Some thoughts on the Souls in Purgatory

I love this time of year when our thoughts turn to the Holy Souls iin Purgatory. This love goes back to being at school when first told about Plenary Indulgences. We were told that we could at Halloween visit a Church pray and for each visit get a soul out for each visit. So by going to Church and keeping going in and out get a soul free each time.

This was bargain basement stuff to me and I used to rush off to Church and spend hours going in and out of Church delighting in the nuber of souls I was getting out..and for next to nothing!!! I am not sure but I think looking back there were other people hitting the CHurch in and out doing the exact same thing. I also recall with delight the light failing, the leaves falling as in and out , in and out I went. THis stood by me, I belkieve as there are no friends, no more faithful pay back friends, grateful friends than the souls in Purgatory and it is perhaps due to these boyhood activities that I have had the privledge in the years since to see and talk with some of these dear Holy Souls.



So I thought drawing, on the teachings of Holy Mother Church, Scripture, the writings of the saints, Near Death Experiences, my knowledge of the dying in our local hospice and my own experiences with the Holy Souls my own thoughts and thoeries (for what they are worth) on what occurs when we die and the Holy Souls and purgatory itself.



it's ironic but I beleive one of the most accurate depictions of what occurs on the point of death comes from the Hollywood film , 'Ghost' which you may recall. Ironic because accuracy is not something you maybe expoect from Hollywood. Nevertheless in this case they happened to get pretty well got a lot of it right, I believe. Its wortth watching for this reason alone, I suspect..

 

In the immediate period before death (here I am speaking of people with longer prepartion such as hospices and hospitals were the person is conscious) people often exhibit evidence of where they are destined to go, whether to damnation (hell). justice (purgatory) or directly to Eternal Life (heaven). This is hown in a range of phenomena ranigng from the presence of the devil to that of the souls of dead relatives of those who are dying, to the presence of angels and evn in the case of the saints the incredible honour of being visited and received into heaven by the Mother of God herself.

 

Very,very occasionally it can happen that souls do not cross over to their destined places for a variety of reasons and with the permission of God. Occasionally for instance those who are damned are permitted to remain on Earth. Usually the phenomena we describe as, 'Ghosts' are the souls in purgatory in urgent need of prayer. THis should be our first recourse in prayer when encountering such things to assume that it is a soul we must pray for; who comes to seek help. A fprgtten soul, perhaps whose only recourse is to seek help.

Padre Pio met many such souls at San Giovanni.

One evening Padre Pio was in a room, on the ground floor of the convent, turned guesthouse. He was alone and had just laid down on the cot when, suddenly, a man appeared to him wound in a black mantle. Padre Pio was amazed and arose to ask the man who he was and what he wanted. The stranger answered that he was a soul in Purgatory. “I am Pietro Di Mauro” he said “I died in a fire, on September 18, 1908, in this convent. In fact this convent, after the expropriation of the ecclesiastical goods, had been turned into a hospice for elderly. I died in the flames, while I was sleeping on my straw mattress, right in this room. I have come from Purgatory: God has granted me to come here and ask you to say Mass for me tomorrow morning. Thanks to one Mass I will be able to enter into Paradise”. Father Pio told the man that he would say Mass for him..., “but…“padre Pio said: “I, wanted to accompany him to the door of the convent. I surely realised I had talked to a dead person, in fact when we went out in the church square, the man that was at my side, suddenly disappeared”. I have to admit that I re-entered in the convent rather frightened. Padre Paolino of Casacalenda, Superior of the convent, noticed my nervousness, after explaining to him what happened, I asked “permission to celebrate Holy Mass for the deceased soul,” A few days later, Father Paolino, wanting to verify the information, went to the office of the registry of the commune of St. Giovanni Rotondo. He required and got the permission to consult the register of the deceased in the year 1908. The story of Father Pio Father was true. In the register of deaths of the month of September, Father Paolino found the name, last name and cause of death: “On September 18, 1908 in the fire of the hospice, Pietro Di Mauro died.”

 

A couple of years ago I was invited to a prayer group/ house mass a long way away in a house that was troubled by an unquiet Spirit a , 'ghost '.

I feel asleep in this beautiful house after mass and the prayer meeting , fully expecting to meet the spirit and he didn't disappoint. Very late i the mornig he woke me up as a very,very balck figure, almost like ashadow come alive. He had come to request prayers. When I say, spoke spirits do not speak as we know speech. Neither agai is it quite a form of telephathy. The nearest I can think of desribing it is a phrase I heard in prayer one time: 'Like speaks to like n the meeting of waters'.Or another way;sprit speaks to spirit, heart to heart and so very large amounts of information can be transmitted more nor less instantly.

 

So interesting Padraig. tell us more about souls you spoke to.

 

That is SO PRECIOUS !

 

I agree. This thread is good reading and watching.

 

Yes, Padraig, please tell us more. Do you remember how it first started? When I first started praying seriously this was something I had never considered or even really thought was possible and when a soul actually came up to me and asked for me to pray for him it scared the begeevies out of me and I'm afraid I turned away from this. But some very unusual things have happened when I prayed for souls, the least of which they have come and said they are thankful.

Please, sir, we want more!

 

It first started the morning after my brother Colm, who was 26 died in hospital. He was the first of our immediate family to die so I think this was the kicker.

