Purgatory V

Hierarchy Of Expiations

2019-Dec-18   . . .   By: ncdm

God has shown the gloomy abodes of Purgatory to the Saints, the privileged souls who were to bear witness to the sorrowful mysteries thereof for the edification of the faithful. These Saints, who have lived in widely dispersed locations and time period since the time of Jesus, have told and shown remarkable consistency and resemblance of their accounts concerning Purgatory, and also of Hell. In her Diary #741, Saint Faustina declared: “I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like. By the order of God, I have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence.”

The Saints revealed that Purgatory is like three huge regions and/or levels, one on top of the other. The bottom Purgatory is “beside or adjacent” to where Hell is. The souls are buried more deeply in proportion as they are more defiled and farther removed from the time of their death. The fire in this prison of suffering is as fierce as in Hell, the only difference is that it is not dark, and it is not “eternal” since the souls after “expiation of their sins” then journey to Heaven. In the bottom Purgatory, there are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another – the souls are tortured in those senses which where made use of to sin. This is the “torments of the senses”, and this is also inferred to in the Bible.

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter heaven maimed than with two hands to go into hell. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter heaven crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.” – Mark 9:45.

*

Dungeons of Purgatory

The Three regions of Purgatory were beautifully explained and described by Saint Frances of Rome and Saint Magdalen de Pazzi.

Frances of Rome, -[1384-1440, Rome Papal States]- is an Italian saint who was a wife, mother, mystic, organizer of charitable services, and a Benedictine oblate who founded a religious community of oblates. She was born from a wealthy and aristocratic family but chose to take care of the poor and the sick, inspiring other wealthy women of the city to do the same. She had the gift of miracles, prophesy, and ecstasy, and had revelations concerning Purgatory and Hell. She had foretold the ending of the Western Schism. She could read the secrets of consciences and detect plots of diabolical origin. She was remarkable for her humility and detachment, her obedience and patience. – Saint Frances of Rome – [wikipedia]

Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, -[1566-1607, Florence, Italy]- was an Italian Carmelite nun and mystic. She came from one of the wealthiest and most distinguished noble families of Renaissance Florence. At age fourteen, in 1580, Pazzi chose to enter monastic life in the Carmelite monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. She had the gift of healing, prophesy, bilocation, and could read the thoughts of others and predict future events. At her canonization as a saint in 1668, 60 years after her death, her body was declared miraculously incorrupt. – Saint Magdalen de Pazzi – [wikipedia]

Upper Purgatory:– This is the least described. Most Saints don’t elucidate, only describing that is the temporary abode of souls which suffer little, except the “waiting and anticipation” of that beatific vision of God, as they approach the happy moment of their deliverance.

Intermediate Purgatory:– This is destined for souls which had deserved less rigorous chastisement. They were the souls that had not been given to any particular vice, but which, through lack of proper vigilance over themselves, had committed all kinds of trivial faults. They were simple souls, and of children in whom ignorance and lack of reason extenuated many faults. These souls had share in the chastisements of all vices, in a moderate degree, because those faults committed only from time to time rendered them less guilty than those committed through habit. Their torments were much more endurable than those of the others. The souls had their angel-guardians with them, who fortify them greatly by their presence, but there were also demons whose dreadful forms increased their suffering. Nothing but ice and fire are here: one resembled an immense dungeon of ice, the cold of which is indescribably intense; and the second, on the contrary, is like a huge cauldron of boiling oil and pitch.
.. . This place was filled with innumerable souls. Both sides were full of souls, which seemed, by turns, to be tossed from one side to the other, as it were by a violent storm; for when the poor wretches could no longer endure the violence of the fire and the excess of heat, they sought relief and leaped into the middle of the cutting cold of the ice and snow; and finding no rest there, only a new torture, they leaped back again into the middle of the unquenchable flames. The souls suffered without ever having repose.

Bottom Purgatory:– The following is the account of St. Magdalen de Pazzi of that ecstasy where she was led by an angel of the Lord and showed her the bottom Purgatory, which is just “adjacent” to where Hell is. It happened just before she died in 1607. She saw that although the souls are enveloped in the same flames, their sufferings are not the same. They differ according to the number and nature of their former sins.

Hypocrisy:– the souls are with hideous demons and in an incredible torments. They are being pierced with sharp swords, and are being cut into pieces.

Impatience and Disobedience:– they were being bruised, and crushed under a press. These souls had been addicted to impatience and disobedience during life.

Lying:– “Liars are confined in a place in the vicinity of Hell, and their sufferings are exceedingly great. Molten lead is poured into their mouths; I see them burn, and at the same time tremble with cold.”

Weakness:– those who had sinned through weakness suffer more severely than those who sinned through ignorance. She exclaimed, “Alas! I had thought to find you among those who have sinned through ignorance, but I am mistaken; you burn with an intenser fire.”

Avarice:– these souls had been too much attached to the goods of this world, and had sinned by avarice. “What blindness thus eagerly to seek a perishable fortune! Those whom formerly riches could not sufficiently satiate, are here gorged with torments. They are smelted like metal in the furnace.”

Impurity:– this place was for those souls that were formerly been stained with impurity. She saw them in so filthy and pestilential a dungeon that the sight produced nausea. She turned away quickly from that loathsome spectacle.

Pride:– seeing the ambitious and the proud, she said, “Behold those who wished to shine before men; now they are condemned to live in this frightful obscurity.”

Ingratitude:– then she was shown those souls which had been guilty of ingratitude towards God. They were a prey to unutterable torments, and, as it were, drowned in a lake of molten lead, for having by their ingratitude dried up the source of piety.

* * **

OTHER SOURCE:

Saints on Purgatory – [devotiontoourlady.com]

* * *

2 thoughts on “”

Leave a Comment