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When any of his friends or acquaintances died, he never grew weary of
speaking fondly of them and recommending them to the prayers of others.
His usual expression was: "We do not sufficiently remember our dead,
our faithful departed;" and the proof of it is that we do not speak
enough of them. We turn away from that discourse as from a sad subject.
We leave the dead to bury their dead. Their memory perishes from us
with the sound of their funeral-bell. We forget that the friendship
which ends even with death, is never true, Holy Scripture assuring us
that true love is stronger than death.
He was accustomed to say that in this single work of mercy the thirteen
others are assembled.
Is it not, he said, in some manner, to visit the sick, to obtain by our
prayers the relief of the poor suffering souls in Purgatory?
Is it not to give drink to those who thirst after the vision of God,
and who are enveloped in burning flames, to share with them the dew of
our prayers?
Is it not to feed the hungry, to aid in their deliverance by the means
which faith suggests?
Is it not truly to ransom prisoners?
Is it not truly to clothe the naked, to procure for them a garment of
light, a raiment of glory?
Is it not an admirable degree of hospitality, to procure their
admission into the heavenly Jerusalem, and to make them fellow-citizens
with the Saints and domestics of God?
Is it not a greater service to place souls in heaven than to bury
bodies in the earth?
As to spirituals, is it not a work whose merit may be compared to that
of counselling the weak, correcting the wayward, instructing the
ignorant, forgiving offenses, enduring injuries? And what consolation,
however great, that can be given to the afflicted of this world, is
comparable with that which is brought by our prayers to those poor
souls which have such bitter need of them?
CARDINAL GIBBONS ON PURGATORY.
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