Prayer.
Release, O Lord, etc., etc.
Eighteenth Day.
Man sins, and thus turns away from God; the punishment, therefore, must be an eternal or temporary deprivation of God, the highest good of man. He sins, and thus turns towards a created good, and derives pleasure and satisfaction from it; the punishment, therefore, for this illicit, sensual pleasure, is the pain of sense, the pain inflicted by created things. Now fire is a pain of sense; and it is a doctrine sufficiently warranted by Scripture and tradition, that the fire of purgatory is a real fire, by [pg 455] which the souls are chastised and purified. The Holy Fathers explain that the greatest imaginable sufferings here on earth, the most dreadful martyrdom of the holy confessors of Christ, the worst pains of the most terrible illness, can bear no comparison with the torments and pains suffered by the poor souls in purgatory. Well known is the exclamation of St. Augustine, “Here burn, here cut, here crucify, but spare me in eternity, O God!” The sufferings of this life can be soothed by consolation, can be softened by many distractions; now and again there is a respite granted to the greatest sufferer, and time heals many woes. But the sufferings of purgatory continue without any alleviation or interruption.
Prayer.
Release, O Lord, etc., etc.
Nineteenth Day.
According to the writings of the Fathers, the pain of loss is the greatest of all the pains of purgatory. Together with the bitter remembrance of having done evil and omitted to do good, is the consciousness of being deprived of the beatific vision, than which there can be no greater pain. St. Alphonsus says: “Far greater than the pains of the senses are the pains of loss arising from the deprivation of the presence of God.” Because the poor souls are inflamed with not only the natural, but the supernatural love of God, they are almost violently drawn towards Him, their supreme good; and because they have the consciousness of being debarred from perfect union with God by their own sins and imperfections, [pg 456] they feel such exceeding great pain that it would kill them were it possible for them to die. “Therefore,” says St. Chrysostom, “is this pain of loss greater than that of sense, and the greatest of all pains. A thousand fires of hell could not produce greater pain than that which is caused by the fully realized loss of God.” Here on earth, while confined in their bodies of sin, their souls could not enjoy the beatific vision; but once delivered from their mortal bodies, the time is come when they are able to see God, Who would be their everlasting joy were it not for their own fault. It is this pain of separation that makes the pain of purgatory a cleansing fire in the fullest sense of the word.