Before Holy Mass today, I picked up my favorite book, “Purgatory – Explained by the Lives and Legends of the Saints” by Fr. F.X. Shouppe S.J. As always when reading this book, I stumbled upon a story that shook me up a bit. The story comes from St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. In 2019, I posted St. Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus giving a little information about her. This great saint is mentioned several times in the Purgatory book. In fact, there are four different stories, which are related to her and Purgatory. I’ve decided to post all of them here for our edification.
First Story
Let us conclude what we have said concerning the nature of these pains by some details which we find in the Life of Blessed Margaret Mary of the Visitation. They are taken in part from the Memoir of Mother Grefifier, who, wisely diffident on the subject of the extraordinary graces granted to Blessed Sister Margaret, recognized the truth only after a thousand trials. Mother Philiberte Emmanuel de Montoux, Superior at Annecy, died 2 February 1683, after a life which had edified the whole Order. Mother Grefifier recommended her especially to the prayers of Sister Margaret. After some time the latter told her superior that Our Lord had made known to her that this soul was most dear to Him on account of her love and fidelity in His service, and that an ample recompense awaited her in Heaven when she should have accomplished her purification in Purgatory.
The Blessed Sister saw the departed in the place of expiation. Our Lord showed her the sufferings which she endured, and how greatly she was relieved by the suffrages and good works which were daily offered for her throughout the whole Order of the Visitation. During the night from Holy Thursday to Good Friday, whilst Sister
Margaret was still praying for her. He showed her the soul of the departed as placed under the chalice which contained the Sacred Host on the altar of repose. There she participated in the merits of His agony in the Garden of Olives. On Easter Sunday, which that year fell on April 18, Sister Margaret saw the soul enjoying the commencement, as it were, of eternal felicity, desiring and hoping soon to be admitted to the vision and possession of God.
Finally, a fortnight after, on 2 May Sunday, Feast of the Good Shepherd, she saw the soul of the departed as rising sweetly into eternal glory, chanting melodiously the canticle of Divine Love.
Let us see how Blessed Margaret herself gives the account of this last apparition in a letter addressed on the same day, 2 May 1623, to Mother de Saumaise at Dijon: “Jesus forever!
My soul is filled with so great a joy that I can scarcely restrain myself Permit me, dear Mother, to communicate it to your heart, which is one with mine in that of Our Lord. This morning, Sunday of the Good Shepherd, on my awakening, two of my good suffering friends came to bid me adieu.
Today the Supreme Pastor receives them into His eternal fold with a million other souls. Both joined this multitude of blessed souls, and departed singing canticles of joy. One is the good Mother Philiberte Emmanuel de Montoux, the other Sister Jeanne Catherine Gacon. One repeated unceasingly these words: Love triumphs, love rejoices in God; the other. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, and the Religious who live and die in the exact observance of their rules. Both desired that I should say to you on their part that death may separate souls, but can never disunite them. If you knew how my soul was transported with joy! For whilst I was speaking to them, I saw them sink by degrees into glory like a person who plunges into the vast ocean. They ask of you in thanksgiving to the Holy Trinity one Laudate and three times Gloria Patri. As I desired them to remember us, their last words were that ingratitude is unknown in Heaven.”
Second Story
We read of the Life of Blessed Margaret Mary that a soul was tortured in a bed of torments on account of her indolence during life; at the same time she was subjected to a particular torture in her heart, on account of certain wicked sentiments, and in her tongue, in punishment of her uncharitable words. Moreover, she had to endure a frightful pain of an entirely different nature, caused neither by fire nor iron, but by the sight of a condemned soul. Let us see how the Blessed Margaret describes it in her writings.
“I saw in a dream,” she says, “one of our sisters who had died some time previous. She told me that she suffered much in Purgatory, but that God had inflicted upon her a suffering which surpassed all other pains, by showing her one of her near relatives precipitated into Hell.
“At these words I awoke, and felt as though my body was bruised from head to foot, so that it was with difficulty I could move. As we should not believe in dreams, I paid little attention to this one, but the Religious obliged me to do so in spite of myself. From that moment she gave me no rest, and said to me incessantly, ‘Pray to God for me; offer to Him your sufferings united to those of Jesus Christ, to alleviate mine; and give me all you shall do until the first Friday in May, when you will please communicate for me.’ This I did, with permission of my superior.
“Meanwhile the pain which this suffering soul caused me increased to such a degree that I could find neither comfort nor repose. Obedience obliged me to seek a little rest upon my bed; but scarcely had I retired when she seemed to approach me, saying, ‘You recline at your ease upon your bed; look at the one upon which I lie, and where I endure intolerable sufferings.’ I saw that bed, and the very thought of it makes me shudder. The top and bottom was of sharp flaming points which pierced the flesh. She told me then that this was on account of her sloth and negligence in the observance of the rules. ‘My heart is torn,’ she continued, ‘and causes me the most terrible sufferings for my thoughts of disapproval and criticism of my superiors. My tongue is devoured by vermin, and, as it were, torn from my mouth continually, for the words I spoke against charity and my little regard for the rule of silence. Ah! would that all souls consecrated to God could see me in these torments. If I could show them what is prepared for those who live negligently in their vocation, their zeal and fervor would be entirely renewed, and they would avoid those faults which now cause me to suffer so much.’
