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

will he be lost everlastingly? Must there not, in the very nature of Christ's system, be a middle state, wherein souls can be purged from their lesser sins?


MALLOCK ON PURGATORY. [1]

[Footnote 1: William Hurrell Mallock, the author of "Is Life Worth Living," from which this extract is given, and of several other recent works, was, at the time when the above was written, as he says himself in his dedication, "an outsider in philosophy, literature, and theology," and not, as might be supposed, a Catholic. It has been positively asserted, and as positively denied, that he has since entered the Church. But it is certain that he has not done so. Mallock is not a Catholic. - COMPILER'S NOTE.]

To those who believe in Purgatory, to pray for the dead is as natural and rational as to pray for the living. Next, as to this doctrine of Purgatory itself - which has so long been a stumbling-block to the whole Protestant world - time goes on, and the view men take of it is changing. It is becoming fast recognized on all sides that it is the only doctrine that can bring a belief in future rewards and punishments into anything like accordance with our notions of what is just or reasonable. So far from its being a superfluous superstition, it is seen to be just what is demanded at once by reason and morality, and a belief in it to be not an intellectual assent, but a partial harmonizing of the whole moral ideal. - W. H. Mattock, "Is Life Worth Living," Page 297.


BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX AND PRAYER FOR THE DEAD.

We love to see the truth of our dogmas proclaimed from amid the great assemblies of choice intelligences. Boileau did not hesitate to do homage to the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory on the following solemn occasion: -

On the death of Furetière, the French Academy deliberated whether they would have a funeral service for him, according to the ancient custom of the establishment. Despréaux, who had taken no part in the expulsion of his former associate, gave expression, when he was no more, to the language of courageous piety. He feared not to express himself in these words: "Gentlemen, there are three things to be considered here - God, the public, and the Academy. As regards God, He will, undoubtedly, be well pleased if you sacrifice your resentment for His sake and offer prayers to Him for the repose of a fellow-member, who has more need of them than others, were it only on account of the animosity he showed towards you. Before the public, it will be a glorious thing for you not to pursue your enemy beyond the grave. And as for the Academy, its moderation will be meritorious, when it answers insults by prayers, and does not deny a Christian the resources offered by the Church for appeasing the anger of God, all the more that, besides the indispensable obligation of praying to God for your enemies, you have made for yourselves a special law to pray for your associates."


ALL SAINTS AND ALL SOULS. [1]

[Footnote 1: New York Tablet , Nov. 12, 1870]

MRS. J. SADLIER.

OF all the sublime truths which it is the pride and happiness of Christians to believe, none is more beautiful, more consoling than that of the Communion of Saints. Do we fully realize the meaning of that particular article of our faith? From their earliest infancy Christian children repeat, at their mother's knee, "I believe in the Communion of Saints;" but it is only when the mind has attained a certain stage of development that they begin to feel the inestimable privilege of being in the Communion of Saints.

But how sad to think that even in later life many of those whose childhood lisped "I believe in the Communion of Saints," neither know, nor care to know, what it means. Outside the Church who believes in the Communion of Saints? - who rejoices in the glory of the glorified, or invokes their intercession with God? Who believes in that state of probation whereby the earth-stains are washed from the souls of men? Who has compassion on "the spirits who are in prison?" To Catholics only is the Communion of Saints a reality, a soul-rejoicing truth. How inestimable is the privilege of being truly and indeed "of the household of faith," - within and of "the Church of the Saints," the Church that alone connects the life which is and that which is to come, the living and the dead!

Year by year we are reminded of this truth, so solemn and so beautiful, the Communion of Saints, by the double festival of All Saints and All Souls - when the Church invites her children of the Militant Church to rejoice with her on the glory of her Saints, and to pray with her for the holy dead who are still in the purgatorial fire that is to prepare them for that blessed abode into which "nothing defiled can enter."

Grand and joyous is the feast of the Saints, when we lovingly honor all our brethren who have gained their thrones in Heaven, and with faith and hope invoke their powerful aid, that we, too, may come where they are, and be partakers in their eternal blessedness; solemn and sad, but most sweetly soothing to the heart of faith, is the day of All Souls, when the altars are draped in black, and the chant is mournful, and sacrifice is offered, the whole world over, for the dead who have slept in Christ, with the blessing of the Church upon them. For them, if they still have need of succor, are all the good works of the faithful offered up, and the prayers of all the Saints and all the Angels invoked, not only on the second day of November, but on every day of that mournful month.

