Purgatory: Doctrinal, Historical, and Poetical Part 23

Remember your prelates who have spoken the Word of G.o.d to you. Heb. c.

xiii. v. 2.

Of the forty-six Fathers who sat in the Second Plenary Council, only sixteen still survive. More than this. During the few years that have since elapsed not only have thirty bishops and archbishops gone to the house of their eternity, but in several instances, their successors, too, have pa.s.sed away, so that the Solemn Requiem offered this morning for the prelates who have died since the last Council is chanted for forty-two consecrated rulers. For these, "as it is a good and wholesome thought to pray for the dead," we send up our sighs and our prayers in the spirit of fraternal charity, and as a tribute of love and grat.i.tude to our Fathers in the faith who had the burden of the day and the heat, and who now rest from their labors. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit,... for their works follow them."

In the commemorative services and solemn supplications offered in this cathedral, the first place, dear brethren, is deservedly due to your own lamented archbishops.... Besides these, memory turns, with fond regret, to a long list of Right Reverend Prelates, who were all present at the late Plenary Council, and who have since, one by one, pa.s.sed away.... As we repeat each well-known name, hosts of pleasant memories come crowding on the mind just as by-gone scenes are awakened to new life by some sweet strain of once familiar music. Venerable forms loom up again before us with the paternal kindness, the distinguished presence, the winning ways we knew so well of old; and while the vision lasts we seem to hear a still small voice saying: "To-day for me, to- morrow for thee," or the echo of the words spoken by the wise woman of Thecua to the king on his throne: "We all die, and fall down into the earth, like waters that return no more."

"Star differeth from star in glory." The bishops, whose virtues we commemorate, differed in gifts of mind, in habits of thought, in nationality, in early training, in personal experience, in almost everything else but their common faith. This golden bond united them to each other and to us. There was still another point of resemblance and another link that bound them all together--the partic.i.p.ation in the divine work of the Good Shepherd which was laid upon them all....

PART IV.

THOUGHTS OF VARIOUS AUTHORS ON PURGATORY.

The fuel justice layeth on, And mercy blows the coals, The metal in this furnace wrought Is men's defiled souls.--SOUTHWELL.

THOUGHTS OF VARIOUS AUTHORS ON PURGATORY.

PURGATORY.

CARDINAL NEWMAN.

Thus we see how, as time went on, the doctrine of Purgatory was brought home to the minds of the faithful as a portion or form of penance due for post-baptismal sin. And thus the apprehension of this doctrine, and the practice of Infant Baptism, would grow into general reception together. Cardinal Fisher gives another reason for Purgatory being then developed out of earlier points of faith. He says: "Faith, whether in Purgatory or in Indulgences, was not so necessary in the Primitive Church as now; for then love so burned that every one was ready to meet death for Christ. Crimes were rare; and such as occurred were avenged by the great severity of the Canons.... The doctrine of post-baptismal sin, especially when realized in the doctrine of Purgatory, leads the inquirer to fresh developments beyond itself. Its effect is to convert a Scripture statement, which might seem only of temporary application, into a universal and perpetual truth. When St. Paul and St. Barnabas would 'confirm the souls of the disciples,' they taught them 'that we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of G.o.d.' It is obvious what very practical results would follow on such an announcement in the instance of those who accepted the apostolic decision; and, in like manner, a conviction that sin must have its punishment, here or hereafter, and that we all must suffer, how overpowering will be its effect, what a new light does it cast on the history of the soul, what a change does it make in our judgment of the external world, what a reversal of our natural wishes and aims for the future! Is a doctrine conceivable which would so elevate the mind above this present state, and teach it so successfully to dare difficult things, and to be reckless of danger and pain? He who believes that suffer he must, and that delayed punishment may be the greater, will be above the world, will admire nothing, fear nothing, desire nothing. He has within his breast a source of greatness, self-denial, heroism. This is the secret spring of strenuous efforts and persevering toil; of the sacrifice of fortune, friends, ease, reputation, happiness. There is, it is true, a higher cla.s.s of motives which will be felt by the Saints; who will do from love what all Christians who act acceptably do from faith. And, moreover, the ordinary measures of charity which Christians possess suffice for securing such respectable attention to religious duties as the routine necessities of the Church require. But, if we would raise an army of devoted men to resist the world, to oppose sin and error, to relieve misery, or to propagate truth, we must be provided with motives which keenly affect the many. Christian love is too rare a gift, philanthropy is too weak a material, for that occasion. Nor is there an influence to be found to suit our purpose besides this solemn conviction, which arises out of the very rudiments of Christian theology, and is taught by its most ancient masters,--this sense of the awfulness of post-baptismal sin. It is in vain to look out for missionaries for China or Africa, or evangelists for our great towns, or Christian attendants on the sick, or teachers of the ignorant, on such a scale of numbers as the need requires, without the doctrine of Purgatory. For thus the sins of youth are turned to account by the profitable penance of manhood; and terrors, which the philosopher scorns in the individual, become the benefactors, and earn the grat.i.tude of nations."--_Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_, [1] p. 386.

