What is purgatory? The Saints tell us

A month consecrated to the Dead:
- will bring relief to those dear and holy souls, by exciting us to support them;
- it will benefit us, because if the thought of hell helps to avoid mortal sin, the thought of purgatory takes us away from the venial;
- will give glory to the Lord, since paradise will open to so many souls who will sing to the Lord for eternity honor and praise.

Purgatory is the state of purification in which the souls who have passed on to another life or with some punishment still to be served, or with venial sins not yet forgiven, find themselves after death.

St. Thomas says: «It is written of Wisdom that nothing stained is found in it. Now the soul stains itself precisely with sin, from which it can purify itself however with penance. But it often happens that a complete and full penance is not done on earth. And then we move on to eternity carrying debts with Divine Justice: since not all venial sins are always accused and detested; nor always in confession does the punishment due to grave or venial sin remain wholly undone. And then these souls don't deserve hell; nor can they enter heaven; there must be a place of expiation, and this expiation is done with more or less intense, more or less long penalties ».

«When a person lives with his heart attached to the earth could he suddenly change his affections? A purifying fire must consume the impurities of love; so that the fire of divine love that ignites the blessed may burn.

When a person has languid, almost extinguished faith, and the soul lives as if enveloped in ignorance and in shadow and guided by earthly maxims, how could it suddenly endure that very high, shining, inaccessible light, which is the Lord? Through Purgatory his eyes will gradually make the transition from darkness to eternal light ».

Purgatory is the state in which cold souls are exercising themselves in holy desires to be always and only with God. Purgatory is the state in which God, by means of a very wise and merciful work, makes the souls beautiful and perfect. There the final touches of the brush; there the last chisel work so that the soul is worthy to remain in the celestial rooms; there the last hand so that the soul may be perfumed and embalmed by the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ and may be welcomed in a sweet smell by Heavenly Father. Purgatory is divine justice and mercy at the same time; how justice and mercy are together the whole mystery of redemption. It is God who does the work that did not have the ardor of accomplishing the soul by itself on earth.

Released from the prison of the body, the soul with a single glance will embrace all its individual internal and external acts, with all the circumstances whence they were accompanied. He will give an account of everything, even from an idle, vain word, even if perhaps seventy years ago. "Every unfounded word men will account for on the day of judgment." On the day of judgment, sins will be shown to be much more serious than during life, as for a just compensation even the virtues will shine with a more vivid splendor.

A religious by the name of Stefano was transported in inspiration to the court of God. He was reduced to agony on his deathbed, when he was suddenly upset and responding to an invisible interlocutor. His religious brothers who surrounded the bed listened with terror to his answers: - It was true, I did this action, but I imposed myself many years of fasting. - I don't deny that fact, but I've been crying for so many years. - This is still true, but in expiation I have served my neighbor for three continuous years. - Then, after a moment of silence, she exclaimed: - Ah! on this point I have nothing to answer; you rightly accuse me, and I have nothing else in my defense than to recommend myself to the infinite mercy of God.

St. John Climacus, who reports this fact of which he was an eyewitness, tells us that that religious had lived forty years in his monastery, which had the gift of tongues and many other great privileges, which far advanced the other monks for the exemplary nature of his life and for the rigors of his penances, and he concludes with these words: "Unhappy me! what will I become and what can I hope so petty, if the son of the desert and penance found himself defenseless in the face of a few light sins? ».

A person had grown day by day in virtue, and by his fidelity in responding to divine grace he had reached a degree of very high perfection, when he fell seriously ill. His brother, the blessed Giovanni Battista Tolomei, rich in merits before God, could not obtain healing with all his fervent prayers; she therefore received the last sacraments with moving pity, and shortly before expiring she had a vision in which she observed the place reserved for her in Purgatory, in punishment for some defects which had not been studied enough to correct during her life; at the same time the various torments that souls suffer over there were manifested to her; after which he expired recommending himself to the prayers of his holy brother.
While the corpse was being transported to burial, Blessed John the Baptist approached the coffin, ordered his sister to rise, and she almost waking up from a deep sleep, returned with an amazing miracle to life. In the time that he continued to live on earth that holy soul recounted on the judgment of God such things to make him tremble with terror, but what more than any other confirmed the truth of his words was the life he led: his penances were very rigorous having her, not content with her austerities common to all the other saints, such as vigils, cilices, fasts, and disciplines, invented new secrets to martyr her body.
And since she was sometimes taken up and blamed, greedy as she was with humiliations and annoyances, she wasn't worried about it, and to those who took it back she replied: Oh! if you knew the rigor of God's judgments, you wouldn't speak like this!

In the Symbol of the Apostles we say that Jesus Christ after his death "descended into hell". «The name of hell, says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, means those hidden places, where the souls who have not yet obtained eternal bliss are kept prison. One is a black and dark prison, in which the souls of the reprobate are continually tormented, with unclean spirits, by a fire that never goes out. This place, which is hell proper, is still called gehenna and abyss.
«There is another hell, in which the fire of Purgatory is found. In it the souls of the righteous suffer for a time, in order to be fully purified, before they have opened the entrance to the heavenly homeland; for nothing stained could ever enter it.

«A third hell was the one in which, before the coming of Jesus Christ, the souls of the saints were received, and in which they enjoyed a peaceful rest, free of pain, consoled and supported by the hope of their redemption. They are those holy souls who waited for Jesus Christ in Abraham's womb and who were freed when he went down to hell. Then the Savior immediately shed a bright light among them, which filled them with an ineffable joy and made them enjoy the sovereign bliss, which was found in the vision of God. Then that promise of Jesus to the thief occurred: "Today you will be with me in Paradise "[Lk 23,43:XNUMX]».

«A very probable feeling, says St. Thomas, and which, moreover, agrees with the words of the Saints and with the particular revelations, is that for the atonement of Purgatory there would be a double place. The first would be destined for the generality of souls, and is located downstairs, near hell; the second would be for special cases, and many apparitions would emerge from it. "

St. Bernard, celebrating once the Holy Mass in the church that stands near the Three Fountains of St. Paul in Rome, saw a staircase that went from the earth to heaven, and on it the Angels who came and went from Purgatory, removing the purging souls from there and leading them all beautiful to Heaven.