Twentieth Day
In this valley of tears the sighs of holy persons are full of pain and sorrow, of pining after God and heaven. How painful must have been this burning love and yearning desire in such souls as St. Paul’s, St. Augustine’s and St. Teresa’s! Yet what was their suffering compared to the consuming fire of yearning in the souls of purgatory? For, however much we may pine after God, our only good, still while on earth we have many things that comfort us and deaden our pain. The very burden of our body, the distracting events of life, the possibility of great age, or larger store of merit, all these things are so many means of comfort to us. But the poor souls in purgatory have none of these consolations; there is nothing to assuage their pain of yearning and unfulfilled desire. More than the panting hart do they thirst after the fountain of eternal light and life. This unspeakable thirst is, in their case, all pure pain, unmingled with any soothing alloy. Oh, what a burning sea of sorrow those poor souls are plunged into! Flames within, flames without, flames all around them! Were it not that God’s omnipotent hand upheld them, their spirit would almost be consumed by those flames of fire. As you have noticed I have left you to draw from the proofs, as also from the description of the flames of purgatory, your own pious deductions and resolutions. But now I ask is there a doctrine in the Church which calls for more serious and pious consideration than this belief in purgatory, for your own spiritual benefit, and then for the help you can afford those whom God’s justice has condemned there?
Prayer.
Release, O Lord, etc., etc.