Purgatory

See also: Paradise, Heaven, The Limbo, Hell, Hells.

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Purgatory - Lodovico Carracci

The Souls immersed in these flames [of Purgatory] suffer only for love. They are not unworthy to possess the Light, but not quite worthy to enter immediately the Kingdom of Light. At the moment they stand before God, these spirits are invested with Light. It is a brief blessedness anticipated that assures them of their salvation. It gives them the knowledge of what their eternity will be and full Consciousness of what they have done to the Soul, frustrating it of years of blessed possession of God. Then immersed in the place of Purification, they are assaulted by expiatory flames. Those who talk about Purgatory tell the truth in this. But they are mistaken in wanting to apply various names to these flames. They are a fire of Love. They purify by inflaming the Souls with love. They give Love because, when the Soul has reached, through them, the love it had not reached on earth, it is delivered and joins Love in Heaven. The Notebooks of 1943

In "The Gospel as Revealed to Me"

• Is it not better to suffer here than in purgatory? Consider, there time is multiplied by a thousand.
• Purgatory is already "life." Diminished, bound, but still life.
• Many will be with Me in Paradise. Some will have their reward after expiation, others immediately after death, but the reward will be such that just as you forget the Earth and its pains, so you will forget Purgatory with its penitential nostalgias of love.
• Do you not believe valid the absolution of Jesus?" He replied: "I believe it valid but, I think, offering suffrages to the Souls for whom no one prays and I say: if there is no longer need for my father, may these sacrifices go to those whom no one thinks of."
• In Hell, hatred and punishment cause a fierce Blindness. In Purgatory, the Thirst for expiation annihilates all other thought. In the Limbo, the blessed waiting of the just is not profaned by any sensuality.
• The Virgin Mary: "What happiness spread in all the kingdoms of God: in Paradise, in Purgatory, in The Limbo".

In the other works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1943

• Catechesis of June 16 : Each era has had its forms of piety [...] Then came the time of austere segregations. To bury oneself far from the world was, according to the ideas of the time, necessary for the perfection and continual redemption of the Souls. From monasteries, hermitages, from the depths of walled cells, torrents of sacrifices and prayers spread over the earth, descended to Purgatory, rose to Heaven.  
• Catechesis of June 28 : Over the past month, I have spoken much to you about my Heart and my Body in the Sacrament. Now, during the month of my Blood, I will make you pray to my Blood. Say this: "'Most Holy Blood that flows for us from the veins of God made man, descend like a redeeming dew on the contaminated Earth and on the Souls that sin makes like lepers. Here I call you, Blood of my Jesus, and I pour you on the Church, on the world, on the sinners, on Purgatory…
• Catechesis of June 29 : I do not like the miserly. Even misers in piety. There are many who pray for themselves, use indulgences for themselves, feed on me for themselves. Never a thought for others. It is their Soul they hold dear. I do not love them. They will not be damned because they remain in my Grace, but they will only have the minimum Grace that saves them from Hell. As for the rest, which will earn them Paradise, they must earn it by centuries of Purgatory.
• Catechesis of June 30 : Now, if I told you that a son's adherence at his father's death shortens Purgatory for him, that a son's forgiveness of the more or less true faults of the father is a relief for his Soul, you would believe it. But at that time, you did not resign yourself and wasted the Good you did. Renouncing the richness of affection in order to follow my will without regrets humans constitutes the perfection of renunciation advised to the young man of the Gospel.  
• Catechesis of August 14 : The Communion of saints unites Catholics of the past with those of the present, Catholics who struggle with those who struggle and those who enjoy happiness. Heaven, earth, and Purgatory help and complement each other, and in the same way, members of the Church militant must help and complement each other.  
• Catechesis of October 17 : I want to explain to you what Purgatory is and what it consists of. And I am the one who explains it to you in a form that will shock many people who believe themselves to be the depositaries of the knowledge of the hereafter and who are not. The Souls immersed in these flames suffer only for love.
• Catechesis of October 19 : When my goodness gives all the signs and all the time for you to prepare for life (eternal), when, through the work, not only of my mercy, but also of human will, the means is given to you to see the last preparations for your coming to life, blessed are those who prepare with a care that is never excessive. If you put that care, all of you whom Age or a long illness, or the merciless contingency of War put in near certainty of dying, there would not be so many painful stops in Purgatory.
  You would accomplish your metamorphosis in me by your love for me, with a true repentance for having saddened me, with true generosity, with true resignation, with all the Virtues practiced with goodwill (...)
• Catechesis of October 21 : I return to the subject of Souls who enter Purgatory. If you have already grasped the full meaning of my words, it does not matter. These pages are for everyone, for all have loved ones in Purgatory and almost all, with the life they lead, are destined to make a stop in this abode. So I continue for both. I have said that Souls who purge their pain suffer only for love and expiate by love. This explains the system of expiation.
• Catechesis of November 12 : The Satanic era will be three times fiercer than the anti-Christian era. But it will be brief, because for the living of that hour the entire triumphant Church in the midst of the lights of Heaven, the entire Church of Purgatory in the purifying flames of love, the entire militant Church with the blood of its last martyrs will pray.

