From this book I learned about the 100-year-old Little Purgatory Museum in Rome (Piccolo Museo Del Purgatorio) which was set up by a French priest called Victor Jouet. The priest collected relics.. proof left behind by the holy souls of Purgatory. Finger prints burned into a prayer book, a handprint burned into a table, Similar marks on shirt sleeves, an apron, a night cap. And all investigated thoroughly by critical personages. You can read more here.
Face Burned Into The Wood
Relics Preserved In Glass Cases
As I read the book, I felt very moved at the information shared by people, who on the whole were reluctant at first to believe what they were experiencing. After that, they were reluctant to share with others, for fear of being ridiculed or denounced as liars. But how on earth would one explain a burn bad enough to sear the flesh down to the bone? This was experienced by a lady who was visited by her lover on the same night as his death. He came to tell her that there WAS a purgatory.
But as I read the book, and learned of the purgatory revealed to St Catherine of Genoa, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina and many others, this is what I understood.
Purgatory is a place of purification. After death, souls will spiral towards a bright beautiful light (a Centre) from which they will feel an all-consuming desire to go to and to belong to. But then they will sink down into the Purification. This will happen according to their will for they will feel their unworthiness, their uncleanness to be with the magnificence of God and they WANT to be cleansed of the rust of sin.
The first phase of purification involves flames of cleansing. One soul showed to his daughter (a nun) a cistern of smoke and flames. From where he stood near the wll, the nun could feel the pain and overwhelming heat of the flames. But after masses and Stations of the Cross offered for him, the soul was delivered.
Some souls were delivered from the flames to a place of contentment and peace, but not yet in Heaven. They were still in Purgatory. This depends on the sins borne by the souls. But these souls still feel torment... the torment of longing to be with God that is like a physical pain.
There was even a soul of a man who lived his life far from God but he was saved from hell by the goodness and faith of his wife. This gives hope to those of us who worry about loved ones.
These souls say that if only the living understand how terrible it is to be in Purgatory, the living would do all things possible NOT to sin. They would do anything to expiate for their sins on earth. For a moment on earth is an eternity in Purgatory. The soul who beseeeched his daughter for help told her that he had been in Purgatory for six years when in fact, he had only died barely three months ago.
Oh read this book if you can. I promise you it will touch you and will change the way you think and the way you live.
Postscript :
On the 29th of May 2012, I visited this museum.