“At this sight I melted into tears. ‘Alas!’ said she, ‘one day passed by the whole community in exact observance would heal my parched mouth; another passed in the practice of holy charity would cure my tongue; and a third passed without any murmuring or disapproval of superiors would heal my bruised heart; but no one thinks to relieve me.’
“After I had offered the Communion which she had asked of me, she said that her dreadful torments were much diminished, but she had still to remain a long time in
Purgatory, condemned to suffer the pains due to those souls that have been tepid in the service of God. As for myself,” adds Blessed Margaret Mary, “I found that I was freed from my sufferings, which I had been told would not diminish until the soul herself should be relieved.” (Languet, Vie de la B. Marguerite).
In that famous apparition where Blessed Margaret Mary saw the deceased Religious suffering intensely for her tepidity, the poor soul, after having related in detail the torments which she endured, concluded with these words: “Alas! one hour of exactitude in silence would cure my parched mouth; another passed in the practice of charity would heal my tongue; another passed without murmuring or disapprobation of the actions of the Superior would cure my tortured heart.”
By this we see that the soul asked not for works of supererogation, but only the application of those to which the Religious are obliged.
Third Story
Monseigneur Languet, Bishop of Soissons, makes the same remark with reference to a circumstance which he relates in the Life of Blessed Margaret Alacoque. Madame Billet, wife of the doctor of the house – that is to say, of the convent of Paray – where the blessed sister resided, had Just died. The soul of the deceased appeared to the servant of God, asking her prayers, and charging her to warn her husband of two secret affairs that concerned his salvation. The holy sister gave an account of what had taken place to her Superior, Mother Greffier. The Superior ridiculed the vision, and the one who related it to her; she imposed silence upon Margaret, forbidding her to say or do anything regarding what had been asked of her. “The humble Religious obeyed with simplicity; and with the same simplicity she related to Mother Greffier the second solicitation which she received from the deceased some days later; but the Superior treated this with the same contempt. However, the following night she herself was aroused by such a horrible noise in her room that she thought she would die from fright. She called the sisters, and when assistance came, she was on the point of swooning away. When she somewhat recovered, she reproached herself with incredulity, and no longer delayed to acquaint the doctor with what had been revealed to Sister Margaret.
“The doctor recognized the warning as coming from God, and profited by it. As for Mother Greffier, she learned by experience that if distrust is ordinarily the wisest policy, it is sometimes wrong to carry it too far, especially when the glory of God and the good of our neighbor is concerned.”
Fourth Story
Among the revelations of Our Lord to Margaret Mary on the subject of Purgatory there is one which shows how particularly severe are the punishments inflicted for faults against Charity. “One day,” relates Monseigneur Languet, “Our Lord showed His servant a number of souls deprived of the assistance of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, and even of the visits of their angel guardians; this was,” said her Divine Master, “in punishment for their want of union with their superiors, and certain misunderstandings. Many of those souls were destined to remain for a great length of time in horrible flames. The blessed sister recognized also many souls who had lived in religion, and who, on account of their lack of union and charity with their brethren, were deprived of their suffrages and received no alleviations.”
If it is true that God punishes thus severely those that have failed in Charity, He will be infinitely merciful towards those who have practiced this virtue so dear to His Heart. But before all things. He says to us by the mouth of His Apostle, Saint Peter, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves, for charity covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8).
Let us hear Monseigneur Languet again in the Life of Margaret Mary. It is Mother Grefiber, he says, who, in the memoir she wrote after the death of the blessed sister, attests the following fact. “I cannot omit the cause of certain particular circumstances which manifest the truth of a revelation made on this occasion to the servant of God. The father of one of the novices was the cause of it. This gentleman had died some time previous, and had been recommended to the prayers of the community. The charity of Sister Margaret, then Mistress of Novices, urged her to pray more especially for him.
“Some days later the novice went to recommend him to her prayers. ‘My daughter,’ said her holy mistress, ‘be perfectly tranquil; your father is rather in a condition to pray for us.
Ask your mother what was the most generous action your father performed before his death; this action has obtained for him from God a favorable judgment.’
“The action to which she alluded was unknown to the novice; no one in Paray knew the circumstance of a death which had happened so far away from that town. The novice did not see her mother until long afterwards, on the day of her profession. She then asked what was that generous Christian action which her father had performed before dying. ‘When the Holy Viaticum was brought to him,’ replied her mother, ‘the butcher joined those who accompanied the Blessed Sacrament, and placed himself in a corner of the room. The sick, on perceiving him, called him by his name, told him to approach, and, pressing his hand with a humility uncommon in persons of his rank, asked pardon for some hard words which he had addressed to him from time to time, and desired that all present should be witness of the reparation which he made.’ Sister Margaret had learned from God alone what had taken place, and the novice knew by that the consoling truth of what she had told her concerning her father’s happy state in the other life.”
Let us add that God, by this revelation, has shown us once more how Charity covereth a multitude of sins, and will cause us to find Mercy in the day of Justice.
Blessed Margaret Mary received from our Divine Lord another communication relative to Charity. He showed her the soul of a deceased person who had to undergo but a light chastisement, and He told her that among all the good works which this person had performed in the world, He had taken into special consideration certain humiliations to which she had submitted in the world, because she had suffered them in the spirit of charity, not only without murmuring, but even without speaking of them. Our Lord added, that, in recompense. He had given her a mild and favorable judgment.
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