__________________________________________________

VISIONS OF PURGATORY: AS PACE OF ADVENT QUICKENS, THE VEIL BETWEEN HERE AND HEREAFTER SEEMS TO THIN

"Understand well what I am telling you," an angel supposedly told the recipient of private revelations.

"The only way to avoid purgatory is not to do everything to avoid it, but to do everything to go to Heaven.

"It is to work untiringly for your own perfection and salvation, giving yourself fully to the infinite love of God in conformity in everything with His demands, not having anything else in mind other than the Glory of God.

"Everything else is vanity."

Interesting words, this Advent, as we prepare.

"There is not one soul out of ten that is working for its salvation," adds the messenger (in a book called Visions of Purgatory: A Private Revelation). Besides an angel, Jesus supposedly also grants locutions.

We submit it for your discernment. We know very little about the recipient. "Details concerning the life of the author have been omitted in order to maintain the author's anonymity," says the publisher, Scepter, of New York.

Some of it seems inspired. Some more like personal meditations.

It is very rare -- say these alleged messages -- that a soul does not go through the "great purgatory" and stay there for greatly varying periods of time: at times just a relative minute, in other cases for years "and [in still other cases] for centuries."

"In the great purgatory there are souls of great sinners, but there are many more souls who received graces and did not respond to them, souls that had to accept weighty responsibilities and did not know how to take them on perfectly.

"Therefore, in the great purgatory you will see a large number of consecrated souls and priests, prelates, bishops, cardinals, and popes. You will also see many political governors, chiefs of state, and leaders of the people, kings, emperors, princes, and governors. All these poor souls have to endure the pains of the great purgatory together with criminals, libertines, and all the great sinners saved by Divine Mercy who were able -- sometimes at the last moment -- to escape the eternal abyss."

We have seen the "great purgatory" defined a bit differently elsewhere -- as more a middle area, while in purgatory there are many levels. Perhaps it's a matter of semantics. If nothing else, the message grants us any number of matters to mull over at this time of the year when the afterlife is especially keen on our minds -- with some believing that more souls are released at Christmas than any other time of the year (this was said both at Medjugorje and to an obscure French nun in the 19th century).

Sobering stuff indeed. Perhaps a bit too dreary, the messages contained in this book. Where here the "great purgatory" is described as similar to hell (save for the fact that there is not the hatred for God, nor others, nor is there hopelessness, and far less a duration), those other revelations have described the largest part of purgatory, or the great middle purgatory, as more like a foggy, rainy day, with souls suffering mainly from loneliness and isolation (while the hellish and darkest parts of purgatory are in the lowest region -- where the greatest sinners, including criminals, go).

The topmost level -- according to this book as well  -- is very similar to Heaven (save for the absence of direct contact with God, which is the greatest suffering). The author calls this the "antechamber of Heaven," and it has also been described as the "threshold." God is so good. He goes to such extents to rescue souls!

Can those in purgatory manifest to the living?

Yes, says the book. There are strange creaks and squeaks -- of floors, in furniture; there is an unexplained billowing in curtains. "These souls sometimes have a knowledge of the future which the Almighty gives them in certain circumstances, and on occasion they can let you know this future which concerns you, offering you signs that will strengthen your faith and also guard, warn, and protect you," purportedly says the angel to the anonymous author. "You should give thanks for these messengers of mercy and pray for them."

However: the angel strongly warns against seeking communication with the dead, admonishing those who "instead of praying for those souls, seek to enter into communications with them.

"This is a waste of time, and also a sin -- a sin of curiosity and of presumption. One has to be prudent in this area, because there are many abuses and many errors. The mystery of purgatory is not a game; it is a great mystery of Divine Love."

The recipient explains that he/she was taught that souls in the middle purgatory receive permission at times from the Lord to reveal themselves, in a quest for prayer, or even to warn us of some dangers "shown to them by the Mercy of God."

But: it can also be demons.

"Satan is the father of lies," the author reminds us, "the master of illusion and fraud. Those simulated apparitions shown in sessions of spiritism [mediumship, channeling, and the like] are never souls in purgatory." They are, believes the author, all a deception.

In higher parts of purgatory, souls get to glimpse or hear something of the feasts of Heaven. But the author claims they do not see Mary, the saints, or their angels -- which is counter to other revelations (one of which has stated that the Blessed Mother visits souls in purgatory on her great feast days -- and days like Christmas, when she and the Archangel Michael come for the greatest number of souls).

And so we discern. So we pray. Perhaps there are questions at turns. Still, sobering points.

"I want you to pray for these holy souls in purgatory, for My Divine Heart is brimming with love for them," Jesus allegedly says.

The seal of the Cross, says the angel, "is placed above purgatory."

Mary Undoer of Knots plus The Holy Cloak novena, $7.25

Michael Brown's books on Kindle or Nook

Return to home page www.spiritdaily.com