https://happinessisprayer.blogspot.com/2010/09/devotion-to-souls-in-purgatory-through.html DEVOTION TO THE SOULS IN PURGATORY through the Sacred Heart of Jesus Among the devotions which should form a crown of honor around the Sacred Heart, St. Margaret Mary gives a privileged place to devotion to the Souls in Purgatory. She herself had an extraordinary devotion to these Souls and called them her good suffering friends. The revelations which she received about the sufferings of these Souls, about our Divine Lord's tender love for them and His eager desire for their deliverance, of the great efficacy of the devotion to the Sacred Heart for their early release, and the fact that St. Margaret Mary, the apostle of the public devotion to the Sacred Heart, combined these two devotions so intimately in her own person, indicate that there is such a close connection between the two devotions that the devotion to the Souls in Purgatory may be said to form a part of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Her extraordinary compassion for these suffering Souls may be said to be a share of the compassion of the Divine Heart for them; she called the devotion to the Sacred Heart the sovereign remedy for their relief. It is a remarkable fact that our Divine Lord demanded of the two pioneers of the public devotion to His Sacred Heart an act of consecration of themselves to It, and a total donation in favor of the Souls in Purgatory of all the satisfactory merits of their lives and of all the prayers, Masses and good works offered for them after their death, and that they were the first to make this heroic offering. St. Margaret Mary was in constant communication with the Souls in Purgatory; our Divine Lord allowed many privileged Souls among them to visit her, to tell her of their great sufferings and what it was that caused them, and to appear to her in glory after their deliverance. Towards the end of her life this became known outside the convent and people came to inquire from her about their deceased friends. While she usually declined to give any reply at the time of the inquiry, later on she sometimes declared that such a person was now in Heaven and exhorted the relatives of others to continue their prayers.
I have heard of souls being in Purgatory for centuries, at least. And, I think one is in Purgatory according to earthly time. Worth the wait, for all concerned. If one gets into Purgatory, one will by definition have the disposition that one deserves it and that it will make one ready for the Beatific Vision. Different, no matter how severe, to the useless, hopeless and eternal suffering of Hell. May God save us.
At fatima our lady showed 3 children hell.one said people were falling into hell like leaves of trees. St Leonard of port morrise wrote absolutely terrifying things about hell.Hell is absolutely packed and gettin fuller.Pray for souls.
It's been awhile since I've re-read any of that series! Great stuff! The interesting thing is that my daughter, Therese, has introduced that series to her oldest boy, Jack, but he is enjoying them via audio tapes.
Maritain had an interesting view on hell, that everyone in hell eventually made it to limbo. Baptism of desire and blood and definitely legitimate things and to reject them is to fall into the heresy of Feenyism. The vision of St. Leonard is almost certainly false, the numbers don’t add up and it probably was created to scare people in the Middle Ages into getting their act together. At Fatima Our Lady just said “many”. For those who believe in Medjugorje, Our Lady said: “The majority go to Purgatory. Many go to Hell. A small number go directly to Heaven.”
Because of Papal Infallibily the heretics in charge cannot change the Church Doctrine in Hell. What they can do is change it indirectly, by suggesting such things as that hell is empty. The Teachings of the Church on such things may make us feel uncomfortable. But the truth will often make we sinners uncomfortable.
We should avoid an over-literalism regarding 'no salvation outside the (Catholic) Church'. Otherwise we end up in the situation of some (a small minority) who asserted that the group of Copts who were brutally murdered by ISIS, some years ago, and died refusing to deny Christ, were damned.
I believe that the Catholic Church has accepted these wonderful people as saints and rightly so. But we must be careful of the sin of presumption. Of taking for granted that we all have some kind of free ticket to heaven. In Catholicism, the sin of presumption is an overconfident belief in God's mercy, leading one to sin with the expectation of future forgiveness, or to hope for salvation without personal effort or repentance, essentially treating God's forgiveness as a given rather than a grace requiring sincere conversion. It's an abuse of God's mercy and a offense against the theological virtue of hope, often manifesting as a lack of true love or respect for God by using Him for selfish desire
On Maritain; he pushed the bounds at times (and otherwise, why the need for any more theologians?), but I don't think he crossed the line. Technically, Limbo is considered part of Hell, as far as I know, so that this opinion of Maritain is probably not in conflict with the Magisterium. Limbo is rather mysterious. There is a tradition that unbaptised innocents go there. This strictly aligns with the notion that all the unbaptised are 'damned', if Limbo is part of Hell. However, I've read that there is a great scarcity of absolute pronouncements on this matter of unbaptised babies not going to Heaven. One writer I've read said that there was only one papal pronouncement, but it was only a secondary clause in what was a statement on another matter and that it was therefore arguable that full authority didn't apply to this component of the pronouncement. Considering the industrial levels of abortion that are current, this issue seems more relevant than ever. Personally, I think that it is a good thing that the possibility of unbaptised babies being denied Heaven exists, because if the Church ever came out and declared they go to Heaven, it would confirm the satanic boast of abortionists that they are 'angel-makers'. An unthinkable prospect, no matter how compassionate. On the other hand, we should always keep in mind a statement by Jesus Christ Himself, and in relation to another question of Salvation, that "nothing is impossible to God".
Absolutely true. We must remain forever teetering on the balance between Fear and Hope. We have to work out our salvation "in fear and trembling". As for those Copts, I imagine they woke up that very day in Paradise. They did what St Peter needed a second attempt at doing.
I read accounts of their life in captivity by those devils in the days just before they murdered them all. Amazing. It was like accounts of the ancient Roman martyrs.
Although I am the most shocking bad tempered fighting Catholic Irishman. I must admit I would far rather shoot ISIS than be killed by them. When I see the video of them killing those poor Copts my blood just boils. I would not mind being killed, but I would very, very,very much like to take a few of them along with me. As many as humanly possible. St Joan of Arc, pray for us.
When Islam was fighting the Christians in the Crusades the warriors they feared the most were those who belonged to religious Orders like the Knights Templars. They feared them because they were prepared to fight to the death and not surrender. I would love it if the Church would have such religious fighting orders again. Maybe they will. One this age of niceness ends and we get back to basics. I think some of them think Jesus is a pink bunny rabbit.
