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

Protestantism, does not deny or discourage prayers for the dead, so long as they are independent of a belief in Purgatory; and, in this respect, it is stated to agree with the primitive Christian Church. But, my brethren, this distinction is exceedingly fallacious. Religion is a lively, practical profession; it is to be ascertained and judged by its sanctioned practices and outward demonstration, rather than by the mere opinions of the few. I would at once fairly appeal to the judgment of any Protestant, whether he has been taught, and has understood that such is the doctrine of his Church. If, from the services which he attended, or the Catechism which he has learned, or the discourses heard, he has been led to suppose that praying for the dead, in terms however general, was noways a peculiarity of Catholicism, but as much a permitted practice of Protestantism. It is a practical doctrine in the Catholic Church, it has an influence highly consoling to humanity, and eminently worthy of a religion that came down from heaven to second all the purest feelings of the heart. Nature herself seems to revolt at the idea that the chain of attachment which binds us together in life, can be rudely snapped asunder by the hand of death, conquered and deprived of its sting since the victory of the cross. But it is not to the spoil of mortality, cold and disfigured, that she clings with affection. It is but an earthly and almost unchristian grief, which sobs when the grave closes over the bier of a departed loved one: but the soul flies upward to a more spiritual affection, and refuses to surrender the hold which it had upon the love and interest of the spirit that has fled. Cold and dark as the sepulchral vault is the belief that sympathy is at an end when the body is shrouded in decay, and that no further interchange of friendly offices may take place between those who have lain down to sleep in peace and us, who for awhile strew fading flowers upon their tomb. But sweet is the consolation to the dying man, who, conscious of imperfection, believes that even after his own time of merit is expired, there are others to make intercession on his behalf; soothing to the afflicted survivors the thought, that instead of unavailing tears they possess more powerful means of actively relieving their friend, and testifying their affectionate regret, by prayer and supplication. In the first moments of grief, this sentiment will often overpower religious prejudice, cast down the unbeliever on his knees beside the remains of his friend, and snatch from him an unconscious prayer for rest; it is an impulse of nature, which for the moment, aided by the analogies of revealed truth, seizes at once upon this consoling belief. But it is only like the flitting and melancholy light which sometimes plays as a meteor over the corpses of the dead; while the Catholic feeling, cheering, though with solemn dimness, resembles the unfailing lamp which the piety of the ancients is said to have hung before the sepulchres of their dead. It prolongs the tenderest affections beyond the gloom of the grave, and it infuses the inspiring hope that the assistance which we on earth can afford to our suffering brethren, will be amply repaid when they have reached their place of rest, and make of them friends, who, when we in our turns fail, shall receive us into everlasting mansions. [1]

[Footnote 1: "Lectures on the Catholic Church," often called the "Moorfield Lectures," from being delivered in St. Mary's Moorfields, in the Lent of 1836. Vol. I., Lecture xi, pp 65,68. This lecture upon Purgatory is an admirable exposition of the Catholic doctrine, supported by numberless testimonies from the Fathers.]


REPLY TO SOME MISSTATEMENTS ABOUT PURGATORY.

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING, OF BALTIMORE.

"The Synod of Florence," says this writer, [1] "was the first which taught the doctrine of Purgatory, as an article of faith. It had, indeed, been held by the Pope and by many writers, and it became the popular doctrine during the period under review; but it was not decreed by any authority of the universal, or even the whole Latin Church. In the Eastern Church it was always rejected."

[Footnote 1: Rev. Wm. A. Palmer of Worcester College, Oxford, in his "Compendium of Ecclesiastical History."]

Even admitting, for the sake of argument, that the Council of Florence was the first which defined this doctrine as an article of faith, would it thence follow that the doctrine itself was of recent origin? It could only be inferred that it was never before questioned, and that, therefore, there was no need of any definition on the subject. Would it follow from the fact, that the Council of Nice was the first general synod which defined the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, that this, too, was a new doctrine, unknown to the three previous centuries? Mr. Palmer himself admits that this tenet of Purgatory "had become the popular doctrine during the period under review;" which, in connection with the solemn promises of Christ to guard His Church from error, clearly proves that it was an article of divine revelation, - on the principles even of our Oxford divine!

It is not true that "it was always rejected in the Eastern Church." The Greek Church admitted it in the Council of Florence and, at least, impliedly, in that of Lyons. It had never been a bar to union between the churches, however their theologians may have differed on the secondary question, whether the souls detained in this middle place of temporary expiation are purified by a material fire. "The ancient Fathers, both of the Greek and Latin Church, who had occasion to refer to the subject, had unanimously agreed in maintaining the doctrine, as could be easily shown by reference to their works. All the ancient liturgies of both Churches had embodied this same article of faith. And even at present, not only the Greek Church, but all the Oriental sectaries still hold it as doctrine, and practice accordingly."


