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.