dred times after death to our living friends: Have pity on me, at least you, my friends!
For that very reason we should be more active in helping the poor souls, for they who show no mercy to them shall be punished without mercy in purgatory. 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.”[1] 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 hun dred 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.
Example to prove this. 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
- ↑ Eadem quippe mensura, qua mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis.—Luke vi. 38.
