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Duration of Purgatory, The Abbey of Latrobe, A Hundred Years of Suffering for Delay
in the Reception of the Last Sacraments.
The following
incident is related with authentic proof by the
journal, "The Monde", in the number of April 1860. It took
place in
America, in the Abbey of the Benedictines, situated in the village of
Latrobe, Pennsylvania. A series
of apparitions occurred during the course
of the year 1859. The American press took up the matter, and treated those
grave
questions with its usual levity. In order to put a stop to scandal,
the Abbot Wimmer, superior of the house, addressed
the following letter to
the newspapers.
"The following is a true statement of the case:
In our Abbey of St.
Vincent, near Latrobe, on September 10, 1859, a novice saw an apparition of
a Benedictine in full
choir dress. This apparition was repeated every day
from September 18 until November 19, either at eleven o'clock,
at noon, or
at two o'clock in the morning. It was only on the 19th November that the
novice interrogated the spirit,
in presence of another member of the
community, and asked the motive of these apparitions. He replied that he
had
suffered for seventy-seven years for having neglected to celebrate seven
Masses of obligation; that he had already appeared
at different times to
seven other Benedictines, but that he had not been heard, and that he would
be obliged to appear
again after eleven years if the novice did not come to
his assistance. Finally, the spirit asked that these seven
Masses might be
celebrated for him; moreover, the novice must remain in retreat for seven
days, keep strict silence,
and during thirty days recite three times a day
the psalm "Miserere", his feet bare, and his arms extended in the form
of a
cross. All the conditions were fulfilled between November 20 and December
25, and on that day, after the
celebration of the last Mass, the apparition
disappeared.
"During that period the spirit showed itself several times,
exhorting the
novice in the most urgent manner to pray for the souls in Purgatory; for,
said he, they suffer frightfully,
and are extremely grateful to those who
co-operate in their deliverance. He added, sad to relate, that of the five
priests
who had died in our Abbey, not one had yet entered Heaven, all were
suffering in Purgatory. I do not draw any conclusion,
but this is correct."
This account, signed by the hand of the Abbot, is an incontestable
historical document.
As
regards the conclusion which the venerable prelate leaves us to draw, it
is evident.
Seeing that a Religious is condemned
to Purgatory for seventy-seven years,
let it suffice for us to learn the necessity of reflecting on the duration
of
future punishment, as well for priests and Religious as for the ordinary
faithful living in the midst of the corruption
of the world.
A too frequent cause of the long continuance of Purgatory is that many
deprive themselves of a great means
established by Jesus Christ for
shortening it, by delaying, when dangerously sick, to receive the last
Sacraments.
These Sacraments, destined to prepare souls for their last
journey, to purify them from the remains of sin, and to spare
them the pains
of the other life, require, in order to produce their effects, that the sick
person receive them with
the requisite dispositions. Now, the longer they
are deferred, and the faculties of the sick person allowed to become
weak,
the more defective do those dispositions become. What do I say? Very often
it happens, in consequence
of this imprudent delay, that the sick person
dies deprived of this absolute necessary help. The result is, that
if the
deceased is not damned, he is plunged into the deepest abysses of Purgatory,
loaded with all the weight of his
debts.
Michael Alix (Hort, Past, Tract.6; cf. Rossignoli, "Merveilles", 86) speaks
of an ecclesiastic who, instead of
promptly receiving the Extreme Unction,
and therein giving a good example to the faithful, was guilty of negligence
in
this respect, and was punished by a hundred years of Purgatory. Knowing
that he was seriously ill and in danger of
death, this poor priest should
have made known his condition, and immediately had recourse to the succors
which the
Mother Church reserves for her children in that supreme hour. He
omitted to do so, and, whether through an illusion
common among sick people,
he would not declare the gravity of his situation, or whether he was under
the influence of
that fatal prejudice which causes weak Christians to defer
the reception of the last sacraments, he neither asked for nor
thought of
receiving them. But we know how death comes by stealth; the unfortunate man
deferred so long that he
died without having had the time to receive either
the Viaticum or Extreme Unction. Now, God was pleased to make
use of this
circumstance to give a great warning to others. The deceased himself came
to make known to a brother
ecclesiastic that he was condemned to Purgatory
for a hundred years. "I am thus punished," he said, "for delaying
to
receive the grace of the last purification. Had I received the Sacraments
as I ought to have done, I should
have escaped death through the virtue of
Extreme Unction, and I should have had time to do penance."
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