The Brownsville daily herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1897-1910, 1903-11-05

Somewhere in desultory reading
| ran across the following lines, and
they most truly indicate the spirit
of the church:
81 see the faces of my dead at noon,
From the white clouds, downlOoking
out Of heaven;
| hear their cries upon the winds of au-
tumn;
1 hear their signs within it's purple
twilight.
Their means come to me through the
sobbing night rain,
Pleading Pray God for US who stay in
prison."
Crying, Arise, thou sleepest and we
suffer-
Signing, 20 Lord, we drink thy awfnl
darkness
From eve to eve and all the living know
not.
These holy souls endure most
agonizing torments and count the
lingering moments of time while
awaiting their release from prison,
or, at least, some relief in their in
tense pain.
Catholic faith teaches us that we
can help them by our prayers and
good works. We can do penance for
them in their stead. We can give
them all the satisfaction of our or
binary actions and sufferings. We
can make over to them by way of
suffrage the indulgences we gain.
We can limit and direct upon them
all, or any one of them, the inten-
ton of the adorable sacrifice of the
mass. Your presence here today is
testimony of your allegiance to
Catholic faith, and your devotion
to your dear departed.
The doctrine of purgatory, insep-
arably connected with prayers for
the dead, is not of Catholic origin.
The evidence of Scripture (II
Mach, xii, 43-46) shows the belief
of the Jews in a middle state, when
the dead can profit by the good
works of the living: at is therefore
a holy and wholesome thought to
pray for the dead that they may be
loosed from their sins"
There are indisputable proofs of
the doctrine in the New Testament,
as we learn from the Interpretation
of the early fathers of the church,
namely: Matthew, xii, 80, in which
Christ speaks of sligl sins being
forgiven in the world to come; |
Cor. iii, 1915, in which st. Paul
mentions that fire shall try every
mans work, and through which he
himself shall be saved; | Peter iii,
1920, in which ST. Peter tells how
our Savior preached the fact of his
redemption to those spirits that
were in prison (Cf. Matt. v. 26)
In the early liturgies of the East
and West there are proofs innumer-
able of belief in purgatory and the
efficacy of prayers for the dead.
Who can forget that tender in
cident in the life of ct. Augustine,
as narrated in his confessions, where
his sanity mother, Monica, dying
upon the shores of the Mediter-
ranean in Central Italy. away from
her beloved Hippo, turned and said:
"Son. lay this miserable body of
mine where you will; only remem-
Der me at the holy altar of God"
In the catacombs in Rome last
summer | encountered everywhere
the evidences of this belief in the
martyred and suffering primitive
church. However, if evidence were
wanting in Scripture, in liturgy, in
tradition, | would cry out with
William Mallock. who has stood as
a signpost, pointing others to Cath
Ollie truths for two decades, but not
accepting them himself: Gas to the
doctrine of purgatory itself, which
has so long proved stumbling
block to those outside the Catholic
Church, time goes on and the view
men take of it is changing. 1t is
becoming fast recognized on all
sides that it is the only doctrine
that can bring a belief in future re-
wards and punishments into any
thing like accordance with our no.
tons Of what is just and reasonable.
So far from being a superhuous SUI
perstition, it is seen to be just what