Mrs. J. Sadlier

“ She bids us let our tears flow, for our Saviour wept at the grave of Lazarus.
She whispers words of comfort—not unmeaning words, but words of divine hope and strength—to our breaking hearts. She pours the oil of heavenly consolation into our deepest wounds. She bids us cast off all unseemly grief, assuring us that not even death itself can sever the bond that unites us; that we can be of service to those dear departed ones whom we loved better than life itself; that we can aid them by our prayers and good works, and especially by, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. ”

“ Lying, however, at the foot of the altar, as he is to-day, whilst the Church hallows his grave with prayer and sacrifice, it is more especially as the Catholic Emancipator of his people that we place a garland on his tomb. It is as the child of the Church that we honor him, and recall with tears of sorrow our recollections of the aged man, revered, beloved, whom all the glory of the world's admiration and the nation's love had never lifted up in soul out of the holy atmosphere of Christian humility and simplicity. ”

“ It is rather a family of various and beautiful devotions, than a devotion by itself. Yet see how they are all, as it were, fulfilled, affectionately fulfilled, in devotion to the Holy Souls. The quicker the souls are liberated from Purgatory, the more is the beautiful harvest of His Blessed Passion multiplied and accelerated. An early harvest is a blessing, as well as a plentiful one; for all delay of a soul's ingress into the praise of heaven is an eternal and irremediable loss of honor and glory to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. How strangely things sound in the language of the Sanctuary! ”

“ It is but a few days since the Church has celebrated the triumph of her saints, rejoicing in the eternal felicity of that innumerable throng whom she has given to the celestial Sion. She invites us to share her joy. She bids us look up from the rugged pathway of our thorn-strewn pilgrimage to that blissful abode which is to be the term and the reward of all our trials. Yet, like a true mother, she cannot forget that portion of her family who are sighing for their deliverance, in that region of pain to which they are consigned by eternal justice. ”

“ Oh, let us remember the first faithful—the martyrs—the catacombs! The cemetery is for us the land where grows invisibly the harvest of the elect; it is the sleeping world of intelligence; sheltered are its peaceful slumbers in the bosom of nature ever young, ever fruitful; the crowd of the dead pressed together beneath those crosses, under those scattered flowers, is the crowd that will one day rise to take possession of the infinite future, from which it is only separated by some sods of turf.
"Hence how lively, how motherly has ever been the solicitude of the Church in this respect! ”

“ Then, while the funeral dirge fills the sacred edifice, and the mournful Dies Iræ thrills the hearts of all, each one thinks of his own departed ones, and recalls with indescribable sadness other just such celebrations in the years long past, when those for whom they now invoke the mercy of Heaven were still amongst the living. Then comes, too, the solemn thought that some, perhaps many, of those then present in life and health may be numbered with the dead before All Souls' Day comes round again, and a voice from the depths of the Christian heart asks, "May not I, too, be then with the dead?" ”

“ I suppose that every one who has done anything worth doing in the course of their lives could call to mind the moment when a book, a sermon, a conversation, a casual word, perhaps,—or, if they have been so favored, a direct inspiration from God in the hour of prayer,—has given the impulse—set fire, as it were, to the train lying ready in their hearts. But long before this decisive time has come, indications have existed, thoughts have arisen, feelings have been awakened, which, like the cloud big as a man's hand, have foreshadowed the deluge of graces and mercies about to inundate their souls. ”

“ Paul, speaking of Our blessed Saviour, insists much upon this, that He had the courage and the love for us all to overcome the pain of a horrible confusion, which doubtless is an insupportable evil to a man of intelligence and courage. Tell me, then, if you can, what a burning shame and what a terrible confusion it must be to those noble and generous souls, to behold themselves overwhelmed with a confused chaos of fire, and such a base fire which affords no other light but a sullen glimmering, choked up with a sulphureous and stinking smoke ”

“ How consoling a thought it is that as the Holy Souls in Purgatory, in all probability, and according to the opinion of the greatest theologians, know what we do for them, and pray for us, they see these acts of charity; they see these devoted women making themselves the slaves of the poor, and sowing in tears, that they themselves may reap in joy. We cannot also but believe that the prayers of the Holy Souls, and perhaps their influence, contribute to the success of the mission carried on for their sakes and in their name amidst the poor and suffering. ”

“ My strength is gone: I am stolen from myself. But I am not afraid to die. When life grows tedious death is welcome. To-day I shall confess before you the many errors of my life. Think not that I wish to solicit a prolongation of my existence. My request is that you protect my departure by your prayers, and place your merits in the balance against my defects. When my soul shall have quitted my body, honor your father's corpse with a decent funeral, grant him a constant share in your prayers, and recommend his memory to the charity and gratitude of your successors. ”

“ The man who has not piety enough to ask their prayers must have a heart but little like to the love and veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But there are other friends of God to whom we owe a debt of piety. They are those who are suffering beyond the grave, in the silent kingdom of pain and expiation—in the dark and yet blessed realm of purification; that is to say, the multitudes who pass out of this world, washed in the Precious Blood, perfectly absolved of all guilt of sin, children and friends of God, blessed souls, heirs of the kingdom of Heaven, all but Saints ”

