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PURGATORY:
Doctrinal, Historical and Poetical,
BY
MRS. J. SADLIER
LO! PURGATORY! DOCTRINE BLEST,
ENGARLANDED WITH LEGENDS WILD,
HISTORIC LORE AND POETRY'S FAIR FLOWERS!
_"Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the just
wait for me, until thou reward me."_
Ps. CXLI 8.
DEDICATION
TO THE GRACIOUS MEMORY OF MY DEARLY-BELOVED SON, REV. FRANCIS X.
SADLIER, S.J. WHOSE TENDER DEVOTION TO THE Souls in Purgatory LED HIM
TO TAKE A DEEP AND ACTIVE INTEREST IN THE PROGRESS OF THIS WORK, BUT
WHO WAS NOT PERMITTED TO SEE ITS COMPLETION, BEING CALLED HENCE,
SCARCELY THREE MONTHS AFTER HIS ORDINATION, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MONTH
CONSECRATED TO THOSE Holy Souls, _November 14th, 1885._
R. I. P.
INTRODUCTION
I have written many books and translated many more on a great variety
of subjects, nearly all of which, I thank God now with all my heart,
were more or less religious, at least in their tendency; but the circle
of these my life-long labors seems to me incomplete. One link is
wanting to the chain, and that is a work specially devoted to the souls
in Purgatory. This omission I am anxious to supply while the working
days of my life are still with me, for, a few more years, at most, and
for me "the night cometh when no man can work."
As we advance into the vale of years and journey on the downward slope,
we are happily drawn more and more towards the eternal truths of the
great untried world beyond the grave. Foremost amongst these stands out
more and still more clearly, in all its awful reality, the dread but
consoling doctrine of Purgatory. When we have seen many of our best
beloved relatives, many of our dearest and most devoted friends--those
who started with us in "the freshness of morning" on the road of life,
which then lay so deceitfully fair and bright before them and us--they
who shared our early hopes and aspirations, and whose words and smiles
were the best encouragement of our feeble efforts--when we have seen
them sink, one by one, into the darkness of the grave, leaving the
earth more bleak and dreary year by year for those who remain--then do
we naturally follow them in spirit to those gloomy regions where one or
all may be undergoing that blessed purification which prepares them for
the eternal repose of Heaven.
Of all the divine truths which the Catholic Church proposes to her
children, assuredly none is more acceptable to the pilgrim race of Adam
than that of Purgatory. It is, beyond conception, dear and precious as
one of the links that connect the living with the vanished dead, and
which keeps them fresh in the memory of those who loved them on earth,
and whose dearest joy it is to be able to help them in that shadowy
border-land through which, in pain and sorrow, they must journey before
entering the Land of Promise, which is the City of God, seated on the
everlasting hills.
When I decided on adding yet another to the many books on Purgatory
already existing even in our own language, I, at the same time,
resolved to make it as different as possible from all the others, and
thus fill up a void of which I have long been sensible in our English
Purgatorial literature. Doctrinal works, books of devotion, e have in
abundance, but it is, unhappily, only the pious, the religiously-
inclined who will read them. Knowing this, and still desirous to
promote devotion to the Holy Souls by making Purgatory more real, more
familiar to the general reader, I thought the very best means I could
take for that end would be to make a book chiefly of legends and of
poetry, with enough of doctrinal and devotional matter to give a
substantial character to the work by placing it on the solid
foundations of Catholic dogma, patristic authority, and that, at the
same time, of the latest divines and theologians of the Church, by
selections from their published writings.
I have divided the work into five parts, viz.: Doctrinal and
Devotional, comprising extracts from Suarez, St. Catherine of Genoa,
St. Augustine, St. Gertrude, St. Francis de Sales, of the earlier and
middle ages; and from Archbishop Gibbons, Very Rev. Faá di Bruno,
Father Faber, Father Muller, C.S.S.R., Father Binet, S.J., Rev. J. J.
Moriarty, and others.
The Second Part consists of Anecdotes and Incidents relating to
Purgatory, and more or less authentic. The Third Part contains
historical matter bearing on the same subject, including Father
Lambing's valuable article on "The Belief in a Middle State of Souls
after Death amongst Pagan Nations." The Fourth Part is made up of
"Thoughts on Purgatory, from Various Authors, Catholic and non-
Catholic," including Cardinals Newman, Wiseman, and Manning; the
Anglican Bishops Jeremy Taylor and Reginald Heber, Dr. Samuel Johnson,
William Hurrell Mallock, Count de Maistre, Chateaubriand.