[Footnote 1: Nevertheless, means must be taken to pay back this sum so seasonably advanced. Hence it is, that at the request of the Minister General of the Franciscans, Father Marie, of Brest, has made a touching appeal to all.]

OUR DEBT TO THE DEAD.

CARDINAL MANNING

The Saints, by their intercession and their patronage, unite us with G.o.d. They watch over us; they pray for us; they obtain graces for us.

Our guardian angels are round about us: they watch over and protect us.

The man who has not piety enough to ask their prayers must have a heart but little like to the love and veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But there are other friends of G.o.d to whom we owe a debt of piety. They are those who are suffering beyond the grave, in the silent kingdom of pain and expiation--in the dark and yet blessed realm of purification; that is to say, the mult.i.tudes who pa.s.s out of this world, washed in the Precious Blood, perfectly absolved of all guilt of sin, children and friends of G.o.d, blessed souls, heirs of the kingdom of Heaven, all but Saints; nevertheless, they are not yet altogether purified for His kingdom. They are there detained--kept back from His presence--until their expiation is accomplished. You and I, and every one of us, will pa.s.s through that place of expiation. Neither you nor I are Saints, nor, upon earth, ever will be; therefore, before we can see G.o.d, we must be purified by pain in that silent realm. But those blessed souls are friends of G.o.d next after His Saints; and in the same order they ought to be the objects of our piety; that is, of our love and compa.s.sion, of our sympathy and our prayers. They can do nothing now for themselves: they have no longer any Sacraments; they do not even pray for themselves. They are so conformed to the will of G.o.d that they suffer there in submission and in silence. They desire nothing except that His will should be accomplished. Therefore, it is our duty to help them--to help them by our prayers, our penances, our mortifications, our alms, by the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar. There may be father and mother, brother and sister, friend and child, whom you have loved as your own life: they may now be there. Have you forgotten them? Have you no pity for them now, no natural piety, no spirit of love for them? Do you forget them all the day long? Look back upon those who made your home in your early childhood, the light of whose faces you can still see s.h.i.+ning in your memories, and the sweetness of whose voice is still in your ears--do you forget them because they are no longer seen? Is it, indeed, "out of sight, out of mind"? What an impiety of heart is this!

The Catholic Church, the true mother of souls, cherishes, with loving memory, all her departed. Never does a day pa.s.s but she prays for them at the altar; never does a year go by that there is not a special commemoration of all her children departed on one solemn day, which is neither feast nor fast, but a day of the profoundest piety and of the deepest compa.s.sion. Surely, then, if we have the spirit of piety in our hearts, the holy souls will be a special object of our remembrance and our prayers. How many now are there whom we have known in life? There are those who have been grievously afflicted, and those who have been very sinful, but, through the Precious Blood and a death-bed repentance, have been saved at last. Have you forgotten them? Are you doing nothing for them? There may also be souls there for whom there is no one to pray on earth; there may be souls who are utterly forgotten by their own kindred, outcast from all remembrance; and yet the Precious Blood was shed for their sakes. If no one remember, them now, you, at least, if you have in your hearts the gift of piety, will pray for them.--_Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost, p._ 247.

