The Irish standard., 1903-11-07
theless have some slight stains on
their even immaculate robes? How

I theless have some slight stains on
their even immaculate robes? How
| many others. alas, have known real
sin. who are just now labOriously re-
moving, who have wept over it? How
many sanity penitents are as weighty-
loaded down by their past, and are
carried away from this life with a
load of venial sins. And again there
are those pious souls who die sudden
l.ly, without having time for their final
preparation. If there be no Purga-
tory, all these beautiful souls Divine
Justice must pitilessly resist. A slight
sin, insofar as it has not been repenL-
ed, God cannot overlook, and it cannot
be repented in Heaven.
Not only can nothing defiled not en-
ter Heaven, but soul with debt
upon it for fault which may have
been pardoned in the Sacrament Of
Penance, cannot enter that celestial
realm. Take away Purgatory, and
how does this debar from Heaven.
Compute the number of souls who,
having repented their sins, have not
sufficiently expiated them. Count the
number of sinners that, like late flow
ers, are snatched from their very
deathbeds; who, though cleansed from
mortal guilt, depart this life laden
with spiritual debts. What is to be
done? Justice cannot remit their
debts without having been paid We
cannot escape the exclusion; if there
be no Purgatory, then that these souls
and their number cannot be estimated,
are repulsed by the very God whom
they so loved.
Happily, there is a Purgatory. In
finite love has created it as an unex-
pected prOlongation of sanity life;
for the use of those souls who still re-
tain trace of the mildew and rust Of
this world. Infinite love watches over
those souls. He, as it were, sets them
apart to improve them, to complete
their perfection. In one case it may
lie but Il slight fault he undertakes
to correct. In another an overlooking
measure of imperfections are to be
atoned; their old spiritual debts are to
| be liquidatcd; all are so many dark eX-
crescnccs conccaling without destroy
ing the Divine beauty of these souls.
| They re-entcr the workshop in order
to receive the flushing touches. They
depart pure, capable of the intuitive
vision which they will eternally ell
joy.
But Purgatory assists Gods mercy,
rs we'll rs appeascs and satisfies His
Justice. 1t gives to infinite love, liber-
ties and conveniences which without
it would not exist. BY means Of it,
mercy may approach the deathbed. It
explains, SO to say legalizes, renders
possible that tender love of God that
ut that last dread hour sometimes
contents itself with so little. If God
but obtains from the lifelong sinner
only the beginning of love, Joined
with absolution, that Is sufficient
PurgatOry will do the rest. Blot out
PurgatOry, and can God so easily par
don? Can IN act of cOntrition at the
verge of the grave be sufficient to
usher into the Beatific Vision sinner
of thirty or forty years. standing, and
having done scarcely anything to ex-
plate this guilt? Deny Purgatory, and
| how absurd it would be to imagine
that the criminal, whom we see going
to the scaffold, even though we see
him going through the form of re-
pcntnncc. how absurd it would be to
say that that mans soul is waited at
once to the throne Of the Living God,
like the soul Of that poor just man in
the neighbOrhood who died at the
same moment, and had spent his years
in the service of God. And yet re-
spectacle part of Christendom who
deny PurgatOry, imagine and say this
very thing. Is it little wonder that
the soothing infdel Of our day, and I
might say, too, the honest unbeliever,
speak of the absurdity Of these scat
fold conversions, and has little re-
spect for the creed that advocates
them. Common sense regards 1t as
unjust, that the High God can view
as equal the criminal who but repents
in Il moment and the just man who
has spent lifetime in His service.
The doctrine of PurgntOry enables the
Catholic to escape this well-merited
charge of absurdity. 1t enables us to
say what common sense dictates, that
that culprit shall further repent and
he purified from his sin, for years, for
centuries for aught we know, in the
purifying flames. God has pardoned
him, because there will still be time
to renew that soul, to retouch the
image of Jesus Christ altered and dis,
figured by sin. to repair and to polish
those living stones which are to enter
into the structure of the eternal tenn,
pie. BY Purgatory God satisfies His
love without doing violence to His
justice.