COUNT DE MAISTRE ON PURGATORY.

You have heard, in countries separated from the Roman Church, the
doctors of the law deny at once Hell and Purgatory. You might well have taken the denial of a word for that of a thing. An enormous power is that of words! The minister who would be angry at that of Purgatory will readily grant us a place of expiation , or an
intermediate state , or perhaps even stations , who knows? without thinking it in the least ridiculous. One of the great motives of the sixteenth century revolt was precisely Purgatory . The insurgents would have nothing less than Hell, pure and simple. Nevertheless, when they became philosophers, they set about denying the eternity of punishment, allowing, nevertheless, a hell for a time , only through good policy and for fear of putting into heaven at one stroke Nero and Messalina side by side with St. Louis and St. Teresa. But a temporary hell is nothing else than Purgatory; so that having broken with us because they did not want Purgatory, they broke with us anew because they wanted Purgatory only.


WHAT THE SAINTS THOUGHT OF PURGATORY.

In the Special Announcement of the "Messenger of St. Joseph's Union" for 1885-6, we find the following interesting remarks in relation to the devotion to the Souls in Purgatory: "St. Gregory the Great, speaking of Purgatory, calls it 'a penitential fire harder to endure than all the tribulations of this world.' St. Augustine says that the torment of fire alone endured by the holy souls in Purgatory, exceeds all the tortures inflicted on the martyrs; and St. Thomas says that there is no difference between the fire of Hell and that of Purgatory. Prayer for the souls in Purgatory is a source of great blessings to ourselves. It is related of a holy religious who had for a long time struggled in vain to free himself from an impure temptation, and who appealed earnestly to the Blessed Virgin to deliver him, that she appeared to him and commanded him to pray earnestly for the souls in Purgatory. He did so, and from that time the temptation left him. The duration of the period of confinement in Purgatory is probably much longer than we are inclined to think. We find by the Revelations of Sister Francesca of Pampeluna that the majority of souls in Purgatory with whose sufferings she was made acquainted, were detained there for a period extending from thirty to sixty years; and, as many of those of whom she speaks were holy Carmelites, some of whom had even wrought miracles when on earth, what must be the fate of poor worldlings who seldom think of gaining an indulgence either for themselves or their departed friends and relatives? Father Faber commenting on this subject - the length of time that the holy souls are detained in Purgatory - says very justly: 'We are apt to leave off too soon praying for our parents, friends, or relatives, imagining with a foolish and unenlightened esteem for the holiness of their lives, that they are freed from Purgatory much sooner than they really are.' Can the holy souls in Purgatory assist us by their prayers? Most assuredly. St. Liguori says: 'Though the souls in Purgatory are unable to pray or merit for themselves, they can obtain by prayer many favors for those who pray for them on earth.' St. Catherine of Bologna has assured us that she obtained many favors by the prayers of the holy souls in Purgatory which she had asked in vain through the intercession of the saints. The Holy Ghost says: 'He who stoppeth his ear against the cry of the poor, shall also cry himself and shall not be heard,' and St. Vincent Ferrer says, in expounding that passage, that the holy souls in Purgatory cry to God for justice against those who on earth refuse to help them by their prayers, and that God will most assuredly hear their cry. Let us, therefore, do all in our power to relieve the holy souls in Purgatory, and avert from ourselves the punishment that God is sure to inflict on those whose faith is too dead, or whose hearts are too cold to heed the cry that rises, day and night, from that sea of fire: 'Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends!'" Job xix. 21.


PURGATORY.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

That the doctrine of Purgatory opens to the Christian poet a source of the marvellous which was unknown to antiquity will be readily admitted. [1] Nothing, perhaps, is more favorable to the inspiration of the muse than this middle state of expiation between the region of bliss and that of pain, suggesting the idea of a confused mixture of happiness and of suffering. The graduation of the punishments inflicted on those souls that are more or less happy, more or less brilliant, according to their degree of proximity to an eternity of joy or of woe, affords an impressive subject for poetic description. In this respect, it surpasses the subjects of heaven and hell, because it possesses a future which they do not.

[Footnote 1: Some trace of this dogma is to be found in Plato and in the doctrine of Zeno. (See Diog. Laer.) The poets also appear to have had some idea of it (Æneid, v. vi), but these notions are all vague and inconsequent.]

The river Lethe was a graceful appendage of the ancient Elysium; but it cannot be said that the shades which came to life again on its banks exhibited the same poetical progress in the way to happiness