Teresa Higginson's experience of the fires of purgatory Part III

Bootle, May 18th, 1883

...The two flames of which I have spoken to you, although they burn and consume as it were the whole being and cause a most exquisite pain, yet they seem to regenerate and renew in a wonderful manner, I mean that the agony they cause is more than mortal, yet they produce a new life and cause a deep peace and sweet calm in which truths are seen and clearly understood, and things are measured and weighed according to their worth.  The light produced by these flames in the soul annihilates; it instructs the understanding and compels the heart to love God and souls so intensely that we do not know what to do with ourselves...

So long as these flames consume the soul there is no fear of anything but the deepest humility and absolute annihilation.  It is a true light in which we see God's infinite attributes and almighty power and our own weakness, wretchedness and misery, yet we see as we have never seen before the gifts which our dear Lord has given to us, the jewels with which our divine Spouse has enriched us that we may glorify Him in His works and bless and glorify Him for being mindful of His poor helpless little worms..

Prophecy of famine and the falling away of many priests

Teresa foresaw much of what was to happen in the twentieth century, in particular the widespread famines (as happened in the collectivisation of the Ukraine in the 1930's) and the widespread moral failing, defection and dissent of the priesthood in the years following the Second Vatican Council.  Yet she foresaw a period and peace and consolation for the church.  This was what she wrote in 1880 to Fr. Powell:

“On another occasion I saw the stars shining brightly in the firmament and I saw a smoke arise, then I saw numbers of them fall and our b. Lord made me understand that through levity, want of mortification, and intellectual pride, many of His priests will presently fall away. 

At other times I have seen dried up herbage, dead cattle and fainting forms of human beings which I think indicates famine but I have not been distinctly told so. I do not know either the exact time these things will come to pass, but I understand that they are now hanging over our heads. The sign which marks the foreheads of the saved is the Wisdom the seat of which He expresses shall be duly and publicly worshipped.”

Ukrainian famine of 1932 - 1933

“When these things shall have passed, there will be very few left who have not His seal upon their foreheads, yet these will be brought to love and adore the Wisdom of the Father in person of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwelling in the hearts and minds of His people, the Church will enjoy a great peace and calm, and God will be adored, loved known and served verily and indeed.”

A prophecy of the atomic bomb?

In 1880 Teresa wrote this letter to Fr. Powell, in which Our Lord revealed to her the terrible judgements of war that would happen in the future.  This was published in Lady Cecil Kerr's biography of 1927, when the atomic bomb had not even been imagined:

“If it were not in obedience, I should never attempt to describe the dreadful things which have been shown to me, but, trusting in that wisdom and power, I hope He will give you a right understanding and knowledge of all that you wish me in His Name to relate. Oh Jesus, my beloved Jesus, be Thou a Jesus to us and save us whom Thou hast redeemed by Thy most precious Blood. I know not how or where I was taken, but it seemed to me that I was in a high place and looked down upon the earth. First I saw a cloud of darkness encompass the earth, a real thick material darkness which I understood too was a figure of the darkness of the intellect into which man had precipitated himself, then I heard the sound of mighty thunder and saw the lightning flash, and it seemed to me as if balls of fire fell upon the earth and struck it to its centre splintering the rocks to fragments. And I heard the rush of waters and a fearful wail of mourning arose from the earth, and humbly prostrating myself I craved for mercy through the Blood and bitter Passion of Jesus Christ, for through this darkness could be seen distinctly shining stars on the bosom of the earth (the holy tabernacles of His love), and I begged God not to look upon us but on the face of His Christ. And I heard a mighty voice say, ‘I will not save this people for they are flesh. Ask me not in His Blood for His Blood is upon them.’ (I understood to condemn them). But still I continued uniting my poor prayer with that of our dear crucified Jesus, saying over and over again, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Jesus, Mercy! Mary, help!’

“I cannot say how long this lasted, for I was as much afraid as I was humbled, but then I heard a voice I knew full well to be that of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ saying: ‘Say that not one of these that are given to me shall be lost.’ Then the earthquakes stopped and the lightnings ceased and I beheld starved and maniac looking forms rise trembling to their feet, and I saw the sign upon their foreheads, and with them and the whole court of heaven I praised and blessed that God of infinite wisdom who in His mercy has redeemed us in His Blood.

