Purgatory, Mary Anne Madden Sadlier [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

LO! PURGATORY! DOCTRINE BLEST,
ENGARLANDED WITH LEGENDS WILD,
HISTORIC LORE AND POETRY'S FAIR FLOWERS!

"Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the just wait for me, until thou reward me."

Ps. CXLI 8.


INTRODUCTION

I have written many books and translated many more on a great variety of subjects, nearly all of which, I thank God now with all my heart, were more or less religious, at least in their tendency; but the circle of these my life-long labors seems to me incomplete. One link is wanting to the chain, and that is a work specially devoted to the souls in Purgatory. This omission I am anxious to supply while the working days of my life are still with me, for, a few more years, at most, and for me "the night cometh when no man can work."

As we advance into the vale of years and journey on the downward slope, we are happily drawn more and more towards the eternal truths of the great untried world beyond the grave. Foremost amongst these stands out more and still more clearly, in all its awful reality, the dread but consoling doctrine of Purgatory. When we have seen many of our best beloved relatives, many of our dearest and most devoted friends - those who started with us in "the freshness of morning" on the road of life, which then lay so deceitfully fair and bright before them and us - they who shared our early hopes and aspirations, and whose words and smiles were the best encouragement of our feeble efforts - when we have seen them sink, one by one, into the darkness of the grave, leaving the earth more bleak and dreary year by year for those who remain - then do we naturally follow them in spirit to those gloomy regions where one or all may be undergoing that blessed purification which prepares them for the eternal repose of Heaven.

Of all the divine truths which the Catholic Church proposes to her children, assuredly none is more acceptable to the pilgrim race of Adam than that of Purgatory. It is, beyond conception, dear and precious as one of the links that connect the living with the vanished dead, and which keeps them fresh in the memory of those who loved them on earth, and whose dearest joy it is to be able to help them in that shadowy border-land through which, in pain and sorrow, they must journey before entering the Land of Promise, which is the City of God, seated on the everlasting hills.

When I decided on adding yet another to the many books on Purgatory already existing even in our own language, I, at the same time, resolved to make it as different as possible from all the others, and thus fill up a void of which I have long been sensible in our English Purgatorial literature. Doctrinal works, books of devotion, e have in abundance, but it is, unhappily, only the pious, the religiously- inclined who will read them. Knowing this, and still desirous to promote devotion to the Holy Souls by making Purgatory more real, more familiar to the general reader, I thought the very best means I could take for that end would be to make a book chiefly of legends and of poetry, with enough of doctrinal and devotional matter to give a substantial character to the work by placing it on the solid foundations of Catholic dogma, patristic authority, and that, at the same time, of the latest divines and theologians of the Church, by selections from their published writings.

I have divided the work into five parts, viz.: Doctrinal and Devotional, comprising extracts from Suarez, St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Augustine, St. Gertrude, St. Francis de Sales, of the earlier and middle ages; and from Archbishop Gibbons, Very Rev. Faá di Bruno, Father Faber, Father Muller, C.S.S.R., Father Binet, S.J., Rev. J. J. Moriarty, and others.

The Second Part consists of Anecdotes and Incidents relating to Purgatory, and more or less authentic. The Third Part contains historical matter bearing on the same subject, including Father Lambing's valuable article on "The Belief in a Middle State of Souls after Death amongst Pagan Nations." The Fourth Part is made up of "Thoughts on Purgatory, from Various Authors, Catholic and non- Catholic," including Cardinals Newman, Wiseman, and Manning; the Anglican Bishops Jeremy Taylor and Reginald Heber, Dr. Samuel Johnson, William Hurrell Mallock, Count de Maistre, Chateaubriand.

The Fifth and last part consists of a numerous collection of legends and poems connected with Purgatory. Many of these are translated from the French, especially the Légendes de l'Autre Monde, by the well-known legendist, J. Colin de Plancy. In selecting the legends and anecdotes, I have endeavored to give only those that were new to most English readers, thus leaving out many legends that would well bear reproducing, but were already too well known to excite any fresh interest.

In the poetical section I have represented as many as possible of the best-known poets, from Dante down, and some poems of rare beauty and merit were translated from French and Canadian poets by my daughter, who has also contributed some interesting articles for the historical portion of the work. As may be supposed, this book is the fruit of much research. The collection of the material has necessarily been a work of time, the field from which the gleanings were made being so vast, and the selections requiring so much care.

