joy, did
quite astonish me. Poor Souls, indeed, exclaims St. Leonard of Port Maurice, whose
earthly banishment is at an end, but forbidden to enter the Promised Land. They
have claim to heavenly riches, but suffer extreme destitution. They are kings
and queens everyone, but in bondage. Glorious victors all, but yet uncrowned.
Companions of the angels, yet tormented by evil spirits. Citizens of heaven,
yet in the bowels of the earth. God is their spouse, but as yet their judge,
who delivered them to the torturers.
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Pope St. Gregory the Great Saving the Souls
of Purgatory by Sebastiano Ricci
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These prisoners are powerless in the
purifying flames of Purgatory, but what copious means we have at our disposal
to help them by reason of the communion of saints according to the doctrine of
vicarious satisfaction as expressed by good works, indulgences and the oblation
of the Precious Blood. The mercy of God manifests itself by multiplying the
means of pardon and the opportunities for help. Thus the Church has endowed the
Confraternity of the Precious Blood with extraordinary indulgences, and all
these indulgences are applicable to the suffering souls in Purgatory, so that
its members can, by merely making the intention, convert it into one of the
richest confraternities for the Poor Souls. By so doing, we apply all the
satisfactory merits of these indulgences and good works to these needy souls,
while the meritorious value of such charitable acts is inalienable and always
remains ours as a reward in Heaven. In Jesus Christ we lose nothing by helping
others, grace increases in proportion as we give and the crock of oil emptied
by charity into the vessels brought to her filling, overflows the more for what
it pours out. We liberate Gods dearest children from prison
and make them our advocates in Heaven, where they will succor us in our
temporal and spiritual needs. Giving alms to the Poor Souls is an act of mercy
that will obtain for us mercy and insure for us a hundredfold reward and our
own speedy deliverance from Purgatory. How beautiful is this doctrine of the
communion of saints. There is no one so helpless, so desirous of the Precious
Blood, as the suffering souls in Purgatory; and there is no means at our
disposal so efficacious in helping these souls as the Precious Blood. If we had
our garments all stained or besmeared with paint, it would certainly take us a
very long time to cleanse them without some specific means to do it. In fact,
we should despair of ever rendering them perfect, even if we had a hundred
years to accomplish the task. The Precious Blood in the holy sacrifice of the
Mass offered for the souls in Purgatory can purify these souls from the stains
of sin and remove the penalty for past offenses more readily than the pains of
Purgatory themselves. Our charity towards the Poor Souls should, in a measure,
correspond to the love and prodigality with which Jesus shed His Blood. He
withholds not one drop of His Blood.
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