PURGATORY

CARDINAL WISEMAN.

I need hardly observe, that there is not a single liturgy existing, whether we consider the most ancient period of the Church, or the most distant part of the world, in which this doctrine is not laid down. In all Oriental liturgies, we find parts appointed, in which the Priest or Bishop is ordered to pray for the souls of the faithful departed; and tables were anciently kept in the churches, called the _Dyptichs_, on which the names of the deceased were enrolled, that they might be remembered in the Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s and the prayers of the faithful. The name of Purgatory scarcely requires a pa.s.sing comment. It has, indeed, been made a topic of abuse, on the ground that it is not to be found in Scripture. But where is the word Trinity to be met with?

Where is the word _Incarnation_ to be read in Scripture? Where are many other terms, held most sacred and important in the Christian religion? The doctrines are, indeed, found there; but these names were not given, until circ.u.mstances had rendered them necessary. We see that the Fathers of the Church have called it a purging fire--a place of expiation or purgation. The idea is precisely, the name almost, the same.

It has been said by divines of the English Church, that the two doctrines which I have joined together, of prayers for the dead and Purgatory, have no necessary connection, and that, in fact, they were not united in the ancient Church. The answer to this a.s.sertion I leave to your memories, after the pa.s.sages which I have read you from the Fathers. They surely speak of purgation by fire after death, whereby the imperfections of this life are washed out, and satisfaction made to G.o.d for sins not sufficiently expiated; they speak, at the same time, of our prayers being beneficial to those who have departed this life in a state of sin; and these propositions contain our entire doctrine on Purgatory. It has also been urged that the established religion, or Protestantism, does not deny or discourage prayers for the dead, so long as they are independent of a belief in Purgatory; and, in this respect, it is stated to agree with the primitive Christian Church.

But, my brethren, this distinction is exceedingly fallacious. Religion is a lively, practical profession; it is to be ascertained and judged by its sanctioned practices and outward demonstration, rather than by the mere opinions of the few. I would at once fairly appeal to the judgment of any Protestant, whether he has been taught, and has understood that such is the doctrine of his Church. If, from the services which he attended, or the Catechism which he has learned, or the discourses heard, he has been led to suppose that praying for the dead, in terms however general, was noways a peculiarity of Catholicism, but as much a permitted practice of Protestantism. It is a practical doctrine in the Catholic Church, it has an influence highly consoling to humanity, and eminently worthy of a religion that came down from heaven to second all the purest feelings of the heart. Nature herself seems to revolt at the idea that the chain of attachment which binds us together in life, can be rudely snapped asunder by the hand of death, conquered and deprived of its sting since the victory of the cross. But it is not to the spoil of mortality, cold and disfigured, that she clings with affection. It is but an earthly and almost unchristian grief, which sobs when the grave closes over the bier of a departed loved one: but the soul flies upward to a more spiritual affection, and refuses to surrender the hold which it had upon the love and interest of the spirit that has fled. Cold and dark as the sepulchral vault is the belief that sympathy is at an end when the body is shrouded in decay, and that no further interchange of friendly offices may take place between those who have lain down to sleep in peace and us, who for awhile strew fading flowers upon their tomb. But sweet is the consolation to the dying man, who, conscious of imperfection, believes that even after his own time of merit is expired, there are others to make intercession on his behalf; soothing to the afflicted survivors the thought, that instead of unavailing tears they possess more powerful means of actively relieving their friend, and testifying their affectionate regret, by prayer and supplication. In the first moments of grief, this sentiment will often overpower religious prejudice, cast down the unbeliever on his knees beside the remains of his friend, and s.n.a.t.c.h from him an unconscious prayer for rest; it is an impulse of nature, which for the moment, aided by the a.n.a.logies of revealed truth, seizes at once upon this consoling belief. But it is only like the flitting and melancholy light which sometimes plays as a meteor over the corpses of the dead; while the Catholic feeling, cheering, though with solemn dimness, resembles the unfailing lamp which the piety of the ancients is said to have hung before the sepulchres of their dead. It prolongs the tenderest affections beyond the gloom of the grave, and it infuses the inspiring hope that the a.s.sistance which we on earth can afford to our suffering brethren, will be amply repaid when they have reached their place of rest, and make of them friends, who, when _we_ in our turns fail, shall receive us into everlasting mansions. [1]

[Footnote 1: "Lectures on the Catholic Church," often called the "Moorfield Lectures," from being delivered in St. Mary's Moorfields, in the Lent of 1836. Vol. I., Lecture xi, pp 65,68. This lecture upon Purgatory is an admirable exposition of the Catholic doctrine, supported by numberless testimonies from the Fathers.]