As regards the legendary portion of the work, whether prose or poetry, the reader will, of course, understand that I give the legends precisely for what they are worth; by no means as representing the doctrinal belief of Purgatory, but merely as some of the wild flowers of poetry and romance that have grown, in the long lapse of time, from the rich soil of faith and piety, amongst the Catholic peoples of every land - intensified, in this instance, by the natural affection of the living for their dear departed ones, and the solemn and shadowy mystery in which the dead are shrouded when once they have passed the portals of eternity and are lost to mortal sight. Some of these legends, though exceedingly beautiful, will hardly bear close examination in the light of Catholic dogma. Of this class is "The Faithful Soul," of Adelaide Procter, which is merely given here as an old French legend, nearly connected with Purgatory, and having really nothing in it contrary to faith, though in a high degree improbable, but yet from its intrinsic beauty and dramatic character, no less than the subtle charm of Miss Procter's verse, eminently worthy of a place in this collection. The same remark applies more or less to some of Colin de Plancy's legends, notably that of "Robert the Devil's Penance," and others of a similar kind, as also T. D. McGee's "Penance of Don Diego Rias" and Calderon's "St. Patrick's Purgatory" - the two last named bearing on the same subject. Nevertheless, they all come within the scope of my present work and are, therefore, presented to the reader as weird fragments of the legendary lore of Purgatory.

Taken altogether, I think this work will help to increase devotion to the Suffering Souls, and excite a more tender and more sensible feeling of sympathy for them, at least amongst Catholics, showing, as it does, the awful reality of those purgative pains awaiting all, with few or no exceptions, in the after life; the help they may and do receive from the good offices of the living, and the sacred and solemn' duty it is for Christians in the present life to remember them and endeavor to relieve their sufferings by every means in their power. To answer this purpose I have made the dead ages unite their solemn and authoritative voice with that of the living, actual present in testimony of the truth of this great Catholic dogma. The Saints, the Fathers, the Doctors of the Church in the ages of antiquity, and the prelates and priests of our own day all speak the same language of undoubting faith, of solemn conviction regarding Purgatory, - make the same earnest and eloquent appeal to the faithful on behalf of the dear suffering souls. Even the heathen nations and tribes of both hemispheres are brought forward as witnesses to the existence of a middle state in the after life. Nor is Protestantism itself wanting in this great and overwhelming mass of evidence, as the reader will perceive that some of its most eminent divines and secular writers have joined, with no hesitating or faltering voice, in the grand Credo of the nations and the ages in regard to Purgatory.

What remains for me to add except the earnest hope that this book may have the effect it is intended to produce by bringing the faithful children of the Church to think more and oftener of their departed brethren who, having passed from the Militant to the Suffering Church, are forever crying out to the living from their darksome prison - "Have pity on us, have pity on us, at least you who were our friends, have pity on us, for the hand of the Lord is heavy upon us!"


TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I.

DOCTRINAL AND DEVOTIONAL.

Doctrine of Suarez on Purgatory
St. Catherine of Genoa on Purgatory
Extracts from the Fathers on Purgatory
Verses from the Imitation Thomas à Kempis.
St. Augustine and his Mother, St. Monica
St. Gertrude and the Holy Souls
St. Joseph's Intercession for the Faithful Departed
St. Francis de Sales on Purgatory
Cardinal Gibbons on Purgatory
Archbishop Hughes on Purgatory
Archbishop Lynch on Purgatory
Purgatory Surveyed Father Binet, S. J.
Father Faber on Devotion to the Holy Souls
Why the Souls in Purgatory are called "Poor" Mullcr.
Appeal to all Classes for the Souls in Purgatory By a Paulist Father.
The Souls in Purgatory Rev. F. X. Weninger, S. J.
Popular View of Purgatory Rev. J. J. Moriarty.
Extracts from "Catholic Belief" Very Rev. Faá Di Bruno, D.D.
Purgatory and the Feast of All Souls Alban Butkr.

PART II.

ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS.

The Fruit of a Mass Almanac of the Souls in Purgatory .
Faith of a Pious Lady Almanac of the Souls in Purgatory .
Pay what Thou Owest Ave Maria .
VIA CRUCIS Footsteps of Spirits .
Strange Incidents Footsteps of Spirits .
True Story of the " De Profundis " Ave Maria .
Confidence Rewarded Almanac of the Souls in Purgatory
Anecdote of the " De Profundis "
Strange Occurrence in a Persian Prison Life of St. John the Almoner .
A Swiss Protestant Converted by the Doctrine of Purgatory
Catechism in Examples .
The Dead Hand Ave Maria .
A Beautiful Example Almanac of the Souls in Purgatory .
How to Pay One's Debts Almanac of the Souls in Purgatory .
Faith Rewarded Almanac of the Souls in Purgatory .
Apparition of a Citizen of Arles Histoire des Spectres