SEVENTEENTH SERMON.
ON PURGATORY AFTER DEATH.
Subject.
There is none of us who has not just reason to fear a severe purgatory after death; therefore we should show mercy to the poor souls because they who refuse to do so will have to expect a purgatory without mercy. Preached on the twenty -first Sunday after Pentecost.
Text.
" And his lord being angry delivered him to the torturers, until he paid all the debt." (Matt, xviii. 34.)
Introduction.
This was a hard sentence for that poor servant, to be thrown into prison and be given over to the torturers. Yet in my opinion it was a merciful punishment for that merciless, ungrateful man, who deserved to be treated with far greater severity; for though he was to be punished, yet it was only until he should pay the whole debt. Hence his chastisement was not to last always, but till he should have paid all he owed his lord; thus he had the hope of being one day freed from prison and torture. Here, my dear brethren, we have a vivid picture of the prison which we Catholics call purgatory, in which the just God confines the souls of those who have not sufficiently satisfied for their sins, that they may be tortured, not forever, but only for a time and until they have completely paid all they owe the divine justice. Poor souls! I cannot help thinking how hard it must be for you! But be comforted; your torments in that prison will come to an end; and the duration of your chastisement can be curtailed by the living, if we only wish to show you that mercy. Christians! so should each one of us think, how will it be with me after my death? Shall I be sent to that prison to be tormented ? In all probability such will be the case. And that thought should urge us to do all we can to help the poor souls who are actually there now.
Plan of Discourse.
There is none of us who has not just reason to fear a severe purgatory after death; therefore we should show mercy to the poor souls; because they who refuse to do so may expect a purgatory without mercy. Such is the whole subject.
That we may not be in the number of these latter, grant us Your grace, Lord, to lead holy lives and show mercy to the poor souls; this we beg of You through the intercession of Mary and of our holy guardian angels.
He who is in the habit of thieving has reason to fear the gallows if he is caught; and he who often does what deserves to be punished in purgatory has reason to fear purgatory when he falls into the hands of God's justice. And if that is the case, who of us, my dear brethren, will dare to say that he will escape that fire? For what are we, and where are we now on this earth? Poor, frail mortals, inclined to evil, exposed to countless dangers and occasions of sin, no, we stain our lives with many actual sins and faults; for we are of the number of those of whom St. John says: " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. "
And in truth if we go through the whole day, from morning till night, we shall hardly find a quarter of an hour that is quite free from some fault or another. Curiosity of eyes and ears, sensuality of taste and touch, want of restraint over the tongue, idle, flattering, lying, fault-finding, quarrelsome, sarcastic, contradictory talk; proud, ambitious, suspicious, impure thoughts, that are fully or half deliberate; intemperance in eating, drinking, and sleep; discontent and impatience in adversity; a wrong intention in outward actions; vanity in dress, manners, and demeanor; want of restraint and consideration in company; human respect, that drives us to do or omit what we should not do or omit; useless squandering of precious time, culpable ignorance, neglecting the duties of our state although in small things; not fulfilling the obligations of Christian charity; leading others into sin, giving scandal through carelessness, rejecting the divine inspirations, etc. These are small things according to our ideas; but our lives are filled with them; they are as it were the daily bread of even pious Christians. Wherever one turns he finds some fault or other that he has committed. And how many sins do we not commit that escape our notice, that we do not acknowledge and are not aware of, although they are all clearly recognized by the all-seeing eye of God and written down in the great account-book in their minutest details, like those motes that pass before our eyes, which we cannot see until the rays of the sun fall on them. Even our good works, if we consider them closely, as they will be examined by the strict Judge when He will judge justices, even they will be found to be mixed with faults and imperfections. Prayer said with fully or half deliberate distractions; devotions performed with coldness and tepidity; visits to the church, hearing Mass, and receiving holy Communion with little attention, reverence, or fervor; the works of charity and mercy, of zeal for souls, done with vain complacency, or to seek praise, or without a pure intention for God's honor; these pious exercises that we daily perform to honor God to increase our merit, and to gain heaven these very works serve at the same time to fan the flames of purgatory in order to chastise us.
