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Sadlier, Mrs. James, 1820-1903

"Purgatory"

... Howsoever, this worthy prelate so plied
his prayers after this, that he soon sent his sister out of Purgatory;
and it pleased God to let him see, by the daily change of her habit,
how his prayers had purged her by degrees, and made her fit company for
the Angels and Saints in heaven. For, the first day, she was covered
all over with black cypress; the next, she appeared in a mantle
something whitish, but a dusky color; but the third day, she was seen
all clad in white, which is the proper livery of the Saints....
This for St. Bernard. But I cannot let pass in silence one very
remarkable passage, which happened to these two great servants of God.
St. Malachy had passionately desired to die at Clarvallis, [1] in the
hands of the devout St. Bernard; and this, on the day immediately
before All Souls' Day; and it pleased God to grant him his request. It
fell out, then, that while St. Bernard was saying Mass for him, in the
middle of Mass it was revealed to him that St. Malachy was already
glorious in heaven; whether he had gone straight out of this world, or
whether that part of St. Bernard's Mass had freed him out of Purgatory,
is uncertain; but St. Bernard, hereupon, changed his note; for, having
begun with a Requiem, he went on with the Mass of a bishop and
confessor, to the great astonishment of all the standers-by.


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