Pio Visited
saints have received glimpses of purgatory. St.
Padre Pio was often visited by poor souls to request prayers. He once reported: “More souls of the dead from purgatory than of the living climb this
mountain to attend my Masses and seek my prayers.”
St. Padre Pio |
In May 1922, St. Padre Pio testified about one account to the Bishop of
Melfi along with 5 other friars. One of the five friars, Fra Alberto D’ Apolito
of San Giovanni Rotondo wrote it down.
St. Pio told them that a man in a black mantle appeared to him while he
was in his room in the convent. The
saint asked the man who he was. The stranger identified himself as Pietro Di
Mauro and said he had died in a fire, on September 18, 1908, in that very
convent which had then been a hospice for elderly. “I died in the flames, while I was sleeping
on my straw mattress, right in this room. I have come from purgatory. God
has granted me to come here and ask you to say Mass for me tomorrow morning.
Thanks to one Mass I will be able to enter into Paradise.”
deaths to confirm the story and found: “On September 18, 1908 in the fire of
the hospice, Pietro Di Mauro died.”
Other
Purgatory: A Private Revelation translated from the original French version
that was published in 1996, a vivid revelation of purgatory is given. The author, under spiritual direction of a
priest, remains anonymous, seeking only to fulfill the mission to encourage the
faithful to pray for the poor souls in purgatory who are so often forgotten.
souls in purgatory need our prayers and we also benefit from their prayers for
us. “Pray for them; they need your
suffrages, and they expect your faithfulness and gratitude. God wants it that way, because your prayers
for these blessed souls are an act of charity, a testimony of love which will
make you progress in this virtue of faith, which expands the horizons of your
charity and deepens your faith, which enriches and consolidates your hope.”
to be purified. Each soul has it’s own
particular experiences but the greatest punishment is to be deprived of the
beauty and holiness of God.
by comparison, fire on earth is like a gentle ointment. It provokes an atrocious thirst referred to
Psalm 63: “My souls thirsts for thee: my
flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.”
rendering and ardent languishing of love in the soul. “Absolutely everything
for these souls—whether punishment or consolation—is a function of the
glorification of God, their one and only occupation. They would gladly stay for a thousand years
in purgatory if they could in this way increase the glory of God…. When they
pray for us, they only want our good which is always ordered to the glory of
God.”
the fire of his justice—both consoling and terrible. “Do you understand how
much you have to pray for the souls in purgatory? This is very much forgotten today…. Therefore,
you must write and awaken this concern for the souls in purgatory and you must
remind your brothers that the communion of saints is a reality with its demands
of charity.”
warned people to avoid it at all cost.
“Pray, do penance, sanctify yourself in silence and in the fulfillment
of the duties of your state, and offer everything for the holy souls…. Really, you don’t know what purgatory is
like; if you knew, you would work very seriously for your eternal salvation,
and you would try with your prayers to obtain the freedom of these souls who
are suffering so much.
your encounter with God. If you really
understood this, purgatory would not exist because souls would do all that was
possible to be ready for the moment of encounter.”
To achieve this, the angel told him to,
“surrender yourself totally to divine love. You have to let yourself be transformed by
love until you are converted into a perfect instrument of love…. Give yourself
in everything to the pure will of God…This is the perfection that is asked of
you, and you should work for one thing only: to glorify God who is love.”
of fear but instead should seek the love of God and desire his glory. “Understand
well what I am telling you now: The only
way to avoid purgatory is not to do everything to avoid it, but to do
everything to go to heaven. … Everything else is vanity.”