I will say nothing of the grievous sins that are committed from the first dawn of reason, through the succeeding years of youth and manhood; sins of all kinds in thought and desire, in word, and act, and conversation, and omission. How many adults are there who can say that they are of the number of those happy souls who have never been guilty of a mortal sin in their lives? I will suppose that we have blotted out of the book of God's justice all the mortal sins of our past lives by true, supernatural repentance, sincere contrition, and a candid confession, and that we have fully appeased the divine anger, so that we are now admitted to the favor and friendship of God, and are called and are in truth dear children of God. Oh, what a happiness is ours! All our debt is forgiven; the eternal pains of hell that we had deserved are remitted to us, and as far as we are concerned the fire of hell is extinguished. God of goodness, what do we not owe You for such a benefit! But meanwhile, my dear brethren, what becomes of the terrible temporal punishment we still owe the divine justice for those sins that we have committed and repented of?
Now the God of holiness and justice requires for these and even for the small daily faults we fall into, the most complete and perfect satisfaction, without the least oversight or remission on His part; and no fault is so small as not to deserve its punishment. If we do not make this atonement during life, either by patiently bearing many trials and torments, or by voluntarily chastising ourselves by works of mortification and penance, or by gaining indulgences granted by the Church, or by hearing Mass and performing other devotions (although so great is the number of sins and faults daily committed by even the most pious and holy that a complete satisfaction is hardly ever accomplished), then we must atone for those sins in the next life by suffering in our own persons and by purgatorial punishment. For no one can be admitted into heaven and to the sight of God who is not perfectly free from even the least stain. Alas! what will become of us? Is there any one who will dare to say that he shall escape purgatory?
And what do we imagine we shall have to suffer for those almost countless sins and faults? Do we think they are but small matters, and that God does not consider them so exactly? Ah, no! The God of mercy and goodness, even in this life, where mercy holds the foremost rank, where punishments willingly endured are united with the infinite merits of the Passion and Death of Our Lord, and therefore have a great atoning power over and above their own merit even in this life God has some times punished most severely small sins committed by faithful servants of His. Thus, for instance, a half deliberate doubt on the part of Moses, who hesitated about striking the rock with his rod, was the cause of his being excluded from the promised land; an act of curiosity on the part of Lot's wife, who looked round to see the burning city of Sodom, was enough to cause her to be turned into a pillar of salt. The carelessness of Oza in putting forth his hand to support the ark of the covenant drew down on him the punishment of a sudden death. The silly vanity of King David, who wished to know the number of his people, brought the plague amongst them, which in three days carried off seventy thousand men. Now, I say, if God, who is otherwise so merciful, inflicts such severe punishments on even His faithful servants for small faults, alas! I cannot help thinking, how strict He will be in the next life, where His justice alone untempered by mercy shall wield the rod? where suffering is not united with the merits of Christ, but is simply endured by a mere creature, a suffering that, no matter how keen it is, can hardly be compared to an offence offered to a God of infinite goodness? Alas! cries out St. Augustine; "wo to even the praiseworthy lives of men, if Thou examine them without mercy!"
We can learn something of the intensity of the pains endured in the next life from one who suffered them for a day. St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, in a letter to St. Augustine, relates how three dead men, whose bodies had been touched by the hair-shirt of St. Jerome, came to life again; one of them he met and had a chance of speaking with. " This man," writes Cyril, seemed quite discomposed and almost exhausted by the quantity of tears he had shed." "I asked him," continues the Saint, "why he wept so extravagantly; and after a long silence and with many sighs, he finally yielded to my importunity and answered my question. If you knew, holy Bishop, he said, what I suffered yesterday you would not be surprised at my tears, but would ac knowledge that I have cause to weep for the rest of my life. What do you think of the pains of purgatory? If you put together all the torments, pains, punishments, and sufferings that I will not say are actually endured on earth, but that can be imagined, they are nothing but a cool, refreshing dew compared to the least pain of purgatory. There is no man in the world who would not rather suffer all that people have ever suffered from the beginning of the world till now, and suffer that to the end of the world, rather than undergo the least pain of purgatory if he had experience of it even for one day. If you ask me then why I weep so much, I confess that it is for fear of the punishment that every sinner has reason to dread in the next life. There is no difference between the pains of hell and those of purgatory, except that the latter will one day come to an end; but in hell there will never be an end or alleviation to the torments of the damned." Such is the testimony of one who was an eye witness of the pains of purgatory, and we have it on the authority of St. Cyril. St. Augustine paints in lively colors the cruel torments that the martyrs had to undergo during the persecutions; but he goes so far as to assert that all those torments put together are far less than those suffered by the souls in purgatory. " Never could such punishment be inflicted on a mortal body, although the martyrs suffered atrocious torments.""
