IN our days there are Christians
who are total strangers to the Cross and the mortification of Jesus Christ.
Their effeminate and sensual life is but one chain of pleasures; they fear
everything that is a sacrifice; scarcely do they observe the strict laws of fasting
and abstinence prescribed by the Church. Since they will not submit to any
penance in this world, let them reflect on what will be inflicted upon them in
the next. It is certain that in this worldly life they do nothing but accumulate
debts. Since they omit to do penance, no part of the debt is paid, and a total
is reached that affrights the imagination. The venerable servant of God, Frances
of Pampeluna, who was favoured with several visions of Purgatory, saw one day a
man of the world, who, although he had otherwise been a tolerably good
Christian, passed fifty-nine years in Purgatory on account of seeking his ease and comfort.
Another passed thirty-five years there for the same reason; a third, who had
too strong a passion for gambling, was detained there for sixty-four years. Alas!
these injudicious Christians have allowed their debts to remain before God, and
those which they might so easily have acquitted by works of penance they have
had to pay afterwards by years of torture. If God is severe towards the rich
and the pleasure-seekers of the world, He will not be less so towards princes,
magistrates, parents, and in general towards all those who have the charge of
souls and authority over others.
A severe judgment says He
Himself, shall be for them that bear ride. Laurence Surius relates how an
illustrious queen, after her death, bore witness to this truth. In the Life of
St. Elizabeth, Duchess of Thuringia, it is said that the servant of God lost
her mother, Gertrude, Queen of Hungary, about the year 1220. In the spirit of a
holy Christian daughter, she gave abundant alms, redoubled her prayers and
mortifications, exhausted the resources of her charity for the relief of that
dear soul. God revealed to her that she had not done too much. One night the
deceased appeared to her with a sad and emaciated countenance ; she placed her self
on her knees next to the bed, and said to her, weeping, My daughter, you see at
your feet your mother over whelmed with suffering. I come to implore you to
multiply your suffrages, that Divine Mercy may deliver me from the frightful
torments I endure. Oh ! how much are those to be pitied who exercise authority
over others? I expiate now the faults that I committed upon the throne. Oh ! my
daughter, I pray you by the pangs I endured when bringing you into the world, by
the cares and anxieties which your education cost me, I conjure you to deliver
me from my torments. Elizabeth, deeply touched, arose immediately, took the
discipline to blood, and implored God, with tears, to have mercy on her mother,
Gertrude, declaring that she would not cease to pray until she had obtained her
deliverance. Her prayers were heard.
Let us here remark that, in
the preceding example, there is spoken of a queen only; how much more severely
will kings, magistrates, and all superiors be treated whose responsibility and
influence are much greater !
