Praised Jesus Christ, and blessed be Mary our Mother. Amen.
Pope Benedict XVI in his Report on Faith, said:
Today we all think we are so good
that we cannot deserve anything but paradise.
This comes from a culture
that tends to erase from man
all feelings of guilt and sin.
Someone has observed that the ideologies
that currently prevail
all coincide in one fundamental thing:
the obstinate denial of sin, hell and purgatory
I say that, if purgatory did not exist, it would have to be invented.
Because there are few things
so spontaneous, so human, so universally extended,
in all times and cultures, such as prayer
for the deceased loved ones.
What does purgatory consist of?
After death, the soul experiences the love of God
with such intensity that it feels the urgent need to love Him with all its strength,
but it cannot, because it is sick from the consequences of its sins and needs to be purified.
It is like a patient who is sick in his lungs, who wants to breathe without difficulty
and needs to be cured first in order to fully breathe with healthy lungs.
In the same manner is the soul that wants to love God with all its capacity
and suffers, because it cannot love him fully. However, the great thing about all this mystery
is that the mercy of God allows the living beings to supply for the deceased and thus they heal more
quickly. It is as if we give them the appropriate medicine that, in an instant or in a short time,
would heal and purify them totally. Or as if we paid off their debt all at once,
through a plenary indulgence, so they can go directly to heaven, or paid it in parts so
they gradually grow to the fullness of their love. A nun spoke like this about purgatory.
Let’s suppose that one day a door opens and a splendid and wonderful being appears.
We are stunned and fascinated by his beauty and he tells us that he is extremely in love with
us. You have never dreamed of being loved like this. We have a great desire to throw ourselves
in his arms to feel his love, but we realize that we have not cleaned ourselves
for months and we smell, we have greasy hair and our clothes are stained ... And He says to
us: Wait a moment and go first to wash and clean yourselves.
But his love is so intense that every minute of delay is an excruciating suffering.
Well, purgatory is something like that, a delay imposed by our impurity
before the full and final embrace with God. Purgatory is like an immense desire for God,
an extreme desire to love God fully, which makes the waiting soul suffer unspeakably. However,
we can say that purgatory is not a terrible prison in which the soul is a prisoner of divine revenge.
NO. Purgatory is a painful purification to enable the soul to fully enjoy the happiness of paradise.
Who could say that it is cruel to remove the lint from someone's eye
so that they can enjoy the beauty of the landscape? Who would consider it cruel to
make the sick person take a bitter medicine so he can enjoy the banquet to which he is invited?
The soul, in purgatory, is a sick soul that needs the medicines for help, prayers and masses to heal
and be happy. In purgatory, we must pay even the smallest sin and wash the smallest stain.
That’s why, we should not let venial sins pass easily, as if they did not matter.
Every sin, even the smallest, is an imperfection and a lack of love for God. Those who say:
"With a little corner in heaven I am satisfied", do not know what they say.
They will have great sufferings with a vivid desire to do the good deeds they did not do,
and they will see the many souls to whom their good deeds were not done.
All laziness and all disinterest in improving will become in purgatory a great torment of the soul.
Saint Faustina Kowalska says in her Diary: Today I have known deep down inside my soul
how horrible and frightening is sin, even the smallest. I would rather
suffer a thousand hells than commit even the smallest venial sin (March, 15th 1937).
Let's see what happened to the Dominican Father Stanislao Choscoa. It is documented in the History
of Poland by Brovius, from the year 1590. One day, while this religious saint prayed
for the deceased, a soul surrounded by fire appeared to him.
He asked the soul if that fire was stronger than the fire of the earth. And the soul replied:
“All the fire on earth compared to the one in purgatory is like fresh air.” “Could you give
me a sample of it?” the religious saint asked. “No mortal could withstand the least part of
this fire without dying instantly. If you want to test it, extend your hand.”
The religious put his hand out and a drop of sweat or liquid fell onto it from that soul.
His pain was so great that he screamed and fell to the ground and passed out.
His brothers came and tried to assist him. And he told them what had happened to him,
exhorting his brothers to flee even from the smallest sin to not suffer those horrible sorrows.
Let us pray for the souls in purgatory. It is one of the best deeds of charity we can do.
When we pass by a cemetery, we must always remember to pray for the blessed souls in
that place; and every day, at mass, they must be commended with special interest.
Unfortunately, today the custom of cremation of corpses is spreading. Of course, the Church
allows cremation, when with it, the faith in the resurrection of the body is not questioned (Cat
2301). However, we believe that it would be better to bury the body,
to have a place of reference and to be able to visit it and pray more for the deceased.
Some families keep the ashes indefinitely in their homes,
but the Pope has already repeatedly advised that they should be buried in a sacred place.
Let us look at a case that occurred in Montefalco, Italy, from September 2, 1918 to November 9, 1919.
These manifestations of a soul from purgatory are confirmed by some nuns of the convent and were
confirmed by Bishop Pietro Pacifici, Bishop of Spoleto, in 1921. The 28 manifestations took place
in the convent of the Poor Clares sisters of the convent of San Leonardo de Montefalco.
At no time were they able to see the purging soul, but the soul was present to speak briefly
and leave alms, almost always ten liras. He rang the bell at the entrance for the mother superior
to come down, even when all the entrance doors to the convent and the Church were closed.
He used to say: I leave here ten liras for prayers. When they asked him on whose behalf,
he replied: I am not allowed to say it. On October 3, 1919, he said clearly to the mother superior:
I am a purging soul. I have been in purgatory for forty years
for having dissipated ecclesiastical goods. On another occasion, he said he was a priest.
In total, he left 300 liras and 38 masses were celebrated for him. On November 9, when the mother
superior came down to the sound of the bell, he said: Praise be to Jesus and Mary. I thank you
and the Community for what you have prayed for me, I am now free from all pain.
And, at the request of the mother superior, he gave her the priestly blessing in Latin.
The place where these manifestations took place has been transformed into a chapel,
dedicated to pray for the souls in purgatory and especially for the deceased priests.
The chapel was blessed on February 26, 1924 and a confraternity for the souls in purgatory began.