Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire!

 

 

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons )     There will be few people whose lives are pure and fulfilled in all respects.   And, we would hope, there will be few people whose lives have become an irredeemable and total “No”. ...In any case, we need a final cleansing, a cleansing by fire, to be exact, in which   the gaze of Christ, so to say, burns us free from everything, and only under this purifying gaze are we, as it were, fit to be with God and able, then, to make our home with him.  (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)  

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons) The suffering souls in purgatory are powerless to help themselves, and therefore we should from charity help them. For we would be considered exceedingly hard-hearted who, if he could, would not assist his own brother were he in a city prison; and therefore a great deal more hard-hearted are we if we do not help our friends in purgatory; especially since no earthly punishment can be compared to theirs in any way.  St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) An infinite number of souls who suffer in Purgatory and for whom the Church prays daily after consecration did not need to go there.   If we think in human terms, God does not wish for us to need Purgatory.   God does not put us here on earth, where we are tested and are suffering after the fall, only to let us suffer again – and much worse – in Purgatory.   Everyone receives enough graces in order to go straight to God after passing the trials on earth.   However, Purgatory is an emergency entry to Heaven for those who have wasted their time.  St. Therese of Lisieux

   (Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) It is God, then, Who will pronounce judgment on the souls of men at the moment of death.   But, in another sense, it is men who will pass judgment on themselves.   At the moment of judgment, the soul which has left its body in death will see clearly its own merits and demerits, its own love or lack of love for God.   In a moment of blinding clarity, God will infuse this perfect self-knowledge into the soul which has left the world of time and space.   The soul will see the absolute justice of the judgment of God. In that very instant, the soul will ascend to the heights of heaven, fall to the fires of purgatory for a time, or descend forever into hell.   In that “Hour of truth” each soul will know itself perfectly and see the truth of its own judgment. Walter Farrell, O.P., S.TM. and Martin J. Healy, S.T.D.