New Britain herald., 1917-11-01

more tnan others have suffered pow
erty, anxiety and loss in the past year;
you, religious souls, who have vowed
faithfully to walk upon the blood
stained tracks of the road of the
cross; you. above all, pastors and edu-
Gators or our youths, priestly souls,
whose mission 1t is to make known to
the world not an insipid gospel adapt
eo TO the taste of human frivolity, but
the true austere and fortifying gospel
OF cur Lord Jesus Christ, who was
porn or the Virgin Mary. suffered I'M
der Pontius PLATE, was crucifled; dead
and buried-it Is for you to form
that chosen company, spoken Of in the
Book of Machabees. through which the
salvation Of Israel shall come.
Certain philosophers, the stoics,
made a pretence Of asserting that
Grief is but word: and they mag
ined thus that they would escape from
the grasp OF grief. No. grief 10 no
mere word. Grief tears, undermines,
penetrates and sometimes kills. One
must not deny it, but love It.. do but
grant me a man that knows how to
love-" says st. Augustine, land he will
understand me-" "Da amantem ct
sentit quod dico."
dertaken for the sake of a place to be
won in the world. or for the love of
travel, or for an ambition, or for a
profane and even a guilty passion. or
for a mothers devotion. or for love
of ones native land?
You dread the surgeons lancet, yet
you submit to the operator, because
you expect the restoration Of your
shaken health from his art. And yet
the lancet that wounds you cannot at
the same moment heal the f1bres OF
your flesh.
But the divine surgeon of your bod
les and souls pours the balm together
with the grief, so that the souls that
most ardently love our Lord come at
last to love suffering in itself, as an In
fallible means OF keeping alive with
in them the flame OF love divine. And
so we see that the marvellous saying
of st. Augustine Is verified: Love and
you shall suffer no more: or IL you
suffer still, even your suffering shall
be loved by you 'Ubi amatur, non
laboratur, vel, 81 laboratur, ipse labor
amatur."
You have heard the consolation of
this teaching concerning the purifying
nature Of suffering. 1t forms a natur-
al transition between the Feast of All
Saints and the Commemoration of the
Dead. and 1t will help us to under
stand the state, at once sorrowful and
peaceful, OF the souls in purRatory.
The pious English Grafton, Father
Faber. in his winning book, "AN for
Jesus" gives us a delicate analysis
OF the two contrasting aspects of the
theological doctrine of Purgatory
The first Of these aspects Is painful,
sorrowful; for the souls In purgatory
suffer. st. Augustine and st. Thomas
AQuinas suppose that those that suffer
the least therefor there are degrees
in the penalties infiicted-endure a
keener agony than any torture con-
ceivable here on earth.
The souls In purgatory have indeed
left this life in q state Of grace. They
are designed by right for heavenly
bliss. This they we'll know. and, with
all the impetuosity OF their ardent i'm
pulse. at once natural and Christian,
they long to throw themselves into the
arms of Him on Whom all their love
is fixed for evermore. But like that
bird held by a thread, spoken Of
somewhere by st. John Of the Cross,
they are in captivity. The thread is
slender; 1t is the thread Of 'lnordinate
dispositions" left in the soul by past,
although absolved, sims; 1t Is the debt
still owing on account OF penalties due
for sins forgiven, but expiated insuffl-
GENTLY. Yet the slender thread len-
der by comparison with the mortal sin
which for ever excludes the dead man
from Paradise-holds captive for
while the soul in its expectation of
God-an expectation all the more
poignant, in that God IL now better
known and desired, and because the
lack Of bodily organs has cut short all
the distractions or designations that
man found on earth In the satisfaction
of his senses.
st. Thomas calls 1t by the same
name as the punishment Of the
damned-the punishment Of "loss';
not that 1t Is Identical in the two
cases, for the chastisement of the
damned Is accompanied by hate. while
that OF the souls in purgatory is re-
lieved by love; but. the punishment Of
both has a common character for
time, it depr1ves the soul Of the sight
and possession Of God.
With some such thought as this.
councils and theologians occasionally
contrast heaven and hell with one an
other. as though there were no inter-
mediate state between the state of the
blessed and that OF the accursed. In
such cases. under the elastic term Of
lower or internal regions. they group
together, at one and the same time,
the eternal hell of the reprobate and
the temporary imprisonment Of pur-
gatory. The torment Of the privation
of God produces a sorrowfully sensi-
tive echo in the soul. Theology as
sures us that In this case the second
airy punishment Of sense 10 added to
the principal punishment Of loss"
The fact that our physical sufferings
result from a lesion or an alteration
of our bodily organs sometimes sug-
gests the idea that an incorporeal soul