Thus do we, who are still on earth, honor the glorified Saints of God, and invoke them for ourselves and for the blessed souls who may yet be debarred from the joys of Heaven. And this is truly the Communion of Saints - the Church on earth, the Church in Heaven, the Church in Purgatory, distinct, yet united, the children of one common Father, who is God; of one common Mother, who is Mary, the Virgin ever Blessed.


LEIBNITZ [1]

[Footnote 1: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz, the eminent Protestant philosopher. The above is from his "Systema Theologicum."]

ON THE MASS AS A PROPITIATORY SACRIFICE.

No new efficacy is superadded to the efficacy of the Passion from this propitiatory Sacrifice, repeated for the remission of sins; but its entire efficacy consists in the representation and application of the first bloody Sacrifice, the fruit of which is the Divine Grace bestowed on all those who, being present at this tremendous sacrifice, worthily celebrate the oblation in unison with the priest. And since, in addition to the remission of eternal punishment, and the gift of the merits of Christ for the hope of eternal life, we further ask of God, for ourselves and others, both living and dead, many other salutary gifts (and amongst those, the chief is the mitigation of that paternal chastisement which is due to every sin, even though the penitent be restored to favor); it is therefore clearly manifest that there is nothing in our entire worship more precious than the sacrifice of this Divine Sacrament, in which the Body of Our Lord itself is present.


EXTRACTS FROM "A TROUBLED HEART."

How often have I been touched at the respect paid the dead in Catholic countries; at the reverence with which the business man, hastening to fulfil the duties of the hour, pauses and lifts his hat as the funeral of the unknown passes him in the street! What pity streams from the eyes of the poor woman who kneels in her humble doorway, and, crossing herself, prays for the repose of the soul that was never known to her in this life; but the body is borne towards the cemetery, and she joins her prayer to the many that are freely offered along the solemn way (pp. 151-2).

* * * * *

So passes the faithful soul to judgment; after which, if not ushered at once into the ineffable glory of the Father, it pauses for a season in the perpetual twilight of that border-land where the spirit is purged of the very memory of sin. Even as Our Lord Himself descended into Limbo; as He died for us, but rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven, so we hope to rise and follow Him, - sustained by the unceasing prayers of the Church, the intercession of the Saints, and all the choirs of the just, who are called on night and day, and also by the prayers and pleadings of those who have loved us, and who are still in the land of the living.

The prayers that ease the pangs of Purgatory, the Requiem , the
Miserere , the De Profundis - these are the golden stairs upon which the soul of the redeemed ascends into everlasting joy. Even the Protestant laureate of England has confessed the poetical justice and truth of this, and into the mouth of the dying Arthur - that worthy knight - he puts these words:

"Pray for my soul! More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of; wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day;
For, what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." [1]

[Footnote 1: These exquisite lines will be found elsewhere in this volume in the full description of King Arthur's death from Tennyson. But they bear repetition.]


O ye gentle spirits that have gone before me, and who are now, I trust, dwelling in the gardens of Paradise, beside the river of life that flows through the midst thereof, - ye whose names I name at the Memorial for the Dead in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, - as ye look upon the lovely and shining countenances of the elect, and, perchance, upon the beauty of our Heavenly Queen, and upon her Son in glory, - O remember me who am still this side of the Valley of the Shadow, and in the midst of trials and tribulations. And you who have read these pages, written from the heart, after much sorrow and long suffering, though I be still with you in the flesh, or this poor body be gathered to its long home,
- you whose eyes are now fixed upon this line, I beseech you,

Pray for me ! - Anon .


EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN AND HER BROTHER MAURICE.

[In Eugénie de Guérin's journal we find the following beautiful words written while her loving heart was still bleeding for the early death of her best-loved brother, Maurice - her twin soul, as she was wont to call him.]

"O PROFUNDITY! O mysteries of that other life that separates us! I who was always so anxious about him,