Purgatory by Mary Anne Madden Sadlier (ebook reader 8 inch txt) 📖

as by fire." (1 Cor. iii. 15.) [2]

[Footnote 1: Cardinal Wiseman in commenting upon this passage, says: "Now, mark well the word purgation here used. For it proves that our very term of Purgatory is not modern in the Church." - Lectures on the Catholic Church . Lecture xi., p. 60.]

[Footnote 2: Com. in C., ix. Isai. T. I., p. 554.]


The following is from ST. EPHREM, of Edessa: "My brethren, come to me, and prepare me for my departure, for my strength is wholly gone. Go along with me in psalms and in your prayers; and please constantly to make oblations for me. When the thirtieth day [1] shall be completed, then remember me: for the dead are helped by the offerings of the living. If also the sons of Mathathias, who celebrated their feasts in figures only, could cleanse those from guilt by their offerings who fell in battle, how much more shall the priests of Christ aid the dead by their oblations and prayers?" [2]

[Footnote 1: "The very day," says Cardinal Wiseman, "observed by the Catholic Church with peculiar solemnity, in praying and observing Mass for the dead". Archbishop Corrigan, of New York, in announcing to the clergy of his diocese the death of His Eminence the late Cardinal McCloskey, speaks as follows: "The reverend rectors are also requested to have solemn services for the soul of our late beloved chief pastor, on the seventh and thirtieth day."]

[Footnote 2: In Testament. T. ii., p. 334. p. 371, Edit. Oxen.]


Thus speaks ST. GREGORY of Nyssa: "In the present life, God allows man to remain subject to what himself has chosen; that, having tasted of the evil which he desired, and learned by experience how bad an exchange has been made, he might feel an ardent wish to lay down the load of those vices and inclinations, which are contrary to reason; and thus, in this life, being renovated by prayers and the pursuit of wisdom, or, in the next, being expiated by the purging fire, he might recover the state of happiness which he had lost.... When he has quitted his body, and the difference between virtue and vice is known, he cannot be admitted to approach the Divinity till the purging fire shall have expiated the stains with which his soul was infected. The same fire, in others, will cancel the corruption of matter and the propensity to evil." [1]

[Footnote 1: Orat. de Defunctis. T. ii., p. 1066, 1067, 1068.]


ST. CYRIL of Jerusalem: "Then" (in the Liturgy of the Church) "we pray for the holy Fathers and Bishops that are dead; and, in short, for all those who are departed this life in our communion; believing that the souls of those, for whom the prayers, are offered, receive very great relief while this holy and tremendous victim lies upon the altar." [1]

[Footnote 1: Catech. Mystag., V. N., ix., x., p. 328.]


ST. EPIPHANIUS writes: "There is nothing more opportune, nothing more to be admired, than the rite which directs the names of the dead to be mentioned. They are aided by the prayer that is offered for them, though it may not cancel all their faults. We mention both the just and sinners, in order that for the latter we may obtain mercy." [1]

[Footnote 1: Haer. IV. Lib. LXXV., T. i., p. 911.]


ST. AUGUSTINE speaks as follows: "The prayers of the Church, or of good persons, are heard in favor of those Christians who departed this life not so bad as to be deemed unworthy of mercy, nor so good as to be entitled to immediate happiness. So also, at the resurrection of the dead, there will some be found, to whom mercy will be imparted, having gone through these pains, to which the spirits of the dead are liable. Otherwise it would not have been said of some with truth, that their sin shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come (Matt. xii., 32) unless some sins were remitted in the next world." [1]

[Footnote 1: De Civit. Dei., Lib. XX, c. xxiv., p. 492.]

In another passage he comments on the words of St. Paul: "If they had built gold and silver and precious stones, they would be secure from both fires; not only from that in which the wicked shall be punished for ever, but likewise from that fire which will purify those who shall be saved by fire. But because it is said he shall be saved, that fire is thought lightly of; though the suffering will be more grievous than anything man can undergo in this life."


Let us hear ST. JEROME: [1] "As we believe the torments of the devil, and of those wicked men who said in their hearts there is no God, to be eternal, so, in regard to those sinners who have not denied their faith, and whose works will be proved and purged by fire, we conclude that the sentence of the Judge will be tempered by mercy."

[Footnote 1: Comment. in c. xv., Isai., T. ii., p. 492.]

St. Jerome thus speaks in his letter to Paula, concerning the death and burial of her mother, Eustochium: "From henceforward there were no wailings nor lamentations as are usual amongst men of this world, but the swarms of those present resounded with psalms in various tongues. And being removed by the hands of the bishops, and by those placing their shoulders under the bier, while other pontiffs were carrying lamps and wax tapers, and others led the choirs of psalmodists, she was laid in the middle of the church of the cave of the Saviour.... Psalms resounded in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac tongues, not only during the three days intervening until she was laid under the church and near the cave of the Lord, but through the entire week."


