St. Basil the Great “He whom we love is not hidden in the ground; he is received into heaven. Let us wait a little while, and we shall be once more with him. The time of our separation is not long, for in this life we are all like travelers on a journey, hastening on to the same shelter. While one has reached his rest another arrives, another hurries on but one and the same end awaits them all.”
St. Augustine of Hippo “That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire.”
St. John the Wonderworker “Our earthly life is a preparation for the future life, and this preparation ends with our death. Then a man leaves all his earthly cares; the body disintegrates, in order to rise anew at the Resurrection. Often this spiritual vision begins in the dying even before death, and while still seeing those around them and even speaking with them, they see what others do not see.”
St. Paul of the Cross “If, during life, we have been kind to the suffering souls in purgatory, God will see that help be not denied us after death.”
Saint John Vianney “Consider then…the magnitude of these sufferings which the souls in Purgatory endure; and the means which we have of
mitigating them: our prayers, our good works, and, above all, the holy sacrifice of the Mass”
St. Therese of Lisieux “It is not Death that will come to fetch me, it is the good God. Death is no phantom, no horrible specter, as presented in pictures. In the catechism it is stated that death is the separation of soul and body, that is all! Well, I am not afraid of a separation which will unite me to the good God forever.”
St. Alphonsus di Liguori “Is not he a fool who seeks after happiness in this world, where he will remain only a few days and exposes himself to the risk of being unhappy in the next, where we must live for eternity? We do not fix our affections on borrowed goods, because we know that they must soon be returned to the owner. All the goods of this earth are lent to us…”
Prayer of St. Gertrude for the Souls in Purgatory “Eternal Father I offer you the most precious blood of your Divine Son Jesus in union with the masses said throughout the world today for all the holy souls in purgatory for sinners everywhere sinners in the universal church those in my own home and within my family. Amen. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”
St. Catherine of Genoa “The purifying fires draw them ever upward and closer to God.”
Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen “As we enter heaven, we will see them, so many of them coming towards us and thanking us. We will ask who they are, and they will say a poor soul you prayed for in purgatory.”
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori “The blessed souls in purgatory are the Lord’s eternal spouses, and most grateful are they to those who obtain their deliverance from prison, or even a mitigation of their torments. When, therefore, they arrive in Heaven, they will be sure to remember all who have prayed for them.”
St. Pope John Paul II “Praying for the souls in purgatory is the highest act of supernatural charity”
St. Augustine of Hippo “Let us grieve, therefore, over the necessity of losing our loved ones in death but with the hope of being reunited with them. If we are afflicted, we still find consolation. Our weakness weights us down, but faith bears us up. We sorrow over the human condition, but find our healing in the divine promise.”
St. Catherine of Genoa’s “I believe that no happiness can be found worthy to be compared with that of the souls in Purgatory except that of the Saints in Paradise. And that day-by-day this happiness grows as God flows into souls. More and more the hindrance to his entrance is consumed, and more and more the soul opens itself up to the divine inflowing.”
Saint John Vianney “We must say many prayers for the souls of the faithful departed, for one must be so pure to enter heaven”
Saint Bridget to our Lady “You are My Mother, the Mother of Mercy, and the consolation of the souls in Purgatory”.
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori “I hold for certain that a soul delivered from Purgatory by the suffrages of a Christian, when she enters paradise, will not fail to say to God: ‘Lord, do not suffer to be lost that
person who has liberated me from the prison of Purgatory, and has brought me to the enjoyment of Thy glory sooner than I have deserved.’”
St. Augustine of Hippo “Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but by all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment.”
Our Blessed Lady to Saint Bridget “I am the Mother of all the Poor Souls, for my prayers serve to mitigate their sufferings every single hour that they remain there (purgatory)”.
Saint John Vianney “Yet how quickly we could empty purgatory if we but really wished to.”
St. Margaret Mary “If only you knew with what great longing these holy souls yearn for relief from their suffering. Ingratitude has never entered Heaven.”
St. John Vianney “The fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of Hell; the difference between them is that the fire of Purgatory is not everlasting.”
St. James the Apostle “He who saves a soul saves his own and satisfies for a multitude of sins.”
St. Pio of Pietrelcina “We must empty Purgatory with our prayers.”
Saint Alphonsus Liguori “See how important it is then to have devotion to this Our Lady, because she never forgets her servants, the souls in purgatory, as long as they suffer. If she helps all the Poor Souls, she is especially indulgent and consoling to her own clients.”
St. John Vianney “If it were but known how great is the power of the good souls in Purgatory with the Heart of God, and if we knew all the graces we can obtain through their intercession, they would not be so
much forgotten. We must, therefore, pray much for them, that they may pray much for us.”
