to the baths of St. Angelo. What was his astonishment to find the same Deacon Paschasius employed in the most menial offices at the baths! " I here expiate," said the apparition, "the wrong I did by adhering to the wrong party. I beseech of you, pray to the Lord for me: you will know that you have been heard when you shall no longer see me in these places."
Germain began to pray for the deceased, and after a few days, returning to the baths, sought in vain for Paschasius, who had disappeared. " He had but to undergo a temporary punishment," says St. Gregory, " because he had sinned through ignorance, and not through malice."
The same Pope speaks of a priest of Centumcellse, now Civita Vecchia, who also went to the warm baths. A man presented himself to serve him in the most menial offices, and for several days waited upon him with the most extreme kindness, and even eagerness. The good priest, thinking that he ought to reward so much attention, came the next day with two loaves of blessed bread, and, after having received the usual assistance of his kind servant, offered him the loaves. The servant, with a sad countenance, replied, "Why, Father, do you offer me this bread? I cannot eat it. I, whom you see, was formerly the master of this place, and, after my death, I was sent back to the condition in which you see me for the expiation of my faults. If you wish to do me good, ah! offer up for me the Bread of the Eucharist."
At these words he suddenly disappeared, and he, whom the priest had thought to be a man, showed by vanishing that he was but a spirit.
For a whole week the good priest devoted himself to works of penance, and each day offered up the Sacred Host in favour of the departed one: then, having returned to the same baths, he no longer found his faithful servant, and concluded that he had been delivered.
It seems that Divine Justice sometimes condemns souls