ST. AMBROSE has many passages throughout his works, as Dr. Wiseman remarks. Thus he quotes St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (iii., 5): "'If any man's works burn he shall suffer loss; but he shall be saved, yet so as by fire.' He will be saved, the Apostle said, because his substance shall remain, while his bad doctrine shall perish. Therefore, he said, yet so as by fife, in order that his salvation be not understood to be without pain. He shows that he shall be saved indeed, but he shall undergo the pain of fire, and be thus purified, not like the unbelieving and wicked man who shall be punished in everlasting fire." [1]

[Footnote 1: Comment. in I Ep. ad Cor., T. ii.; in App, p. 122.]


The following is from his funeral oration on the Emperor Theodosius: "Lately we deplored together his death, and now, while Prince Honorius is present before our altars, we celebrate the fortieth day. Some observe the third and the thirtieth, others the seventh and the fortieth. Give, O Lord, rest to Thy servant Theodosius, that rest which Thou hast prepared for Thy Saints. May his soul thither tend, whence it came, where it cannot feel the sting of death, where it will learn that death is the termination, not of nature, but of sin. I loved him, therefore will I follow him to the land of the living; I will not leave him, till, by my prayers and lamentation, he shall be admitted to the holy mount of the Lord to which his deserts call him." [1]

[Footnote 1: De obitu. Theodosii. Ibid., pp. 1197-8; 1207-8.]

He thus concludes his letter to ST. FAUSTINUS on the death of his sister: "Therefore I consider her not so much to be deplored as to be followed by our prayers, nor do I think that her soul should be saddened with tears, but rather commended to the Lord in oblations. For our flesh cannot be perpetual or lasting; it must necessarily fall in order that it may rise again - it must be dissolved in order that it may rest, and that there may be some end of sin." [1]

[Footnote 1: St. Ambr., p. 39, ad Faustini, t. 2, p 944, ed. Ben.]


In his funeral oration upon his brother Satyrus, he cries out: "To Thee now, O omnipotent God, I commend this innocent soul, - to Thee I offer my victim. Accept graciously and serenely the gift of the brother - the sacrifice of the priest."

[Footnote 1: De excessu frateris satyri, No. 80, p. 1135.]

In his discourse on the deceased Emperor Valentinian the Younger, murdered in 392: "Give the holy mysteries to the dead. Let us, with pious earnestness, beg repose for his soul. Lift up your hands with me, O people, that at least by this duty we may make some return for his benefits." [1] Joining him with the Emperor Gratian, his brother, dead some years before, he says: "Both blessed, if my prayers can be of any force! No duty shall pass over you in silence. No prayer of mine shall ever be closed without remembering you. No night shall pass you over without some vows of my supplications. You shall have a share in all my sacrifices. If I forget you let my own right hand be forgotten." [2]

[Footnote 1: St. Ambr. de obitu Valent, No. 56, t. 2, p 1189, ed. Bened.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., No. 78, p. 1194.]


"It was not in vain," says ST. CHRYSOSTOM, "that the apostles ordained a commemoration of the deceased in the holy and tremendous mysteries. They were sensible of the benefit and advantage which accrues to them from this practice. For, when the congregation stands with open arms as well as the priests, and the tremendous sacrifice is before them, how should our prayers for them not appease God? But this is said of such as have departed in faith." [1]

[Footnote 1: Hom. 3 in Phil., t. n., p. 217 ed. Montfauc.]


ST. AUGUSTINE again says: "Nor is it to be denied that the souls of the departed are relieved by the piety of their living friends, when the sacrifice of the Mediator is offered for them, or alms are given in the Church. But these things are profitable to those who, while they lived, deserved that they might avail them. There is a life so good as not to require them, and there is another so wicked that after death it can receive no benefit from them. When, therefore, the sacrifices of the altar or alms are offered for all Christians, for the very good they are thanksgivings, they are propitiations for those who are not very bad. For the very wicked, they are some kind of comfort to the living."

In another of his works he says that prayer for the dead in the holy mysteries was observed by the whole church. He expounds the thirty- seventh Psalm as having reference to Purgatory. The words: "Rebuke me not in thy fury, neither chastise me in thy wrath," he explains as follows: "That you purify me in this life, and render me such that I may not stand in need of that purging fire."


ARNOBIUS speaks of the public liturgies: "In which peace and pardon are begged of God for kings, magistrates, friends and enemies, both the living and those who are delivered from the body."


To these few extracts, which space permits, might be added innumerable others from St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Athanasius, St. Paulinus, St. Eusebius, Lactantius, Tertullian, St. Caesarius of Arles, St. Bernard, Venerable Bede, St. Thomas Aquinas, and so