Tenth Day
In the fulness of time the divine Saviour Jesus Christ appeared on earth. While disowning in His teaching all the false theories and erroneous traditions of Scribes and Pharisees, while condemning with the greatest precision their errors on the subject of death and resurrection, He never uttered one syllable against the general belief in purgatory, or against the public practice of praying for the dead. On the contrary He left it just as it existed under the Old Law. Could the Son of God, Who had come down to make known the will of His Father, have acted thus if this were not a holy, just, and pious custom? The Redeemer did not find it necessary to give lengthy proofs of the existence of this place of punishment. It was enough to simply remind the people of it. For, in truth, He addressed a people who had never entertained the smallest doubt on the subject. In one of His sermons He unmistakably alludes to purgatory, where He speaks of a prison from which no one can be delivered except on the payment of the full debt. What other prison but purgatory can here be meant? Heaven cannot be meant, and out of hell there is no redemption. The Gospels have preserved another saying of the Son of God which presupposes the existence of purgatory: “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come.” There are, then, sins which can be atoned for in the next world.
Prayer.
Release, O Lord, etc., etc.