Nor are there indulgences in purgatory, nor fresh use of the merits of Christ, of His Mother, and of the saints. Thanks however to our union in the Mystical Body of Christ, thanks to the communion of the saints, we can gain merit for the suffering souls. We can win indulgences and apply them to the period of waiting of these souls. We can cut their sufferings and speed their entry into heaven by whatever of good that we offer for them on earth. Swiftly the memory even of the dear dead seems to pass from human minds.
Memory is like the tears upon a coffin, swiftly evaporated, quickly dried.
The rush of the days fills the minds and hands of the living. The press of old associations and the establishment of new friends helps supplant and elbow into the dusty corners of our minds the friends now hidden in God's penitentiary. But these prisoners do not forget us. In the slow, painful dragging of the days they have time to remember. They are so hungry for God that they have little heart for new companions.