My Brother, my Sister, help!
"For ihe rest, brethren, pray for us." - 2 Thessalonians 3:1
Cherished brother, beloved sister, the sad and distressing sight of my agony, my anguish and struggle against death still affect you. Overcome by them, my soul has been precipitated into a place of suffering, v^hicii nevertheless does not deprive me of the hope of meeting you again. But if you only knew my sufferings! Ah! how many bitter tears would flow from your eyes! I burn in avenging flames, I become pure by inexpressible expiation. Help! aid me.
Have pity on me, you who know that beyond the grave there exists a place where pity consoles, relieves, and delivers. Forget me not!
Help! you who shared my existence and who have been willing to lessen the number of your days to increase or relieve mine.
Help! you who shared the same table, the same bed, the same dwelling.
Help! you who possess and love to survey my estates; you who claim and glory in my titles; you who adorn yourself from my wardrobe. Forgetful or inattentive, insensible or ungrateful, listen to my voice, which from the depth of the abyss cries continually to you, "Have pity on me!"
Help! you at least through whose veins flows the same blood, you who have so many reasons for thinking of me I Do you then wish that day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, my love should carry all the burden of justice? And you leave me to pay, perliaps by ages of suffering, what you could discharge by a single day of sacrifice. Nevertheless, you love me! You wept much at m.y funeral, and have shed many tears over my grave; and to-day you think not of throwing on these consuming flames the dew of prayer, and the still more efficacious dew of the Blood of Jesus Christ.
Walsh - The Brother of a Protestant
I knew, says the Viscount Walsh, a Lutheran who was converted by our belief in Purgatory. He had lost a clierished brother in the midst of a feast, and, to the torture of his heart, he unceasingly thought of that rapid passage from an orgie to a coffin. His mind needed to be reassured; he knew of the purity that is required in heaven, and in his religion he did not find an intermediate state between the celestial porch and the depth of the abyss. His leligion taught him that as soon as the last breath is exhaled the judgment of God takes place - the sudden, instantaneous, irrevocable judgment. Oh! then his dread became heait-rending anguish. He had no more peace. His days passed without recreation, his nights without sleep, his thoughts without hope; he visibly pined away, and likewise inclined towards the grave, towards the grave of his brother which he was bound to share as a family bed.
He was ordered to travel; but he said: "I will not have time to go far; I will die at an inn attended by mercenary strangers. And when I shall close my eyes, they will be obliged to search my papers to ascertain the name fof the traveller who went to rest forever, and who has no more need of anything but a lodging in a cemetery." His friends united with the physician, and the young Scotchman went on the Continent. I was on the same vessel, and very soon we entered into conversation.
When we disembarked, we lodged in the same hotel; after some days, he told me what had spread so much gloom over his youthful years, the death of his brother and his uneasiness concerning the eternal destiny of one he so much loved. "Ah!" said he to me on All Souls' Day, "through love for my brother I am going to adopt your rite! Oh! when I will pray for my brother, I will breathe, I will live to implore each day the happiness of heaven for him I so much cherished on earth! Your belief is that we can still aid each other after death. Your prayers take from the tomb its terrible silence; you converse again with those who have departed; you have known human frailty, that weakness which without being a crime is not purity; and, between the limits of heaven and hell, God has revealed a place of expia- tion. My brother may be there. I become a Catholic to deliver him, for my consolation here below, my relief of the burden wdiich oppresses me: this burden I will feel no longer when I can pray."
Practice
Devote some of your pocket-money to spreading about little books treating of Purgatory.
Prayer
Is it not to me, Lord, that these complaints and cries for help are addressed? Have I not in Purgatory a brother (or sister) who has sacred claims on my friendship and even gratitude, and whom I have cruelly abandoned? O my God! I deplore the ingratitude, the indifference of which I have been guilty. No, in future I will leave nothing undone to repair it. Holy Angels, do not neglect, as we do, these just souls, these souls who have honored you in life. They are unable to make audible lamentations; but you supply for this mability by recalling them to our remembrance and interiorly inviting us to pray for them. Enlighten me always with your salutary inspirations; obtain for me that spirit of contemplation and prayer which keeps you in continual ecstary before the throne of the August Trinity, and my prayer, blended with yours, will obtain for me and for these poor souls celestial clemency.
Angel of God, my guardian dear.
To whom His love commits me here.
Ever this day be at my side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide.
Amen.
- text taken from Month of the Dead by Father Celestin Cloquet, translated by a Sister of Mercy, with the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archdiocese of New York, 18 October 1886