The first question that arises is whether the souls in Purgatory can establish direct contact with us and appear to us; fundamentally, it is the age-old question of ghosts that is posed here; and this question seems to have been definitively settled in the negative.
A universal burst of laughter would undoubtedly greet anyone who wanted to treat it scientifically, so accustomed is the current generation to considering all this as old wives' tales, which no longer frighten even children. Yet it is harsh to respond with such an absolute dismissal to the entirety of history, for we must not deceive ourselves: all peoples and all centuries believed in these communications from beyond the grave.
The ancient pagans had their apparitions, just like the Catholic Middle Ages. What is more, the entire pagan cult rests on these extraordinary manifestations. We see, from the anathemas of the Bible and from ancient histories, that the evocation of the dead, the cult of the Manes, was the great sin of antiquity.
Leaving aside the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks, despite the testimonies provided by the ruins of Nineveh and Memphis, let us see what happened each year among the Romans. It is known that the Lemuria, or expiatory festivals in honor of the dead, were religiously celebrated there every year. On the appointed day, the Sovereign Pontiff would go in procession to the Manal chasm, located in the middle of the Campus Martius. At the sinister cry "Mundus patet" (The world of the dead is open), the dead would emerge in crowds from the bowels of the earth. Their relatives and friends would go to meet them, leading them into houses where a feast was prepared in their honor.
When the festival ended, they were led back to their dark abode. Now, these lugubrious rites exist among all non-Christian peoples. In the 16th century, Saint Francis Xavier found them, identically the same, among the Japanese. And in our own day, in that great Chinese empire which covers a quarter of the globe, our missionaries inform us that things still happen in the same way, and that the evocation of the dead, the cult of ancestors, forms almost the entire religion of that extraordinary people.
From where can such unanimity come? There is nothing attractive about it; on the contrary, these communications with the invisible world naturally inspire terror. How then do we find them everywhere? Who made these same rites known to the ancient Mexicans and to all the peoples of America, among whom the Spaniards found them established when they landed on their shores? Who revealed them to the Vaudoux and to those brutish tribes of central Africa, who have never had relations with the civilized peoples of antiquity or the modern world? Who can be made to believe that these thousands of men, living under all latitudes, in epochs so distant from one another, believed they saw and heard what never had any reality except in their imagination?
Let us make allowance for illusion and superstition in these strange manifestations.
From this universality of belief in the apparitions of the dead, I believe I am right to conclude that a serious reality lies hidden beneath these phenomena. The Church has not been mistaken in this, equally distant from the superstition that believes everything and the skepticism that rejects, without examination, the best-proven facts. She admits in principle the existence of these manifestations, and when a particular case presents itself, she examines what part must be attributed to trickery or diabolical illusion. If there is nothing of that sort to fear, she admits the reality of the apparition. And she must do so, for otherwise we would have to tear up all our lives of the saints, since on every page these phenomena recur.
Sometimes it is souls already in glory who appear to encourage the survivors or give them advice; sometimes it is suffering souls who come to solicit our prayers; more rarely, it is the reprobate, who emerge for a moment from the abyss to recount their sufferings. Apart from these accounts, borrowed from the annals of the Church, there is the tradition of all peoples which speaks of haunted houses, strange noises, and frightening apparitions.
If I do not enter into the study of these facts, it is not because I reject them wholesale, like our modern wits. On the contrary, I maintain that amid much superstition and error, there is a foundation of truth in most of these accounts. Unless we overturn the laws of human testimony, we must admit that among so many facts of this kind that are recounted, there are some that are perfectly proven. The only reason that forces me to pass over them in silence is the rule I set for myself at the beginning of this work: to cite only revelations belonging to the lives of the saints, in order to remove all danger of illusion.
For those who would like to study these facts in more detail, I would refer them to M. de Mirville, in his book on spirits and their manifestations, or to the "Mystique" of Görres. Confining myself to my program, I wish to recount what happened to the great doctor of the Middle Ages, Saint Thomas Aquinas. It would be harsh to relegate this great mind among the credulous people who are taken in by old wives' tales.
Here is what is found in his life.
When Saint Thomas was a lecturer in theology at the University of Paris, he saw one day appear before him the soul of his sister, who had just died at the convent of Capua, of which she was abbess. She was suffering cruelly for various failings in religious life and commended herself to his prayers. The saint promised her and kept his word. Some time later, having been sent to Rome by his superiors, he saw this dear soul appear to him again, but this time, in the appearance of glory. She came to thank him for his suffrages which had hastened her deliverance.
Long familiar with supernatural things, the saint was not afraid to enter into conversation with the apparition and to ask what had become of two of his brothers who had died previously. "Arnold is in Heaven," replied the soul, "and he enjoys a high degree of glory for having defended the Church and the Sovereign Pontiff against the impious aggressions of the Emperor Frederick. As for Ludolph, he is still in Purgatory where he suffers greatly, because no one thinks to pray for him."
"For you, dear brother, a magnificent place awaits you in Paradise, as a reward for all you have done for the Church. Hasten, therefore, to put the finishing touches to the various works you have undertaken, for certainly you will soon come to join us."
History relates that the great doctor did indeed die shortly after. Another day, the same saint was in prayer in the church of Saint Dominic in Naples. He saw coming towards him Brother Romanus, who had succeeded him in Paris in the office of lecturer in theology. The saint at first thought he had just arrived from Paris, for he was unaware of his death. He therefore rose to inquire about his health and the reasons for his journey.
"I am no longer on earth," the good religious said to him with a smile. "I spent only fifteen days in Purgatory, by the mercy of our God. I am already in possession of my crown, and I come by His orders to encourage you in your labors."
"Am I in a state of grace?" Thomas immediately asked.
"Yes, my brother, and I must tell you that your works are very pleasing to God!"
Then the theologian, reassured about his own state, wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to probe some of the mysteries of sacred science, in particular the mystery of the beatific vision. But he was answered with this verse from the Psalmist: "Sicut audivimus sic vidimus in civitate Dei nostri" (As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God), and the apparition disappeared.
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Saint Augustine, cited on this point by Cardinal Bona, manifestly leans towards the opinion which attributes the apparitions of souls to angels. After speaking of some apparitions of the dead to the living, and even of the living to other living persons—after recounting that he himself, Augustine, being in Milan, thus appeared, without knowing it, to Eulogius of Carthage, to explain to him a difficult passage from Cicero's treatise on rhetoric—the great doctor of the Latin Church concludes in these terms:
"Why should we not believe that these things are operations of angels, which happen by the dispensation of the providence of God?"
Then, with his customary humility, the saintly doctor declares that for his part, he does not know how these things happen. "This," he says, "is too high for me to reach." Whereupon the pious cardinal concludes with the same humility and simplicity:
"If Saint Augustine was ignorant of these things, who am I to promise myself to have knowledge of them."
After that, it may seem very impertinent and very presumptuous to have an opinion, when these great and saintly personages refuse to pronounce. But since a question is posed, it is impossible to prevent the human mind from leaning to one side or the other.
Source: Le purgatoire d’après les révélations des Saints – Abbé Louvet – 1883