The Notebooks of 1944

• Catechesis of January 15: Purgatory is a place where you expiate your lack of love for your Lord God by thinking of him, whose Essence shone before you at the moment of your particular judgment and filled you with the desire to possess him. By love, you conquer Love and, passing through increasing degrees of inflamed charity, you wash your garments until making them pure and luminous to enter the kingdom of Light, whose splendors I showed you a few days ago…          
• May 29 : I want to indicate your suffering schedule for your weekdays. Let's see the major categories for which it is necessary to suffer, those for which I also suffered in my Passion: the clergy, the desperate, the sinners, the idolaters, the Souls awaiting return to God, in other words, for you, the Souls of purgatory; for me, they were then the just of limbo.  
• June 29 : But to the one who says to me: "Look: your coin is always the same. I did not exchange it, for I feared your justice", I will reply: "Go know Love in purgatory and there work to conquer the Kingdom, for you have been a lazy servant.
• August 10 : Even if you were in the place of provisional expiation, you would show active charity. Indeed, if the Souls of purgatory do not yet see God, they already love him as in heaven, and already have the outbursts of love of the blessed. So never again say that you want to forget the earth.   
• November 1 : (Vision of her mother) "I think — but I do not know if I am right — that she just came out of expiation or that she is just at the threshold, at the edge of purgatory and paradise, which explains that she has less glow, that she is less concentrated on God than the others."

The Notebooks from 1945 to 1950

• February 25, 1946 : (Vision of Aglae) I come to speak to a sister, always less unhappy than me, but who suffers my past sufferings, Purgatory of the greedy flesh... I speak to her through you, because you saw my abjection and my redemption and, from now on, you will be able to say you have seen me in the glory. Oh, be a witness to the goodness of the Lord towards the daughters of Eve intoxicated, but who want to rid themselves of the burning ardor of the blood to love him. Tell her to love her purgatory, and to endure it with patience and constancy.
• October 13, 1946 : I feel intoxicated and ardent as it is not permitted to describe, I love God and in God all the creation, the inhabitants of heaven as well as those who live on earth or suffer in purgatory, all, all and... —ah, they couldn't To Believe even if I told them! —, I love them, as a mother can love her sick children who, unless cared for with the greatest love, risk perishing and suffer from their illness even if they imagine they are not and do not suffer.        
• Catechesis of November 24, 1946 : (Vision of martyrs of Domitian’s persecution) If any sin remains in us, may the flame of the pyre be for us like the Fire of purgatory. A brief purgatory, moreover, then, clad in light, we will go to God. Yes, it is to God, the Light, that we will go! Strengthen your Hearts. 
• January 31, 1947 : When, in my overflowing joy after the Sacrifice was consumed, I was able to open the Limbo to the just and draw from purgatory a crowd of Souls, I shuddered in horror contemplating in spirit that only the place of damnation knew no redemption nor transformation of horror. But I did not enter it. It was neither right nor useful to do so. You wonder that I was able to release a crowd of Souls from purgatory? Consider: if a Mass can deliver Souls from purgatory and always serves to shorten and soften their Purification, what must the real Sacrifice of the Lamb of God have been for them?    
• March 16, 1947 : (Vision of the Sacred Heart) This is how all Fire, even that of purgatory, differs from my Fire. For mine is a Fire of perfect love, and it harms nothing, not even to do Good. This is the Fire I reserve for you, and for you alone. This is what my love for you is: it is Fire that comforts and does not burn, light, harmony, gentle caress. And this is what my blood is for you: sweetness and strength.  
• April 18, 1947 : You must notice, my Soul, the great difference between the perfection that a Soul attains after purifying itself in purgatory, for years or centuries, of its Imperfections not eliminated during its stay on earth, and that which a Soul attains in a very brief mortal time, not by some action through a means created by God, like that of purgatory — this merciful laboratory where imperfect Souls become what the inhabitants of the heavenly City must be, where nothing impure nor ugly can enter —, but by a personal will heroic.    
• July 16, 1947 : People imagine that the Mission of the guardian angel ends at the death of its protégé. But this is not always so […] it continues as such, in the form of a Protection that intercedes and loves the one entrusted to it, for those who pass from earth to purgatory to expiate and purify there. We, the guardian Angels, then pray for you with love before the throne of God and, in union with these prayers of love, we present to him the intercessions of your parents and friends on earth.
• October 30, 1947 : I tell you truly that if you had not united your insufficiency, compared to the religious instruction I gave you, the total love you have for me, your stay in purgatory would have lasted a long time, because you will be judged on the smallest details, according to Justice. But Love will forgive you because of your love and according to my word. Indeed I said: "Many sins will be forgiven to the one who has loved much."
• October 4, 1949 : I see my mother. She is in the flames of purgatory. I had never seen her in the flames before. I scream. I cannot suppress the scream […] My mother is no longer so dark, grayish, she no longer has the same hard, hostile expression to All and everyone, as when I saw her during the first three years after her death: despite my pleadings, she did not want to turn towards God... She is no longer gloomy and sad, almost frightened, as I saw her in the following years. She is beautiful, rejuvenated, serene.