Cantipratanus writes of a sick man who was so impatient at the length and severity of his illness that he earnestly begged of God either to restore him to health or to take him out of the world altogether. God sent an angel to say to him that he might choose whether he would suffer the pains of purgatory for three days or those of his sickness for another year. The sick man thought to himself that the three days would soon be over, while a whole year of illness meant a long trial of one's patience. He therefore chose the three days in purgatory. According to his wish he died and went to purgatory, but was hardly an hour there when he imagined the three days and even more had expired; he grew exceedingly anxious, sighed, suffered, and wept; " ah," he said, " I must be more than a month here, and yet the door is not opened to let me out! I am afraid that he who gave me that choice was not an angel in reality, but one disguised as an angel who has shamefully deceived me." While busied with these thoughts the angel came to comfort him and to congratulate him on having accomplished the third part of his atonement. "What!" exclaimed the suffering soul; "the third part! No more than that?" "Yes, you have been here but one day; your body is not yet buried; they are now on the point of carrying it to the grave." "Ah, dearest guardian an gel! " cried out the poor soul; " ah, help me to return to my body and my former suffering; I would rather endure them patiently for ten years than stand these pains for two days more! " Ah, my God! how we deceive ourselves when we think little of venial sins and make nothing of them almost! when we do not true and heartfelt penance for our mortal sins! when we blindly look on them as altogether remitted, and forget all about the terrors of purgatory!
I tremble when I read in the Lives of the Saints how severely even the holiest and most faithful servants of God had to suffer for the smallest sins and imperfections. In the Chronicles of the Friars Minor we read of one of their number who died at Paris, and who on account of his angelic purity and holiness was looked on as more angel than man. In the same convent there was at the time a very learned theologian, who was also most enlightened in spiritual matters. He deliberately omitted to say Mass for his deceased brother because he thought it unnecessary to help one who, as he certainly believed, was already high in glory, so great was the fame for sanctity that the deceased had gained during life. But in a few days time the latter appeared to him and said in a mournful voice: "Dear master, for God's sake, have pity on me! " The other, terrified, exclaimed: " Holy soul, what do you want from me? " Masses! Masses! " was the eager answer, "that I may be released from my torments!" "What? You in torments! You who have led such an angelic, innocent, and penitential life? Was not that sufficient purification and atonement for you?" "Alas!" sighed the soul, "no one believes how strictly God judges, and how severely He punishes!" No one believes it! my dear brethren, how many are there not in purgatory who are thought to be in heaven! St. Antoninus relates in his Summa that a preacher of his Order appeared a month after his death to the infirmarian of the convent in which he had lived and told him that he had been kept in purgatory all that time for no other reason than that he had been too familiar and jocose in his conversations with seculars. A whole month he had to suffer because he had not observed that gravity of demeanor that becomes the religious when in the society of seculars. And how many Masses and prayers had not been offered for him by his brethren in the mean time?
Baronius, writing of the year 498, and St. Gregory in his Dialogues, mention with astonishment the case of Cardinal Paschasius, who was a great friend to the poor, a generous alms-giver, a most courageous despiser of himself, and a brave champion of the Catholic faith. He died in the odor of sanctity, and the mere touch of his coffin was enough to drive out devils, so that no one doubted that he was already in possession of heavenly glory. But how different the judgments of God from those of men ! The same Paschasius, a long time after, as St. Gregory says, appeared to Germanus, the holy Bishop of Capua, and mournfully begged his help that he might at last be freed from his torments and be admitted to the beatific vision. When asked why he was detained so long in purgatory he said: "For nothing else than my obstinacy in persisting in my opinion that Lawrence was more worthy of the papacy than Symmachus, although Symmachus had been unanimously voted to the Apostolic See." Still more wonderful is what we read in the Annals of the Capuchin Fathers, under the year 1548, of Brother Anthony Corio, who was renowned in the Order for his extraordinary penances. Besides the austerities prescribed by the Order, he wore day and night a hair-shirt made of horsehair, the sharp points of which constantly wounded his