REPLY TO SOME MISSTATEMENTS ABOUT PURGATORY.

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING, OF BALTIMORE.

"The Synod of Florence," says this writer, [1] "was the first which taught the doctrine of Purgatory, as an article of faith. It had, indeed, been held by the Pope and by many writers, and it became the popular doctrine during the period under review; but it was not decreed by any authority of the universal, or even the whole Latin Church. In the Eastern Church it was always rejected."

[Footnote 1: Rev. Wm. A. Palmer of Worcester College, Oxford, in his "Compendium of Ecclesiastical History."]

Even admitting, for the sake of argument, that the Council of Florence was the first which defined this doctrine as an article of faith, would it thence follow that the doctrine itself was of recent origin? It could only be inferred that it was never before questioned, and that, therefore, there was no need of any definition on the subject. Would it follow from the fact, that the Council of Nice was the first general synod which defined the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, that this, too, was a new doctrine, unknown to the three previous centuries? Mr. Palmer himself admits that this tenet of Purgatory "had become the popular doctrine during the period under review;" which, in connection with the solemn promises of Christ to guard His Church from error, clearly proves that it was an article of divine revelation,--on the principles even of our Oxford divine!

It is not true that "it was always rejected in the Eastern Church." The Greek Church admitted it in the Council of Florence and, at least, impliedly, in that of Lyons. It had never been a bar to union between the churches, however their theologians may have differed on the secondary question, whether the souls detained in this middle place of temporary expiation are purified by a material fire. "The ancient Fathers, both of the Greek and Latin Church, who had occasion to refer to the subject, had unanimously agreed in maintaining the doctrine, as could be easily shown by reference to their works. All the ancient liturgies of both Churches had embodied this same article of faith. And even at present, not only the Greek Church, but all the Oriental sectaries still hold it as doctrine, and practice accordingly."

COUNT DE MAISTRE ON PURGATORY.

You have heard, in countries separated from the Roman Church, the _doctors of the law_ deny at once h.e.l.l and Purgatory. You might well have taken the denial of a word for that of a thing. An enormous power is that of words! The minister who would be angry at that of Purgatory will readily grant us a _place of expiation_, or an _intermediate state_, or perhaps even _stations_, who knows?

without thinking it in the least ridiculous. One of the great motives of the sixteenth century revolt was precisely _Purgatory_. The insurgents would have nothing less than h.e.l.l, pure and simple.

Nevertheless, when they became philosophers, they set about denying the eternity of punishment, allowing, nevertheless, a _h.e.l.l for a time_, only through good policy and for fear of putting into heaven at one stroke Nero and Messalina side by side with St. Louis and St.

Teresa. But a temporary h.e.l.l is nothing else than Purgatory; so that having broken with us because they did not want Purgatory, they broke with us anew because they wanted Purgatory only.

WHAT THE SAINTS THOUGHT OF PURGATORY.

In the Special Announcement of the "Messenger of St. Joseph's Union"

for 1885-6, we find the following interesting remarks in relation to the devotion to the Souls in Purgatory: "St. Gregory the Great, speaking of Purgatory, calls it 'a penitential fire harder to endure than all the tribulations of this world.' St. Augustine says that the torment of fire alone endured by the holy souls in Purgatory, exceeds all the tortures inflicted on the martyrs; and St. Thomas says that there is no difference between the fire of h.e.l.l and that of Purgatory.