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori “The practice of recommending to God the souls in Purgatory, that He may mitigate the great pains which they suffer, and that He may soon bring them to His glory, is most pleasing to the Lord and most profitable to us. For these blessed souls are His eternal spouses, and most grateful are they to those who obtain their deliverance from prison, or even a mitigation of their torments. When, therefore, they arrive in Heaven, they will be sure to remember all who have prayed for them.”
St. Catherine of Siena “I do not think that apart from the felicity of Heaven, there can be a joy comparable to that experienced by the souls in Purgatory. An incessant communication from God renders their joy more vivid from day to day: and this communication becomes more and more intimate, to the extent that it consumes the obstacles still existing in the soul”
St. John Chrysostom “Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice [Job 1:5], why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.”
Saint John Vianney “What years of Purgatory will there be for those Christians who have no difficulty at all in deferring their prayers to another time on the excuse of having to do some pressing work! If we really desired the happiness of possessing God, we should avoid the little faults as well as the big ones, since separation from God is so frightful a torment to all these poor souls!”
St. Maria Faustina Kowalska “I saw my guardian angel, who ordered me to follow him. In a moment I was in a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls. They were praying fervently, but to no avail, for themselves; only we can come to their aid. I asked these souls what their greatest suffering was. They answered me in one voice that their greatest torment was longing for God.” –
St. Thomas Aquinas “The more one longs for a thing, the more painful does deprivation of it become. And because after this life, the desire for God, the Supreme Good, is intense in the souls of the just, the
soul suffers enormously from the delay.” –
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori “By assisting them (the souls in purgatory through prayer) we shall not only give great pleasure to God, but will acquire also great merit for ourselves. And, in return for our suffrages, these blessed souls will not neglect to obtain for us many graces from God, but particularly the grace of eternal life.”
Our Lord to St. Gertrude “My love urges Me to release the poor souls. If a beneficent king leaves his guilty friend in prison for justice’s sake, he awaits with longing for one of his nobles to plead for the prisoner and to offer something for his release. Then the king joyfully sets him free. Similarly, I accept with highest pleasure what is offered to Me for the poor souls, for I long inexpressibly to have near Me those for whom I paid so great a price.”
St. Augustine of Hippo “Faithful hearts should be allowed, then, to mourn for their loved ones, but with a grief that can be healed. Let them shed over our mortal condition tears that can be wiped away. Tears that can be quickly checked by the joy of that faith which assures us that when believers die they go but a little distance from us that they may pass to a better estate”
Our Lord to St. Gertrude “By the prayers of thy loving soul, I am induced to free a prisoner from purgatory as often as thou dost move thy tongue to utter a word of prayer!”
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori “The practice of recommending to God the souls in Purgatory, that He may mitigate the great pains which they suffer, and that He may soon bring them to His glory, is most pleasing to the Lord and most profitable to us.”
St. Gregory Palamas “As the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul. And this death of the soul is the true death”
St. Catherine of Genoa’s “For the souls in purgatory there is great joy as well as pain as they know for certain they are bound for heaven!”
St. John Vianney “I come to tell you that they suffer in Purgatory, that they weep, and that they demand with urgent cries the help of your prayers and your good works. I seem to hear them crying from the depths of those fires which devour them: ‘Tell our loved ones, tell our children, tell all our relatives how great the evils are which they are making us suffer. We throw ourselves at their feet to implore the help of their prayers.”
St. John the Wonderworker “Limitless and without consolation would have been our sorrow for close ones who are dying, if the Lord had not given us eternal life. Our life would be pointless if it ended with death. But man was created for immortality, and by His resurrection Christ opened the gates of the Heavenly Kingdom, of eternal blessedness for those who have believed in Him and have lived righteously.”
Saint Alphonsus Liguori “The clients of this most merciful Mother are very fortunate. She helps them both in this life and in the next, consoling them and sponsoring their cause in Purgatory. For the simple reason that the Souls in Purgatory need help so desperately, since they cannot help themselves, our Mother of Mercy does so much more to relieve them. She exercises over these Poor Souls, who are the spouses of Christ, particular dominion, with power to relieve them and even deliver them from their pains.”
St. Augustine of Hippo “Of necessity we must be sorrowful when those whom we love leave us in death. Although we know that they have not left us behind forever but only gone ahead of us, still when death seizes our loved one, our loving hearts are saddened by death itself. Thus, the apostle Paul does not tell us not to grieve but “not to give like those who are without hope.” –
St. Gregory Palamas “Let us cast away, let us reject all things, bid farewell to all things: to all relationships, actions and intentions that drag us downward and produce such death that separates us from God. He who is frightened of this death and has preserved himself from it will not be alarmed by the oncoming death of the body, for in him the true-life dwells, and bodily death, so far from taking true life away, renders it inalienable.”
