Purgatory: Doctrinal, Historical, and Poetical

by Mrs. J. Sadlier

THE respect due to cemeteries is too closely connected with the doctrine of Purgatory for us to omit observing here that those asylums of the dead, being the objects of pious reverence, even amongst infidels, ought to be still more so amongst us. It was in this connection that Mgr. Pelletan, Arch-priest of the Cathedral of Algiers, wrote thus on the 13th of March, 1843:

"Here in Algiers, do we not see, every Friday, the Mussulman Arab, wandering pensively through his cemetery, placing on some venerated and beloved grave bouquets of flowers, branches of boxwood; wrapped in his bornouse, he sits for hours beside it, motionless and thoughtful; lost in gentle melancholy, it would seem as though he were holding intimate and mysterious converse with the dear departed one whose loss he deplores….

"But for us, Christians, nourished, enlightened by the truth of God, what special homage, what profound reverence we should manifest towards the remains of our fathers, our brethren who died in the same faith! Oh, let us remember the first faithful—the martyrs—the catacombs! The cemetery is for us the land where grows invisibly the harvest of the elect; it is the sleeping world of intelligence; sheltered are its peaceful slumbers in the bosom of nature ever young, ever fruitful; the crowd of the dead pressed together beneath those crosses, under those scattered flowers, is the crowd that will one day rise to take possession of the infinite future, from which it is only separated by some sods of turf.

"Hence how lively, how motherly has ever been the solicitude of the Church in this respect! She wishes that the ground wherein repose the remains of her children be blessed and consecrated ground; she purifies it with hyssop and holy water; she calls down upon it by her humble supplications, the benediction of Him who disposes according to His will of things visible and invisible, of souls and of bodies; she wishes that the cross should rise in its midst, that her children may rest in peace in its shade while awaiting the grand awaking; even as a temple and a sanctuary, she banishes from it games, noise of all kinds, and even all that savors of levity or irreverence."—Dictionnaire d'Anecdotes Chrétiens, p. 993.

OPINIONS OF VARIOUS PROTESTANTS.

Some say, like Lessing in his "Treatise on Theology," "What hinders us from admitting a Purgatory? as if the great majority of Christians had not really adopted it. No, this intermediate state being taught and recognized by the ancient Church, notwithstanding the scandalous abuses to which it gave rise, should not be absolutely rejected."

Others, with Dr. Forbes (controv. pontif. princip., anno 1658): "Prayer for the dead, MADE USE OF FROM THE TIMES OF THE APOSTLES, cannot be rejected as useless by Protestants. They should respect the judgment of the primitive Church, and adopt a practice sanctioned by the continuous belief of so many ages. We repeat that prayer for the dead is a salutary practice."

Several others, rising to our point of view, drawing their inspiration from the sources of Catholic charity, tell you, with the theologian Collier (Part II. p. 100): "Prayer for the dead revives the belief in the immortality of the soul, withdraws the dark veil which covers the tomb, and establishes relations between this world and the other. Had it been preserved, we should probably not have had amongst us so much incredulity. I cannot conceive why our Church, which is so remote from the primitive times of Christianity, should have abandoned or disdained a custom that had never been interrupted; which, on the contrary, as we have reason to believe from Scripture, existed in ancient times; which was practiced in the Apostolic age, in the time of miracles and revelations; introduced amongst the articles of faith, and never rejected, except by Arius."

"It was evidently in use in the Church in the time of St. Augustine, and down to the sixteenth century. If we do nothing for our dead, if we omit to occupy ourselves with them and pray for them, as was formerly done in the Holy Supper, we break off all intercourse with the Saints; and then, how could we dare to say that we remain in communion with the blessed? And if we break off in this way from the most noble part of the universal Church, may it not be said that we mutilate our belief and reject one of the articles of the Christian faith?"

"Yes," says the German Sheldon, in his turn, "prayer for the dead is one of the most ancient and most efficacious practices of the Christian religion."