Margaret Mary Alacoque

And how many saints have been privileged with the continual loving presence of the sacred humanity of our Savior in the secret abysses of their soul, to instruct, guide and illumine them in the intricate and lofty ways of perfection.

Blessed Margaret Mary, the lowly Visitation nun, beheld this interior vision continually.

We may be sure that God granted these and other graces of sublime order to this faithful servant of his divine majesty, Don Bosco, so profoundly humble and so skillful in hiding the secrets of the King.

The desire to be led into this wonderful wheeled world of his soul's life with God drew me to consult the Salatian Fathers, in the hope that they might furnish me, either in print or in manuscript, some records which his alter ego, Don Rua, his saintly successor in the government of the society and other disciples must have made during those hours of sacred intimacy, which saints hold with one another and which help to make life an anticipated heaven.

See your Rocky Mountain Chevy Dealers.

PREFACE OF TREATISE the treatise of st catherine of genoa on purgatory has never it seems been as yet rendered into english the present translation therefore which is both faithful and excellent in language will be most acceptable to those to whom this wonderful book has hitherto been closed although our lord by his apostle has forbidden to women the public ministry of teaching in his church he has nevertheless reserved for them a great and resplendent office in the edification of his mystical body the lights and inspirations bestowed upon them according to the words of the prophet joel in the last days saith the lord i will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy and upon my servants and upon my handmaids i will pour out in those days of my spirit are among the prerogatives bestowed upon the church by the day of pentecost and their dignity is among the glories of the mother of god whose daughters and handmaids they are two of the great festivals of the catholic church had their origin in the illumination of humble and unlearned women The feast of Corpus Christi was the offspring of the devotion of the blessed Juliana of Ritine, the feast of the sacred heart of that of the blessed Margaret Mary.

To St. Catherine of Siena, our Lord vouchsafed the honor of calling back again the sovereign pontiff from the splendid banishment of Avignon to the throne of the apostolic see.

to saint teresa the special gift of illumination to teach the ways of union with himself in prayer to blessed angela of foligno the eighteen degrees of compunction and his own five poverties and to st catherine of genoa an insight and perception of the state of purgatory which seemed like the utterances of one immersed in its expiation of love benedict the fourteenth tells us in his work on the beatification and canonization of saints that the works of st catherine of genoa were examined and approved by the theologians of paris intending no doubt the examination by the sorbonne in sixteen sixty six by direction of the archbishop of paris and again by the sacred congregation in the cause of her canonization the source from which she drew the sweet and consoling illumination set forth in the following pages on the mysterious sufferings and bliss of purgatory was a life of continued pain and of ardent consuming love of perpetual expiation and of absolute conformity to the will of god and of this she says this way of purgation which i see in the souls in purgatory i feel in my mind chiefly in the last two years day by day i feel and see it more clearly i see my soul to be standing in the body as in a purgatory conformed and like to the true purgatory all the things i have hitherto said i see and touch but i can find no fit words to express as fully as i desire to say it and what i have said i feel to be working spiritually within me and therefore i have said it the saint was born in genoa in fourteen forty seven of the family of fieschi her parents married her to giuliano adorno of a noble genoese house after his death she served the sick in the great hospital where her body still perfect and visible is venerated over the high altar in the choir of the religious which is attached to the wards and looks down upon the external church and her memory is blessed among the saints as the seraph of genoa h e manning all souls day eighteen fifty eight end of the preface Chapters 1-8 of the Treatise on Purgatory chapter one state of the souls in purgatory how they are free from all self-love this holy soul yet in the flesh found herself placed in the purgatory of god's burning love which consumed and purified her from whatever she had to purify in order that after passing out of this life she might enter at once into the immediate presence of god her beloved by means of this furnace of love she understood how the souls of the faithful are placed in purgatory to get rid of all the rust and stain of sin that in this life was left unpurged as she plunged in the divine furnace of purifying love was united to the object of her love and satisfied with all that he wrought in her so she understood it to be with the souls in purgatory and said the souls in purgatory as far as i can understand the matter cannot but choose to be there and this by god's ordinance who has justly decreed it so they cannot reflect within themselves and say i have done such and such sins for which i deserve to be here nor can they say would that i had not done them that now i might go to paradise nor yet say that soul is going out before me nor i shall go out before him they can remember nothing of themselves or others whether good or evil which might increase the pain they ordinarily endure they are so completely satisfied with what god has ordained for them that he should be doing all that pleases him and in the way it pleases him that they are incapable of thinking of themselves even in the midst of their greatest sufferings they behold only the goodness of god whose mercy is so great in bringing men to himself that they cannot see anything that may affect them whether good or bad if they could they would not be in pure charity they do not know that their sufferings are for the sake of their sins nor can they keep in view the sins themselves for in doing so there would be an act of imperfection which could have no place where there can be no longer any possibility of actually sinning once in passing out of this life they perceived why they had their purgatory but never afterwards otherwise self would come in abiding then in charity and not being able to deviate therefrom by any real defect they have no will no desire nothing but the will of pure love they are in that fire of purgatory by the appointment of god which is all one with pure love and they cannot in anything turn aside from it because as they can no more merit so they can no more sin chapter two the joy of the souls in purgatory the saint shows how they are ever seeing god more and more difficulty in speaking of their condition i do not believe it would be possible to find any joy comparable to that of a soul in purgatory except the joy of the blessed in paradise a joy that goes on increasing day by day as god more and more flows in upon the soul which he does abundantly in proportion as every hindrance to his entrance is consumed away the hindrance is the rust of sin the fire consumes the rust and thus the soul goes on laying itself open to the divine inflowing it is as with a covered object the object cannot respond to the rays of the sun not because the sun ceases to shine for it shines without intermission but because the covering intervenes let the covering be destroyed again the object will be exposed to the sun and will answer to the rays which beat against it in proportion as the work of destruction advances thus the souls are covered by a rust that is sin which is gradually consumed away by the fire of purgatory the more it is consumed the more they respond to god their true son their happiness increases as the rust falls off and lays them open to the divine ray and so their happiness grows greater as the impediment grows less till the time is accomplished the pain however does not diminish but only the time of remaining in that pain as far as their will is concerned these souls cannot acknowledge the pain as such so completely are they satisfied with the ordinance of god so entirely is their will one with it in pure charity on the other hand they suffer a torment so extreme that no tongue could describe it no intellect could form the least idea of it if god had not made it known by special grace which idea however god's grace has shown my soul but i cannot find words to express it with my tongue yet the sight of it has never left my mind i will describe it as i can they will understand it whose intellect the lord has vouchsafed to open Chapter 3.