Purgatory: Doctrinal, Historical, and Poetical

by Mrs. J. Sadlier

You must, then, conceive Purgatory to be a vast, darksome and hideous chaos, full of fire and flames, in which the souls are kept close prisoners, until they have fully satisfied for all their misdemeanors, according to the estimate of Divine justice. For God has made choice of this element of fire wherewith to punish souls, because it is the most active, piercing, sensible, [1] and insupportable of all others. But that which quickens it, indeed, and gives it more life, is this: that it acts as the instrument of God's justice, who, by His omnipotent power, heightens and reinforces its activity as He pleases, and so makes it capable to act upon bodiless spirits. Do not, then, look only upon this fire, though in good earnest it be dreadful enough of itself; but consider the Arm that is stretched out, and the Hand that strikes, and the rigor of God's infinite justice, who, through this element of fire, vents His wrath, and pours out whole tempests of His most severe and yet most just vengeance. So that the fire works as much mischief, [2] as I may say, to the souls, as God commands; and He commands as much as is due; and as much is due as the sentence bears: a sentence irrevocably pronounced at the high tribunal of the severe and rigorous justice of an angry God, and whose anger is so prevalent that the Holy Scripture styles it "a day of fury." Now, you will easily believe that this fire is a most horrible punishment in its own nature; but you may do well to reflect also on that which I have now suggested; that the fury of Almighty God is, as it were, the fire of this fire, and the heat of its heat; and that He serves Himself of it as He pleases, by doubling and redoubling its sharp pointed forces; for this is that which makes it the more grievous and insupportable to the souls that are thus miserably confined and imprisoned.

[Footnote 1: i.e., apprehended by the senses]

[Footnote 2: i.e., Not implying injury, far less injustice; but simply punishment and suffering]

They were not much out of the way, that styled Purgatory a transitory kind of hell, because the principal pains of the damned are to be found there; with this only difference, that in hell they are eternal, and in Purgatory they are only transitory and fleeting: for, otherwise, it is probably the very same fire that burns both the Holy Souls and the damned spirits; and the pain of loss is, in both places, the chief torment…. Now, does not your hair stand on end? does not your heart tremble, when you hear that the poor souls in Purgatory are tormented with the same, or the like flames to those of the damned? Can you refrain from crying out, with the Prophet Isaias: "Who can dwell with such devouring fire, and unquenchable burnings?" Heavens! what a lamentable case is this! Those miserable souls, who of late, when they were wedded to their bodies, were so nice and dainty, forsooth, that they durst scarce venture to enjoy the comfortable heat of a fire, but under the protection of their screens and their fans, for fear of spoiling their complexions, and if, by chance, a spark had been so rude as to light upon them, or a little smoke, it was not to be endured:… —Alas! how will it fare with them, when they shall see themselves tied to unmerciful firebrands, or imbodied, as it were, with flames of fire, surrounded with frightful darkness, broiled and consumed without intermission, and perhaps condemned to the same fire with which the devils are unspeakably tormented? (Pages 4-7.)

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Good God! how the great Saints and Doctors astonish me when they treat of this fire, and of the pain of sense, as they call it! For they peremptorily pronounce that the fire that purges those souls, those both happy and unhappy souls, surpasses all the torments that are to be found in this miserable life of man, or are possible to be invented, for so far they go… Thus they discourse: The fire and the pains of the other world are of another nature from those of this life, because God elevates them above their nature to be instruments of His severity. Now, say they, things of an inferior degree can never reach the power of such things as are of a higher rank. For example, the air, let it be ever so inflated, unless it be converted into fire, can never be so hot as fire. Besides, God bridles His rigor in this world; but, in the next, He lets the reins loose and punishes almost equally to the desert. And, since those souls have preferred creatures before their Creator, He seems to be put upon a necessity of punishing them beyond the ordinary strength of creatures; and hence it is that the fire of Purgatory burns more, torments and inflicts more, than all the creatures of this life are able to do. But is it really true that the least pain in Purgatory exceeds the greatest here upon earth? O God! the very statement makes me tremble for fear, and my very heart freezes into ice with astonishment. And yet, who dare oppose St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Anselm, St. Gregory the Great? Is there any hope of carrying the negative assertion against such a stream of Doctors, who all maintain the affirmative, and bring so strong reasons for it?…

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But for Thy comfort, there are Doctors in the Catholic Church that cannot agree with so much severity; and, namely, St. Bonaventure, who is very peremptory in denying it. "For, what way is there," says this holy Doctor, "to verify so great a paradox, without sounding reason, and destroying the infinite mercy of God? I am easily persuaded there are torments in Purgatory far exceeding any in this mortal life; this is most certain, and it is but reasonable it should be so; but that the least there should be more terrible than the most terrible in the world cannot enter into my belief. May it not often fall out that a man comes to die in a most eminent state of perfection, save only, that in his last agony, out of mere frailty, he commits a venial sin, or carries along with him some relic of his former failings, which might have been easily blotted out with a Pater Noster, or washed away with a little holy water; for I am supposing it to be some very small matter. Now, what likelihood is there, I will not say, that the infinite mercy of God, but that the very rigor of His justice, though you conceive it to be ever so severe, should inflict so horrible a punishment upon this holy soul, as not to be equalled by the greatest torments in this life; and all this for some petty fault scarce worth the speaking of? How! would you have God, for a kind of trifle, to punish a soul full of grace and virtue, and so severely to punish her as to exceed all the racks, cauldrons, furnaces, and other hellish inventions, which are scarce inflicted upon the most execrable criminals in the world?" (Pp. 9-11.)

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It is not the fire, nor all the brimstone and tortures they endure, which murders them alive. No, no; it is the domestical cause of all these mischiefs that racks their consciences and is their crudest executioner. This, this is the greatest of their evils; for a soul that has shaken off the fetters of flesh and blood, and is full of the love of God, no more disordered with unruly passions, nor blinded with the night of ignorance, sees clearly the vast injury she has done to herself to have offended so good a God, and to have deserved to be thus banished out of His sight and deprived of that Divine fruition. She sees how easily she might have flown up straight to heaven at her first parting with her body, and what trifle it was that impeded her. A moment lost of those inebriating joys, seems to her now worthy to be redeemed with an eternity of pains. Then, reflecting with herself that she was created only for God, and cannot be truly satisfied but by enjoying God, and that, out of Him, all this goodly machine of the world is no better than a direct hell and an abyss of evils. Alas! what worms, what martyrdoms, and what nipping pincers are such pinching thoughts as these. The fire is to her but as smoke in comparison to this vexing remembrance of her own follies, which betrayed her to this disgraceful and unavoidable misfortune. There was a king who, in a humor gave away his crown and his whole estate, for the present refreshment of a cup of cold water; but, returning a little to himself and soberly reflecting what he had done, had like to have run stark mad to see the strange, irreparable folly he had committed. To lose a year, or two years (to say no more), of the beatifical vision for a glass of water, for a handful of earth, for the love of a fading beauty, for a little air of worldly praise, a mere puff of honor—ah! it is the hell of Purgatory to a soul that truly loves God and frames a right conceit of things. (Pp. 14, 15.)