Prayer for the souls in Purgatory is a source of great blessings to ourselves. It is related of a holy religious who had for a long time struggled in vain to free himself from an impure temptation, and who appealed earnestly to the Blessed Virgin to deliver him, that she appeared to him and commanded him to pray earnestly for the souls in Purgatory. He did so, and from that time the temptation left him. The duration of the period of confinement in Purgatory is probably much longer than we are inclined to think. We find by the Revelations of Sister Francesca of Pampeluna that the majority of souls in Purgatory with whose sufferings she was made acquainted, were detained there for a period extending from thirty to sixty years; and, as many of those of whom she speaks were holy Carmelites, some of whom had even wrought miracles when on earth, what must be the fate of poor worldlings who seldom think of gaining an indulgence either for themselves or their departed friends and relatives? Father Faber commenting on this subject--the length of time that the holy souls are detained in Purgatory--says very justly: 'We are apt to leave off too soon praying for our parents, friends, or relatives, imagining with a foolish and unenlightened esteem for the holiness of their lives, that they are freed from Purgatory much sooner than they really are.' Can the holy souls in Purgatory a.s.sist us by their prayers? Most a.s.suredly. St.

Liguori says: 'Though the souls in Purgatory are unable to pray or merit for themselves, they can obtain by prayer many favors for those who pray for them on earth.' St. Catherine of Bologna has a.s.sured us that she obtained many favors by the prayers of the holy souls in Purgatory which she had asked in vain through the intercession of the saints. The Holy Ghost says: 'He who stoppeth his ear against the cry of the poor, shall also cry himself and shall not be heard,' and St.

Vincent Ferrer says, in expounding that pa.s.sage, that the holy souls in Purgatory cry to G.o.d for justice against those who on earth refuse to help them by their prayers, and that G.o.d will most a.s.suredly hear their cry. Let us, therefore, do all in our power to relieve the holy souls in Purgatory, and avert from ourselves the punishment that G.o.d is sure to inflict on those whose faith is too dead, or whose hearts are too cold to heed the cry that rises, day and night, from that sea of fire: 'Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends!'" Job xix.

21.

PURGATORY.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

That the doctrine of Purgatory opens to the Christian poet a source of the marvellous which was unknown to antiquity will be readily admitted.

[1] Nothing, perhaps, is more favorable to the inspiration of the muse than this middle state of expiation between the region of bliss and that of pain, suggesting the idea of a confused mixture of happiness and of suffering. The graduation of the punishments inflicted on those souls that are more or less happy, more or less brilliant, according to their degree of proximity to an eternity of joy or of woe, affords an impressive subject for poetic description. In this respect, it surpa.s.ses the subjects of heaven and h.e.l.l, because it possesses a future which they do not.

[Footnote 1: Some trace of this dogma is to be found in Plato and in the doctrine of Zeno. (See Diog. Laer.) The poets also appear to have had some idea of it (aeneid, v. vi), but these notions are all vague and inconsequent.]

The river Lethe was a graceful appendage of the ancient Elysium; but it cannot be said that the shades which came to life again on its banks exhibited the same poetical progress in the way to happiness that we behold in the souls of Purgatory. When they left the abodes of bliss to reappear among men, they pa.s.sed from a perfect to an imperfect state.

They re-entered the ring for the fight. They were born again to undergo a second death. In short, they came forth to see what they had already seen before. Whatever can be measured by the human mind is necessarily circ.u.mscribed. We may admit, indeed, that there was something striking and true in the circle by which the ancients symbolized eternity; but it seems to us that it fetters the imagination by confining it always within a dreaded enclosure. The straight line extended _ad infinitum_ would, perhaps, be more expressive, because it would carry our thoughts into a world of undefined realities, and would bring together three things which appear to exclude each other--hope, mobility, eternity.

The apportionment of the punishment to the sin is another source of invention which is found in the purgatorial state, and is highly favorable to the sentimental.... If violent winds, raging fires, and icy cold, lend their influence to the torments of h.e.l.l, why may not milder sufferings be derived from the song of the nightingale, from the fragrance of flowers, from the murmur of the brook, or from the moral affections themselves? Homer and Ossian tell us of the joy of grief _aruerou tetarpo mesthagolo_.