Colm was a total atheist and never went to Church. He had his good points not least in that he loved his family very much but I have to say he did some really wicked bad things.

Our Lady had promised me in prayer however that none of my family would be lost.

I saw Colm in the park he told me I was right and he was wrong (about an afterlife) but laughed and said he now knew more than I did about things (which of course was right) .

He seemed to be very happy..well he laughed anyway.

I was sruprised and stupid enough to tell some of my family I thought it might cheer them up. Of course they thought I was nuts. However I checked it out with my SPiritual Director who thought it was fine.But I learnt my lesson not to be spilling the beans too often.

Its ironic but my family ewwould be much, much , much more open to stuff like this from me now. I think it takes a bit of age and maturity to be open too stuff like this, they were much younger back then,

 

It sounds like a truism but spirits, we must remeber have no vocal chords, no heart, no brain, no physical nature and so communication is a lot more direct and itense. To speak of it as mind to mind sounds closer, but spirits have no , 'mind' as we know it, nor is heart to heart altogeth true since there is no brain, nor ,'memory' nor I believe even , 'intelligence' as we know it.

To use a big word, I suspect it is ontolgical, that is from being to being. The spirit communicates at the deepest of all levels, it shaares itself, if you like. This is far, far more efficient than telepathy, a kind of subvocal communication could ever be even in our wildest dreams. Whole libraries of knowledge can be communicated in a maneer which is not measurable by time; it is instanteous.

But I am wandering again.

 

Well I will wander just a little bit more, before I leve this bit. The reason the devil's voice sounds so harsh and cruel when we hear it is because of the absene of the Holy SPirit in his being. Also it is in his nature to be in a constant fury, a great, great rage. But I thin k substantially he communicates in much the same way. Being to benig. This is why when we talk of possession its just an analogy , he is not really inside the person in the sense a parasite would be , a spirit is not really in any location as we would kow it, he is simply acting on the individual in an intense sharing sense. An intense communication.

We forget these beings are spirits and tend to think of them as kid of humans, but they are not they ar epure spirits as are the dead.

 

Padraig,
My mother passed away on Monday afternoon at 3 p.m. She had such devotion to Our Lady and Divine Mercy and I recited the Divine Mercy and the rosary with her about an hour before she passed away. I was with her and she was fully concious and peaceful as she slipped away. She was 97 and has been living with me for the past few years since she broke her hip in a fall. She had dementia but was very lucid in the few hours before she went. She was a very devoted mother and had great faith. The golden thread of faith ran hrough every aspect of her lfe, through the joys, the failures, the sins, the rising again, and dissapointments (of which there were many). She knew the cross in many ways.
I feel happy for her having such a peaceful death and I know she is with the Lord. The memories I now have are of her as a younger person. Those last few difficult years are fading from my memory.
Please remember her in your prayers.
God bless
Mary

 

Maryrose, I'm so sorry for your loss and will pray for your mother and for yourself.
You were blessed to have been raised by such an unwavering light, truly that was a gift. May God bless you for your faithfulness and love during such trying times. I will offer my mass this morning for your dear mother.

 

Yes Mary,

Muireann sent me a PM about it. I cannot find it in me to pray or her as I am sure we should be praying too her. Sucha holy Catholic woman, I remember the way she prayed the roasry in your house.

It was the same for my own mother, like an apple falling off a tree at harvest time, ready to be taken right home without pruning. Oh that generation of Catholic women for whom the Faith was as certain as the Earth on which we stand..and prayer as natural as the air which we breath.!! For them heaven is just a step away thorugh a very thin veil.

 

Padraig,
Thank you for your kind words. For the past few years she has sat every day praying the Divine Mercy booklet and saying the rosary. I know it was her time but I am saddend at the passing of a generation. She is the last link in the chain to that generation in my family.
Mary

 

Sure you'll meet again, in a better world than this.

 

Dear Mary, I will also Pray for your mother, she is surely in peace and with God now.

I may have a gift for you.

God Bless you, Aviso.

 

It is possible I believe for some souls to be in purgatory a very,very long time indeed. St Margaret Mary Alocoque got a very hot reception from her fellow nuns when she joined her convent. THey regarded Margaret Mary asbeing from far too low a station. The must have made Margaret's life a horror picture, even oging so far as to drag her out one night and give her a good beating.


However Margaret prayed for these proud nasty nuns and one in particular who was the ring leader. When this nun was dying the devil was visibly present and she had a very bad death. It was revealed to MArgaret Mary that this nun had beens ent to the deepest part of purgatory and would be there, 'Untill the end of the world'. No doubt it was due to the saints prayers that this truly dreadful woman got saved at all.

THis is why I always love to pray for the soul that is deepest in purgatory and the most neglected.For the sufferings of the poor souls here are unbelivable.

I met a soul one time who had been in purgaotry since the riegn of Quenn Elizabeth the first. He had become Protestant during the reformation and came to Ireland from England to seek his fortune but died from an arrow wound while riding near his lands. He was a bully, very haughty, nasty and violent but thanks to his mothers prayers he was saved.

How may souls are saved by their mothers prayers!! May GOd bless mothers.

 

Well Padraig that gives me hope and reason to pray more!

 

amen