The Book of Azarias

• Book of Azarias, 15th Sunday after Pentecost : After many minutes on earth, there is eternity to count all the times you mocked God and showed hardness towards your brothers. In eternity, one reaps what one has sown. That is why one should tirelessly do spiritual works, that is, do Good, if one does not want to later harvest thorns for the Fires of purgatory.        
• Book of Azarias, 18th Sunday after Pentecost : "When one loves to perfection, one excessively loves the most unfortunate, those who are our pain. Without this love coming from us, they would be lost." I intoxicate myself and burn as it is not allowed to describe, I love God, and in God all creation, with the inhabitants of heaven, with those who live on earth, those who suffer in purgatory, with all, all and... oh! those wouldn't believe it even if I told them! I love them as a mother can love sick children who, if not cared for with maximum love, may perish.     
• Book of Azarias, Feast of Christ the King : The just were to have a reward. Which, if not paradise? But only Souls wounded by original sin — which no purgatory can erase — could not enter paradise. It follows that it was necessary to erase this fault. So a God had to restore order and even make it better.    
• Book of Azarias, 2nd Sunday after Epiphany : If you are fervent only to have a reward soon after your death, I tell you that you will expiate your wretchedness in purgatory for a long time.

Lessons on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans

• Lesson No. 11 : Fear is not terror. But the holy fear of God must neither become quietism. Opposite to the scrupulous are the quietists. An excess of trust, but disordered trust, leads quietists to believe that God is so good that he is content with anything and everything. Based on this false premise, quietists have no concern to do Good. They remain seated in their drowsy statism, a statism they seek to maintain with care and complacency. They close the door of their mind to truths they prefer not to know, those that speak of punishment, of purgatory, of hell, those that speak of the duty to do penance, and the duty to work on their own perfection.
• Lesson No. 20 : If, after doing poorly the Good he could have done, by the mercy of God he avoids the cold and tortures of hell, a long stay awaits him at the school of Purgatory, so that he learns that true charity is not "the heresy of works". This is the scourge of your age that causes many people to bustle about serving Christ only by means of practices and external Actions, practices that leave the good as they are, and perhaps scandalize them, and do not help the bad to improve or to convert. True charity. That means giving in everything, and with Conscience, the example of a deeply Christian life. True charity: that which Jesus wanted in Martha who was too concerned about the external honors to give to the Son of God.
• Lesson No. 24 : Some among you object: "But then, is glory only for those who at the moment of their death are saints? And the others? Purgatory is a prison perhaps less painful, but it remains a place of constraint, and it keeps Souls separated from God. Are not the spirits on the way of Purification also destined for Heaven?"
  They are. The day will come, it will be at the Last Judgment, when Purgatory will be abolished and its occupants will pass into the Kingdom of God. The Limbo will also disappear because the Redeemer has redeemed all men who follow justice to honor the God of their faith, and to approach him as they know him, with all their strength.
  But how long will be the exile for them after their earthly life! How long also for those who, though good Catholics, do the bare minimum to keep the flame of their love lit, contenting themselves to barely do what is necessary not to die in a state of mortal sin!

In fundamental Christian texts

In the catechism of the Catholic Church

• CEC 1030 : Purification.
• CEC 1031 : The position of the Church.
• CEC 1032 : Sources.
• CEC 1472 : The punishments of sin.

In other sources

Marian Apparitions of Medjugorje

• Message of July 21, 1982 : In Purgatory, there are many Souls. There are even people consecrated to God: priests, nuns. Pray for their intentions, at least 7 Pater, 7 Ave, 7 Gloria and the Creed. I recommend it to you. There are many Souls who have been in purgatory for a long time because no one prays for them.    
• Message of January 10, 1983 : It is not the Day of the Dead, but at Christmas that the greatest number of Souls leave Purgatory. There are Souls in purgatory who fervently pray to God, but for whom no parent or friend prays on earth. God blesses them on earth with the prayers of other people. Sometimes God allows them to manifest themselves in various ways to their loved ones on earth, to recall to men the existence of purgatory and ask for their prayers to God who is just but good. Most men go to purgatory. Many go to hell. A small number go directly to Heaven.

Saint Francis de Sales

• "We can draw more Consolation than apprehension from the thought of purgatory. Most of those who fear Purgatory so much, think more of their own interest than the interests of God's glory; this comes from the fact that they only see the pains of this place, without considering at the same time the blessings and the Peace that God makes Souls taste there. It is true that the torments are so great that the most extreme pains of this life cannot be compared to them; but also the inner satisfactions are such that there is no prosperity or contentment on earth which can equal them."

Saint John Eudes

• "God gave Mary to the suffering Church as Mother of mercy and comforter of the afflicted, who spreads Consolations and continuous refreshment among those very burning flames of divine Justice; since she herself assured Saint Bridget that there was no pain in Purgatory that was not made more bearable by her intercession."

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992).