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What Relations Do We Have with the People in Purgatory?

07-05-2020Weekly Reflection

O wonder, this fire is nothing other than the love of God, which burns the soul in Purgatory, until the soul goes on fire himself/herself with the divine flame.

St. Catherine of Genoa

We pray in the Apostles Creed: I believe in the communion of saints. This reminds us that Christ's Body, the Church is a great family, which exists here on earth, in heaven, and in purgatory and that we are all bound together in this family in the Blood of Christ. This family, the entire family, is gathered at every Mass. God wills that we share in the sufferings of Christ and share in the great task of the salvation of souls. We constantly receive aid from and are loved by the angels and saints in heaven.

In Book Nine of his Confessions, St. Augustine describes the death of his mother:

However, scarcely five days after, or not much more, she was prostrated by fever; and while she was sick, she one day sank into a swoon, and was for a short time unconscious of visible things. We hurried up to her; but she soon regained her senses, and gazing on me and my brother as we stood by her, she said to us inquiringly, Where was I? Then looking intently at us stupefied with grief, "Here, says she, shall you bury your mother." I was silent, and refrained from weeping; but my brother said something, wishing her, as the happier lot, to die in her own country and not abroad. She, when she heard this, with anxious countenance stopped him with her eye, as savoring of such things, and then gazing at me, "Behold, says she, "what he says"; and soon after to us both she says, "Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for it trouble you at all. This only I ask, that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you be." (emphasis added) St. Monica knew that the altar would be the place, where she would continue her relationship of love with her sons especially when they remembered her at Mass, should she need purification.

So what about our brothers and sisters being purified? We are united with them in a great reality of offered prayer, the greatest of which, and the most precious of which, is the sacrifice of the Mass. We should pray daily for the souls in purgatory. It is one of the spiritual works of mercy. Don't assume people are in hell. There was a woman who was tormented by thinking about her unbelieving husband who was a suicide that he was in Hell. St. Jean Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests, told her: "He is saved." He revealed to her that in the distance falling from the bridge to the water he repented." Then he added: "It was the Holy Virgin who obtained this grace. Do you remember the 'the month of Mary' image standing in your room. Sometimes your husband, although irreligious, would unite himself to your prayer. Choosing his words well, he said: "He is in Purgatory, you must pray for him."

Don't assume people are in heaven. There was a certain religious sister who was admired by everyone for her virtue. Everybody was convinced she went straight to heaven and that you need not pray for her. She had occasion to appear to a privileged soul conducted by her Guardian Angel who said to her: "Would you pray for me? No one is praying for me because I died in great peace and with a great reputation for holiness. My beloved religious sisters believe me to be assuredly in heaven." She was in Purgatory in the antechamber (to heaven).

While there is a purifying pain in Purgatory, that's not the sole picture. St. Therese said this to someone who was tormented by fear about these things: "Don't fear Purgatory because of the pain there that a person suffers, rather desire not to go there in order to please the good God who imposes with regret this expiation. From the moment that you seek to please Him in everything, if you have unshakable confidence that He will purify you in each moment in His Love and that He will not leave in you any trace of sin, rest assured that you will not go to Purgatory.

Can the souls in Purgatory pray for us? There is no definitive teaching of the Church on the subject; St. Thomas (II-II.83.11) denies that the souls in purgatory pray for the living, and states they are not in a position to pray for us, rather we must make intercession for them.

Saint Robert Bellarmine (De Purgatorio, lib. II, xv,) disagreed with Saint Thomas citing his arguments as unconvincing. Bellarmine taught that precisely because they are secure in their salvation, and permanently united to God, that they have a greater love for Him than us wayfarers, although he did not concede that they are aware of our particular circumstances.

Fr. Francisco Suárez (De poenit., disp. xlvii, s. 2, n. 9), Bellarmine's contemporary and fellow Jesuit, asserts more. He argues thus: "that the souls in purgatory are holy, are dear to God, love us with a true love and are mindful of our wants; that they know in a general way our necessities and our dangers, and how great is our need of divine help and divine grace".

Saint Alphonsus in his work the "Great Means of Salvation", chap. I, III, 2, after quoting many renowned theologians as favorable to his opinion, concludes: "so the souls in purgatory, being beloved by God and confirmed in grace, have absolutely no impediment to prevent them from praying for us. Still the Church does not invoke them or implore their intercession, because ordinarily they have no cognizance of our prayers. But we may piously believe that God makes our prayers known to them". He also cites the authority of Saint Catherine of Bologna, a fifteenth century Poor Clare mystic, saying that "whenever she desired any favour [she] had recourse to the souls in purgatory, and was immediately heard".

A section of wood from the desk belonging to Ven. Mother Isabella Fornari, Abbess of the Poor Clares Monastery of St. Francis in Todi, bears the clear imprint of hand. The mark, which was burned into the desk, was said to be left by the deceased former Abbott, a Father Panzini, of the Benedictine Olivetan Order in Mantua on November 1, 1731, as a message to her that he was suffering in Purgatory.

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