On the Sufferings of the Souls in Purgatory

A Voice in the Garden

One evening the venerable Stanislaus of Poland was saying the Rosary in the garden attached to his monastery. Suddenly he heard beside him sounds of grief and wailing. He looked on all sides but saw nothing. He cried out: "Who is moaning so piteously, and where are you, that I may come to your assistance?" Still there was no answer, and the said sounds continued as before.

Stanislaus began to think that this must be a temptation of Satan to put distractions in his mind at his prayer; so, making the sign of the Cross, he aid: "I command you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, to tell me what you want."

Then he heard these words: "I am a soul from Purgatory, condemned by the justice of God to suffer unutterable sufferings. Oh that I were able to let the living know the awful punishments with which God punishes sin when the soul has left the body. If Christians knew it, even in part only, they would have a horror even for the smallest sin.

"Go and tell everyone what I have just revealed to you," continued the suffering soul, "for God has sent me to ask you to do it. Tell them that the smallest faults are punished in Purgatory with intense sufferings, and that everything they have not blotted out by penance on earth must be satisfied for in these terrible flames."

NAS Letter December 2009