body; in the winter time he clothed himself with an old, ill-mended mantle, that he might feel the cold more severely; he slept only for three hours, and spent the remainder of the night in meditation; his food was generally dry bread; for a long time he ate nothing more than four ounces of dried figs; as he advanced in years he in creased his mortifications to such an extent that during a whole week he would eat only three times a little bread and water. Every night he disciplined himself to blood in honor of the Passion and death of Our Lord, and once a year he prolonged the scourging for five whole hours. In a word, according to hiabiographer, t( he had determined not to allow himself any repose in this life. " You might perhaps imagine, my dear brethren, that this man was a notorious robber or murderer, or at all events a great sinner before entering the Order, and that he must have had fearful crimes to atone for, since he was so terribly severe to wards himself. But quite the contrary; he brought his baptismal innocence with him into religion. His humility was so great that he thought himself worthy of nothing but to be trodden under foot by all. God gave him such a great grace of contemplation that he was often rapt into ecstasy out of himself, and could only sigh forth seraphic aspirations of love to God. Would you. not think, my dear brethren, that such an innocent, holy, and at the same time so mortified a soul must at once after death be carried by the angels into heaven? But you must know that he had to suffer a great deal in purgatory. For he appeared to the infirmarian of the convent, and being asked how he was, said: " I have indeed saved my soul; but I am condemned to purgatory till I have fully atoned; my fault was against holy poverty; for when the convent was being founded I sought for certain means of support without having first asked permission to do so. I did not look on it then as a sin, although I had a doubt about it now and then; but through carelessness I disregarded the doubt, and this carelessness is now severely punished by the divine Judge, who so strictly examines each and every fault."
Well known is what St. Peter Damian writes of St. Severinus, Archbishop of Cologne. His holiness of life was known every-where, as well as the miracles he wrought; yet he was detained some time in purgatory, and had to ask help from a certain Can on of Cologne, because when at the imperial court he did not recite his office at the proper time, or with due attention, on ac count of the number of things he had to attend to. Surius relates in the Life of St. Ludgard, that Innocent III., that Pope who did such great things for the Catholic Church, appeared to this Saint after his death surrounded by flames, and said: " I have indeed escaped eternal fire through the mercy of Mary, who obtained for me the grace of perfect contrition on my death-bed; but the divine justice has condemned me to severe torments in purgatory till the end of the world, unless I get help from the living." Cardinal Bellarmine, reflecting on this terrible example, says: " This instance fills me with dread; for if a pope, who was looked on as a saint, deserved to suffer purgatory to the end of the world, what superior has not reason to fear and to scrutinize the inmost recesses of his conscience? "
And, alas! my dear brethren, what are we to think of ourselves, if those holy servants of God have been chastised so sharply for such seemingly small faults? We who think so little of venial sin and commit it almost every hour? We who often order our lives only according to our sensuality, to the requirements of bodily comfort, and the vanity and customs of the world ? Let us think of this every day, and think deeply on it; for that thought will make us avoid venial sin and not think too lightly of it; it will make us patient in crosses and trials, so that we shall be ready to thank God for sending us a short suffering here to atone for our sins, that we may not have to suffer so severely for them in the next life; that thought will inspire us with Christian humility, and impel us to restrain and mortify our senses, to frequent the sacraments, to gain indulgences, to be zealous in the practice of virtue, that we may daily wipe out some of our debt, and reduce our obligations to the divine justice. St. Catharine of Genoa used to say that he who tries to atone for his sins in this life pays a debt of a thousand ducats with a few pence; but he who defers atonement till the next life must pay a thousand ducats to clear off a debt of a few pence. Her meaning was that in this life a slight penance can atone for many sins, but in the next small faults must be atoned for by long and severe punishments. Let no one depend on the help of others after his death, if he neglects to help himself now; for it is much better to say once during life: My God, have mercy on me! than to cry out a hundred times after death to our living friends: Have pity on me, at least you, my friends!