“ The Catholic Church, the true mother of souls, cherishes, with loving memory, all her departed. Never does a day pass but she prays for them at the altar; never does a year go by that there is not a special commemoration of all her children departed on one solemn day, which is neither feast nor fast, but a day of the profoundest piety and of the deepest compassion. Surely, then, if we have the spirit of piety in our hearts, the holy souls will be a special object of our remembrance and our prayers. How many now are there whom we have known in life? ”

“ Condemned by her rank to wear rich clothing, she values only the glorious vesture of the soul, which is grace. The hair-cloth that macerates her flesh is her chosen garment. At that age, when people allow themselves to be dazzled by the world, Catherine of Cardona has trampled it beneath her feet, and later on, becoming entirely free from the slavery of the world, she retires to the Capuchin Convent at Naples, and there prepares, by a seclusion of twenty-five years, to give to the great ones of the earth an example of the most sublime virtues. ”

“ Who believes in that state of probation whereby the earth-stains are washed from the souls of men? Who has compassion on "the spirits who are in prison?" To Catholics only is the Communion of Saints a reality, a soul-rejoicing truth. How inestimable is the privilege of being truly and indeed "of the household of faith,"—within and of "the Church of the Saints," the Church that alone connects the life which is and that which is to come, the living and the dead! ”

“ Unthoughtful or ill-read persons almost start sometimes at the minuteness, familiarity, and assurance with which men talk of the unseen world, as if it were the banks of the Rhine, or the olive-yards of Provence, the Campagna of Rome, or the crescent shores of Naples, some place which they have seen in their travels, and whose geographical features are ever in their memory, as vividly as if before their eyes. It all comes of faith, of prayer, of spiritual reading, of knowledge of the lives of the Saints, and of the study of theology. ”

“ Look at that vast kingdom of Purgatory, with its empress-mother, Mary! All those countless throngs of souls are the dear and faithful spouses of Jesus. Yet in what a strange abandonment of supernatural suffering has His love left them! He longs for their deliverance; He yearns for them to be transferred from that land, perpetually overclouded with pain, to the bright sunshine of their heavenly home. Yet He has tied His own hands, or nearly so. He gives them no more grace; He allows them no more time for penance; He prevents them from meriting ”

“ The river Lethe was a graceful appendage of the ancient Elysium; but it cannot be said that the shades which came to life again on its banks exhibited the same poetical progress in the way to happiness that we behold in the souls of Purgatory. When they left the abodes of bliss to reappear among men, they passed from a perfect to an imperfect state. They re-entered the ring for the fight. They were born again to undergo a second death. In short, they came forth to see what they had already seen before. Whatever can be measured by the human mind is necessarily circumscribed. ”

“ Grand and joyous is the feast of the Saints, when we lovingly honor all our brethren who have gained their thrones in Heaven, and with faith and hope invoke their powerful aid, that we, too, may come where they are, and be partakers in their eternal blessedness; solemn and sad, but most sweetly soothing to the heart of faith, is the day of All Souls, when the altars are draped in black, and the chant is mournful, and sacrifice is offered, the whole world over, for the dead who have slept in Christ, with the blessing of the Church upon them. ”

“ Good God! how the great Saints and Doctors astonish me when they treat of this fire, and of the pain of sense, as they call it! For they peremptorily pronounce that the fire that purges those souls, those both happy and unhappy souls, surpasses all the torments that are to be found in this miserable life of man, or are possible to be invented, for so far they go... Thus they discourse: The fire and the pains of the other world are of another nature from those of this life, because God elevates them above their nature to be instruments of His severity. ”

“ Is a doctrine conceivable which would so elevate the mind above this present state, and teach it so successfully to dare difficult things, and to be reckless of danger and pain? He who believes that suffer he must, and that delayed punishment may be the greater, will be above the world, will admire nothing, fear nothing, desire nothing. He has within his breast a source of greatness, self-denial, heroism. This is the secret spring of strenuous efforts and persevering toil; of the sacrifice of fortune, friends, ease, reputation, happiness. ”

“ As to the charity of this devotion, it dares to imitate even the charity of God Himself. What is there in heaven or on earth which it does not embrace, and with so much facility, with so much gracefulness, as if there were scarcely an effort in it, or as if self was charmed away, and might not mingle to distract it? It is an exercise of the love of God, for it is loving those whom He loves, and loving them because He loves them, and to augment His glory and multiply His praise.... ”

“ How often have I been touched at the respect paid the dead in Catholic countries; at the reverence with which the business man, hastening to fulfil the duties of the hour, pauses and lifts his hat as the funeral of the unknown passes him in the street! What pity streams from the eyes of the poor woman who kneels in her humble doorway, and, crossing herself, prays for the repose of the soul that was never known to her in this life ”

“ When we awaken from our dream, and the pang of reality, like a keen blade, penetrates our hearts, let us not rest content with a vain sigh of regret, or with useless tears of grief; let us pray God to give the dear departed soul eternal rest, and admit it to the perpetual light of His Presence. And in like manner should we regard all other reminders as so many appeals to the charity of our prayers. In this way will the keeping of the memory of those gone before us be to them a blessing and to us a consolation. ”

“ If they be not satisfied for here upon earth by suffering, affliction, or voluntary penance, there must be a place in the other life where proper satisfaction is to be made. That place cannot be either heaven or hell. It cannot be heaven, for no sufferings, no pain, no torment is to be found there, where "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, where death shall be no more, nor mourning nor weeping." It cannot be hell, where only the souls of those who have died enemies of God are condemned to eternal misery, for "out of hell there is no redemption." ”