The book Purgatory, by Fr. Schouppe, is a book to
read in order to understand why people go to Purgatory rather than hell. It
shows the consequences of sin and what must be done to expiate it should one
die in these sins which are not mortal (1 John 5:17). You can find the link to
the book by clinking here
Father Schouppe's book Purgatory is a classic that
relates stories and private revelations from the lives of saints, blessed,
religious, and other holy men and women.
It is divided into two parts. The first part focuses
on purgatory as God's justice and the second part focuses on purgatory as God's
mercy.
Part one contains 41 chapters while part 2 contains
65 chapters with each chapter around 5 pages each. It is easy to spend only 10
minutes a day reading this book, as each chapter relates one or several self-contained
stories. Hence this makes a wonderful book for daily spiritual reading. It is
not an apologetic for the existence of purgatory or even a systematic
theological treatise on purgatory, yet I would say ultimately a meditation on
the reason for the existence of purgatory.
The author is careful to balance the seriousness of
sin and the terror and torment of purgatory with the loving and unbounded mercy
of our Lord. We see both of these being illustrated in the stories of the
saints. It should be noted that this is not a book for someone who is skeptical
or not docile to accepting supernatural phenomena. Many stories will seem
"exaggerated" and "from a time when people were scientifically
ignorant." But this attitude is problematic, as given the truth of the
Catholic faith, there is simply no reason to doubt all kinds of supernatural
phenomena related in the book, including many conversations, locutions, and
visitations with those in purgatory. Please avoid being skeptical of these
pious stories that exist for our edification and salvation.
The book makes abundantly clear the need for us to
pray for the dead. Often we neglect the poor souls in purgatory since
"they'll make it to heaven anyway" but once again, this attitude
belies an ignorance of the pains and sufferings of purgatory, the doctrine of
merit, as well as the doctrine of the communion of saints. The slightest venial
sin is shown to cause tremendous suffering in purgatory (often described in
years) and the holy souls have no recourse to merit in purgatory anymore. Hence
the need for our prayers to relieve their sufferings. Again at the same time,
the stories relayed by the saints also make clear how great the mercy of Our
Lord is and how much good we can do to relieve the souls through our prayers.
Finally I have heard some people express serious
reservations about this book since according to them the book may have
concentrated too much on the terrors and pains of purgatory. This is hardly the
truth. While it is true that there is much focus on the justice of God
especially in terms of the pain and suffering of purgatory, I think what it can
do for the reader is to indirectly express to them the holiness of God. How can
one convey God's holiness? God's holy! No, I mean, he's really really holy!
Wait, you don't understand- really, really, really holy!
This does not quite do it. But there is a way to get
a closer approximation through mediation on purgatory found in this book. There
are several stories that have the following element: there was an extremely
holy saint. He lived a life almost totally free from sin and from all punishment
due to sin. By the time he died, the only punishment that he had not undergone
due to sin upon earth was punishment for, say, taking too much joy in the
pleasures of a comfortable chair (I'm making this up, but something as
seemingly innocuous as this).
At death, this saint was sentenced to 30 years in
purgatory where he would experience the most intense pains similar to being
stabbed with needles all over his body. Now, one can draw at least two
conclusions from this.
"Wow,
God is mean and sadistic! How can he punish someone in such a severe manner for
such a small thing?" This of course is a wrong conclusion to draw. The
other, the point of this paragraph, is that one could also conclude "Wow!
Look at how horrible our sin is! The simplest sin on our souls offends God in a
way that we cannot even begin to comprehend! If such a "small" sin is
so offensive to such a holy and pure God, how much more is a mortal sin
offensive to him?"
I think this is a good way to begin to understand
how holy God is. By the way, stories like this usually end with the soul in
purgatory being released much sooner than the punishment originally stated, as
someone (like you or me!) said prayers and merited for them. That is one of the
upshots of such stories.
I definitely recommend this book for a good
spiritual reading which you can put into practice immediately. Develop a
devotion to the holy souls in purgatory. For before you know it, it will be you
in purgatory, hoping for prayers from those on earth.
Usually it is recommended that before you live the
house just say: “Eternal Rest grant unto them oh Lord and let they perpetual
light shine upon them, Amen”
Presented by Malachy Mary Igwilo, on the Feast day
of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, 1st July 2016
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