Look at gold: the more you melt it the purer it becomes, and you could go on refining it till every impurity is destroyed. Such is the effect of fire upon material things. Though the soul cannot annihilate itself in God, it can in its own self; and the more it is purified, the more completely is it annihilated in itself, till at last it rests quite pure in God.
It is said that gold, when it is purified to a certain degree, no longer diminishes, whatever degree of heat it may be exposed to, because nothing but the dross can be consumed. The divine fire acts in like manner upon the soul. God holds it in the fire till every imperfection is consumed. He thus reduces all souls to a state of purity, each one according to its own degree of perfection.
And when the soul is thus purified it rests altogether in God, without retaining anything in itself. It has its being then in God. And when he has brought the soul to himself, thus purified, it becomes impassible, for there is nothing left in it to be consumed. And should it still remain in the fire after being thus purified, it would suffer no longer. That fire would be to it a flame of divine love itself eternal life, in which the soul could experience no more contradictions.
Chapter XI.
The Souls In Purgatory Desire To
Purified From Every Stain Of Sin—
Of The Wisdom Of God In Immediately
Concealing From These Souls Their Faults.—
The soul was originally endowed with all the means of attaining its own degree of perfection, by living in conformity with the laws of God and keeping itself pure from all stain of sin. But, being contaminated by original sin, it loses its gifts and graces. It dies, and can only rise again by the assistance of God. And when he has raised it to life again by baptism, a bad inclination still remains in the soul, leading it, if unresisted, to actual sin, by which it dies anew. God raises it again by another special grace; nevertheless it remains so soiled, so fallen back upon itself, that, to be restored to the state of purity in which God created it, it has need of all the divine operations before mentioned to enable it to return to its primitive condition.
When the soul is on its way back to this state, its desire of being lost in God is so great as to become the purgatory of the soul.
Purgatory is nothing to it as purgatory. The burning instinct which forces it toward God, only to find an impediment, constitutes its real torture.
By a last act of love, God, the author of this plan for the perfection of the soul, works without the concurrence of man; for there are in the soul so many hidden imperfections that if it saw them it would be in despair. But the state of which we have just spoken destroys them all. It is only when they are obliterated that God shows them to the soul, in order that it may comprehend the divine operation wrought by this fire of love consuming all its imperfections.