CHAPTER X.
Pains of Purgatory — The Pain of Loss — St. Catherine of Genoa — St. Teresa — Father Nieremberg.
After having heard the theologians and doctors of the Church, let us listen to doctors of another kind; they are saints who speak of the sufferings of the other life, and who relate what God has made known to them by supernatural communication. St. Catherine of Genoa in her treatise on Purgatory [1] says, " The souls endure a torment so extreme that no tongue can describe it, nor could the understanding conceive the least notion of it, if God did not make it known by a particular grace." " No tongue," she adds, " can express, no mind form any idea of what Purgatory is. As to the suffering, it is equal to that of Hell."
St. Teresa, in the " Castle of the Soul," [2] speaking of the pain of loss, expresses herself thus: — " The pain of loss, or the privation of the sight of God, exceeds all the most excruciating sufferings we can imagine, because the souls urged on towards God as to the centre of their aspiration, are continually repulsed by His Justice. Picture to yourself a shipwrecked mariner who, after having long battled with the waves, comes at last within reach of the shore, only to find himself constantly thrust back by an invisible hand. What torturing agonies! Yet those of the souls in Purgatory are a thousand times greater."
Father Nieremberg, of the Company of Jesus, who died in the odour of sanctity at Madrid in 1658, relates a fact that occurred at Treves, and which was recognised, says Father Rossignoli, [3] by the Vicar-General of the diocese as possessing all the characteristics of truth.