The Fifth and last part consists of a numerous collection of legends
and poems connected with Purgatory. Many of these are translated from
the French, especially the _Légendes de l'Autre Monde,_ by the
well-known legendist, J. Colin de Plancy. In selecting the legends and
anecdotes, I have endeavored to give only those that were new to most
English readers, thus leaving out many legends that would well bear
reproducing, but were already too well known to excite any fresh
interest.
In the poetical section I have represented as many as possible of the
best-known poets, from Dante down, and some poems of rare beauty and
merit were translated from French and Canadian poets by my daughter,
who has also contributed some interesting articles for the historical
portion of the work. As may be supposed, this book is the fruit of much
research. The collection of the material has necessarily been a work of
time, the field from which the gleanings were made being so vast, and
the selections requiring so much care.
As regards the legendary portion of the work, whether prose or poetry,
the reader will, of course, understand that I give the legends
precisely for what they are worth; by no means as representing the
doctrinal belief of Purgatory, but merely as some of the wild flowers
of poetry and romance that have grown, in the long lapse of time, from
the rich soil of faith and piety, amongst the Catholic peoples of every
land--intensified, in this instance, by the natural affection of the
living for their dear departed ones, and the solemn and shadowy mystery
in which the dead are shrouded when once they have passed the portals
of eternity and are lost to mortal sight. Some of these legends, though
exceedingly beautiful, will hardly bear close examination in the light
of Catholic dogma. Of this class is "The Faithful Soul," of Adelaide
Procter, which is merely given here as an old French legend, nearly
connected with Purgatory, and having really nothing in it contrary to
faith, though in a high degree improbable, but yet from its intrinsic
beauty and dramatic character, no less than the subtle charm of Miss
Procter's verse, eminently worthy of a place in this collection. The
same remark applies more or less to some of Colin de Plancy's legends,
notably that of "Robert the Devil's Penance," and others of a similar
kind, as also T. D. McGee's "Penance of Don Diego Rias" and Calderon's
"St. Patrick's Purgatory"--the two last named bearing on the same
subject. Nevertheless, they all come within the scope of my present
work and are, therefore, presented to the reader as weird fragments of
the legendary lore of Purgatory.
Taken altogether, I think this work will help to increase devotion to
the Suffering Souls, and excite a more tender and more sensible feeling
of sympathy for them, at least amongst Catholics, showing, as it does,
the awful reality of those purgative pains awaiting all, with few or no
exceptions, in the after life; the help they may and do receive from
the good offices of the living, and the sacred and solemn' duty it is
for Christians in the present life to remember them and endeavor to
relieve their sufferings by every means in their power. To answer this
purpose I have made the dead ages unite their solemn and authoritative
voice with that of the living, actual present in testimony of the truth
of this great Catholic dogma. The Saints, the Fathers, the Doctors of
the Church in the ages of antiquity, and the prelates and priests of
our own day all speak the same language of undoubting faith, of solemn
conviction regarding Purgatory,--make the same earnest and eloquent
appeal to the faithful on behalf of the dear suffering souls. Even the
heathen nations and tribes of both hemispheres are brought forward as
witnesses to the existence of a middle state in the after life. Nor is
Protestantism itself wanting in this great and overwhelming mass of
evidence, as the reader will perceive that some of its most eminent
divines and secular writers have joined, with no hesitating or
faltering voice, in the grand _Credo_ of the nations and the ages
in regard to Purgatory.
What remains for me to add except the earnest hope that this book may
have the effect it is intended to produce by bringing the faithful
children of the Church to think more and oftener of their departed
brethren who, having passed from the Militant to the Suffering Church,
are forever crying out to the living from their darksome prison--"Have
pity on us, have pity on us, at least you who were our friends, have
pity on us, for the hand of the Lord is heavy upon us!"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART I.
DOCTRINAL AND DEVOTIONAL.
Doctrine of Suarez on Purgatory
St. Catherine of Genoa on Purgatory
Extracts from the Fathers on Purgatory
Verses from the Imitation _Thomas à Kempis._
St. Augustine and his Mother, St. Monica
St. Gertrude and the Holy Souls
St. Joseph's Intercession for the Faithful Departed
St. Francis de Sales on Purgatory
Cardinal Gibbons on Purgatory
Archbishop Hughes on Purgatory
Archbishop Lynch on Purgatory
Purgatory Surveyed _Father Binet, S. J._
Father Faber on Devotion to the Holy Souls
Why the Souls in Purgatory are called "Poor" _Mullcr._
Appeal to all Classes for the Souls in Purgatory _By a Paulist
Father._
The Souls in Purgatory _Rev. F. X. Weninger, S. J._
Popular View of Purgatory _Rev. J. J. Moriarty._
Extracts from "Catholic Belief" _Very Rev. Faá Di Bruno, D.D._
Purgatory and the Feast of All Souls _Alban Butkr._