Yet, my dear brethren, there are friends on whose help we can confidently rely, if we take care to make them our friends during life, namely, the poor souls in purgatory. For the very reason that we have such cause to dread a sharp purgatory we should try to help those souls in every possible manner, that they may be released all the sooner, so that afterwards, when they are in heaven, and we take their places in torments, they may in turn help us by their prayers: an act of charity that these souls are wont to perform out of gratitude for their benefactors, as I have shown on a former occasion, when I proved that they who show no mercy to the poor souls during life have least mercy to expect when they go to purgatory. So it is, my dear brethren: " For with the same measure," says Christ, " that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." If you have shown no charity towards the suffering souls, there will be no one after your death who will think of showing mercy to you. There are many examples to prove this, which time does not allow me to adduce. For instance: we read of souls that have been over a hundred years in purgatory and had not one to pray for them, and that through a most just decree of God; and of souls for whom many prayers and masses were offered without doing them any good, because they had not helped the poor souls during their lives. Mark this well, my dear brethren: not every good act that is done for the benefit of a certain soul actually helps that soul, otherwise the rich, and especially kings and princes, would be well off indeed, for sometimes a thousand masses are said for them. Ah, no! quite different is the distribution made by the justice of God, who is not bound to accept the payment offered by a stranger for the debt contracted by any soul. You, He will say, who during your life did so little for the poor souls, you do not deserve this mass, this alms, those prayers that your friends are now sending after you; all these things shall be given over to others who are more deserving of them on account of the charity they practised during their lives; but you must pay at your own cost the debts you have incurred.
Such was in truth the experience of that religious named Edelhard, who belonged to the Abbey of Fulda. It was a pious custom in the convent when one of the brethren died to give to the poor for the good of the suffering soul the food and drink that would have fallen to his share for thirty days if he had been still alive, a praiseworthy custom that is still observed in many religious houses. Now this Edelhard was procurator, and through avarice and excessive parsimony he had frequently omit ted to give the usual alms according to this custom; but how dearly he paid for his neglect! Besides a severe punishment that he underwent from a deceased person whom he had defrauded of this alms, a punishment that caused his premature death, the thirtieth day after his decease, although many prayers and twice as much alms as usual had been offered for him, he appeared to his abbot in woeful plight, and made the following bitter complaint: "Alas! what terrible torments I am suffering! and I cannot obtain full remission until all my brethren, who are detained in purgatory through my neglect, are released; for the prayers and alms that are offered for me are by a decree of divine justice given, not to me, but to them." Thus writes Trithemius in his Life of Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda. Thomas Cantipratanus tells us of a soldier who on his death-bed asked his grandson to sell his horse, and have masses said with the money for the repose of his soul. The grandson, partly through neglect and partly because he wished to keep the horse for himself, as it was a fine one, did not fulfil his grandfather's request. After a lapse of six months the deceased appeared to him; " you faithless fellow," he said to him with an angry countenance, " on account of your negligence I have had to suffer in purgatory all this time, and now the mercy of God has caused me to find help elsewhere. But as for you, by a just decree you will die soon, and your soul will come to this place of torments, where it will suffer until you have atoned, not only for your own sins, but also for mine, for you will have to complete the punishment that I should have suffered, if God's mercy had not found means to help me." This threat was fulfilled to the letter; the grandson died soon after, having made his confession. This should be a lesson to those children and heirs who neglect to carry out the pious wishes of their deceased friends, or for some cause or an other defer complying with them. In the same measure will chastisement be measured out to them." Judgment without mercy to him that has not done mercy;" purgatory without mercy to him who has not shown mercy to the poor souls.
To avoid this severe sentence, my dear brethren, the surest
means will be to help the souls in purgatory with charity and
mercy, so that when we in turn shall be in need of help those
souls who have been relieved by us may come to our assistance.
Truly, so should each one of you think and resolve with me:
[ have just reason to practise this charity, when I consider my
past life and the many mortal and venial sins I have committed !
What else have I to expect but a long and severe purgatory after
my death, if that death by the divine mercy is to be a happy one?
Holy souls and children of God in purgatory! I place great confidence in you! I will never forget you all the days of my life;
not a day shall pass in which I shall not keep my promise of per
forming some work of devotion for you; thus when I am lying
groaning in the place of torments and you are rejoicing in heaven,
I shall be justified in sending forth my petition to you in the
words of Joseph to his fellow-prisoner: " Only remember me,
when it shall be well with you, and do me this kindness: to put
Pharao in mind to take me out of this prison. " So shall I be able
to say to you one day: Only remember me! holy, glorious souls,
whom I relieved from suffering in purgatory! Ah, think now of
me! do me this kindness, and speak to God a word in my favor,
that I may soon be released out of this prison and be received with
you into the eternal tabernacle, where we shall rejoice together
and praise the goodness of God forever! Meanwhile I will still
continue to pray: God grant you eternal rest. Amen.
On Mercy towards the Poor Souls in Purgatory, see several sermons in the first and fourth parts.