Page:Purgatory00scho.djvu/91

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endured, and how greatly she was relieved by the suffrages and good works which were daily offered for her throughout the whole Order of the Visitation. During the night from Holy Thursday to Good Friday, whilst Sister Margaret was still praying for her, He showed her the soul of the departed as placed under the chalice which contained the Sacred Host on the altar of repose. There she participated in the merits of His agony in the Garden of Olives. On Easter Sunday, which that year fell on April 18, Sister Margaret saw the soul enjoying the commencement, as it were, of eternal felicity, desiring and hoping soon to be admitted to the vision and possession of God.

Finally, a fortnight after, on May 2, Sunday, Feast of the Good Shepherd, she saw the soul of the departed as rising sweetly into eternal glory, chanting melodiously the canticle of Divine Love.

Let us see how Blessed Margaret herself gives the account of this last apparition in a letter addressed on the same day, May 2, 1623, to Mother de Saumaise at Dijon: — "Jesus for ever! My soul is filled with so great a joy that I can scarcely restrain myself. Permit me, dear Mother, to communicate it to your heart, which is one with mine in that of our Lord. This morning, Sunday of the Good Shepherd, on my awaking, two of my good suffering friends came to bid me adieu. To-day the Supreme Pastor receives them into His eternal fold with a million other souls. Both joined this multitude of blessed souls, and departed singing canticles of joy. One is the good Mother Philiberte Emmanuel de Montoux, the other Sister Jeanne Catherine Gacon. One repeated unceasingly these words: Love triumphs, love rejoices in God; the other, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, and the Religious who live and die in the exact observance of their rules. Both desired that I should say to you on their part that death may separate souls, but can never disunite them. If you knew how my soul was transported with joy! For whilst I was