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Wednesday 31 October 2012

Purgatory St. John Vianney


Sermon on Purgatory by St. John Vianney

by DEVOTION TO THE HOLY SOULS IN PURGATORY on Monday, April 4, 2011 at 2:37am 

How many are there, perhaps, who during the course of eight or ten years have received from their parents or their friends the work of having Masses said and alms given and have allowed the whole thing to slide! 

How many are there who, for fear of finding that certain good works should be done, have not wanted to go to the trouble of looking at the will that their parents or their friends have made in their favor? 

Alas, these poor souls are still detained in the flames because no one has desired to fulfill their last wishes! Poor fathers and mothers, you are being sacrificed for the happiness of your children and your heirs! 

You perhaps have neglected your own salvation to augment their fortune. You are being cheated of the good works which you left behind in your wills! ... Poor parents! 

How blind you were to forget yourselves! ... You will tell me, perhaps: "Our parents lived good lives; they were very good people." Ah! They needed little to go into these flames!
 See what Albert the Great, a man whose virtues shone in such an extraordinary way, said on this matter. He revealed one day to one of his friends that God had taken him into Purgatory for having entertained a slightly self-satisfied thought about his own knowledge. The most astonishing thing was that there were actually saints there, even ones who were beatified, who were passing through Purgatory.

Saint Severinus, Archbishop of Cologne, appeared to one of his friends a long time after his death and told him that he had been in Purgatory for having deferred to the evening the prayers he should have said in the morning.

Oh! What years of Purgatory will there be for those Christians who have no difficulty at all in deferring their prayers to another time on the excuse of having to do some pressing work! 

If we really desired the happiness of possessing God, we should avoid the little faults as well as the big ones, since separation from God is so frightful a torment to all these poor souls!




1 comment:

  1. Has anyone been to purgatory and back? I have had 2 NDE and 3 OBE in my 40 years of life. My last NDE was in Al Jihad, Baghdad Iraq in support of the 07 Surge. I was hit with an 8 array EFP (Explosive Formed Projectile) IED. I was in a light infantry outfit and the driver paid the ultimate price when his life was taken and I was the next seriously injured. My story is one of those that not too many people have had and I would like to know if there is anyone else who has been there and is alive today?

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