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. 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 fright fully, 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hand of the Abbot, is an in contestable historical document.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
absolutely 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 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 succours 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 in fluence 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.”
