Saint Catherine of Siena
Jesus described purgatory to Saint Catherine of Siena
- Purgatory created by divine mercy is necessary for the purification of souls before entering Paradise.
- Purification is painful but necessary to pay for sins committed.
- You can help the souls in purgatory through prayer that they will be freed from their pain..
- Jesus with Mercy punishes us in this finite time, in which, by patiently enduring, one is punished and deserved.
- The temporal penalty for sins committed must be served even if we repent and confess.
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Jesus speaks to Catherine about Purgatory
And if you turn to Purgatory you will find my sweet and inestimable Providence towards those miserable souls who stealthily lost in time, and being now separated from the body they have no more time to deserve. I have provided for them through you, of you who are still in mortal life and have time for them and, through the alms and the divine office which you make my ministers say, together with the fasts and prayers made in state of grace, you can shorten the time of their sentence, trusting in My mercy. Oh sweet providence.
Do not be afraid of the disease. Think of how great is the divine grace that, in the time of illness, puts a brake on the many vices that one would commit when having health. In addition, the sickness serves and purges the sins committed: they deserve infinite punishment and God, by his mercy, punishes them with finite sorrow.
When the soul considers that he has offended his creator, supreme and eternal well, he considers God's great grace that He punishes him in this life, and has not established to punish him in the other, where the pains are infinite.
If we consider our sins and defects, and how much we have offended God, infinite good, for which we should suffer an infinite punishment not only for the great faults but also for a small one, we will convince ourselves that we are truly worthy of a thousand hells. Yet He, with mercy, punishes us in this finite time, in which, enduring with patience, he gets paid and deserves.
This does not happen in the penalties that the soul sustains in the other life. Because, if it is found in the pains of Purgatory, it is bad, but it does not deserve. We therefore bear this small penalty with good will. Small, in truth, one can say, this and every other, for the brevity of time. Because, in this life, so great is fatigue how great is time. And how much is our time? And how much a needle point. It is therefore true that it is small.
Every effort is small, because the life of man is nothing, so little it is. In fact, the fatigue that has passed I do not have it, as time has passed. The one that has to come, I still do not, because I'm not sure I have the time, because I have to die, but I do not know when. There is, therefore, only this point of the present to bear.
Come, therefore, manfully, for the love of Christ crucified! Confide with Christ crucified; delight in the wounds of Christ crucified.
If you will be virtuous and you will suffer unjustly, not having offended those who make you insult, in this you will follow his vestiges. But what is on the side of God, we always suffer rightly, because we always offend him.