Teresa Higginson's experience of the fires of purgatory Part II

Bootle March 1883

First I must tell you that the fire of which I wrote seems to me to be purely spiritual, and I feel that without it I could not have withstood that which it pleased Our Blessed Lord to give to me, or in other words that the human soul must be purified in this flame before it can gaze so far into the infinities of God, and it would seem to me that eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor is it given to the mind of man to conceive this part of the dreadful bitter passion, for the soul finds itself launched out into the infinities of God and carried away in the torrent of His wrath, or pressed down beneath the weight of His judgements, and as the Precious Blood, the stream of life, trickles from the Sacred Heart, it sets the poor trembling soul on fire with desire and love, zeal and impatience, raising it from the earth earthly and pressing on it nearer and nearer, deeper and deeper down into those unfathomable  depths of the infinite attributes of God.

This knowledge is of greater value to the soul than any which God has given to me, and yet I see clearly that I do not know in any way how to express the depths into which I have been plunged by God.  All that it has pleased Him for me to endure in His name (other years) is but a little stream from a scalding torrent He has now deluged my whole being in and saturated me through and through.  The dreadful tortures and awful sufferings which I have been able to write of other years were within the scope of human feeling or human intelligence to conceive, but the most terrible part of the Passion of Jesus was in the soul and in the intellectual faculties.  He had to atone to the all holy and infinitely pure Spirit of God (by His submission) for the sins of the great intelligences which rebelled against God and for whom hell was created.  He had to make full satisfaction for the sins of rational beings made to the image of the Triune God....

I think really without that fire (I don't know exactly but I think it is from God's awful purity) I could not possible have gone through half of that which it pleased our dear divine Lord to give to me, for in the first place I could not have seen things as they really are.  The understanding is wonderfully illuminated and the eye of the soul purified in this fire, and the flame of divine love seems to shoot up higher.  In it I saw man's ingratitude in a deeper dye and God's love for His own glory and for souls in a new and more glorious light than I had ever seen before...

Teresa's accounts of her mystical marriage to Fr. Alfred Snow

The following are two letters to Father Alfred Snow, from Lady Anne Cecil Kerr's biography:

“In the name of the Adorable and undivided Trinity, and to the glory of Jesus my divine Spouse and only Treasure, in honour of Mary my Immaculate Queen and Mother, and in obedience, I will try and write something of those things which He has vouchsafed to me the very least of His little ones. I have written an account of the unspeakable favour which Jesus Christ the Son of God and the ever blessed Virgin Mary has granted to me, and when I read it over it seemed in no way to convey what He really has accomplished, for the change that has come over my soul is so astounding that I cannot express it or convey by any comparison what has really been done. I feel and realise those wondrous words of our dear Lord, ‘My peace I give you’ etc. and it brings such a sweet bright light in the soul that they only can understand who experience it, and our dear Lord has taught me the hidden things of God with such excessive delights that all the senses enjoy such an immense degree of sweetness that nothing here could in any way describe. And if you wish me to tell you what I have seen or what He has taught me, I can only say He has taught me great truths hidden in His immensity. He has laid open His secret and I have drunk to excess, and yet, as there is no image of any sort represented to the understanding, the soul learns and enjoys without knowing what she learns and enjoys. These things may seem to you to be folly on my part, but perhaps it is on account of my nothingness and misery that I am not able to give you a better idea of what passes now or how my soul is contained or held in God and how He acts with her. But even if it is so, oh how I thank Him for knowing nothing and having nothing but Himself, oh how rich I am in His possession! And though the soul may be astounded at first at His condescension, yet afterwards when she considers His immense love, she lies as it were in peace without in any way considering herself. Yet she knows and understands how He is all hers and she is all His, but she has no thought but of Him. I mean she forgets her own misery and sins and does not wish to do this or that but only His adorable Will, and this she hungers and thirsts for as He makes her understand like Him she ‘must be about her Father’s business’ and testify to the world the love and goodness of Jesus, her divine Spouse. Oh that I had the tongue of men and angels that I might proclaim to the whole world what He is and His wonderful love, that I could tell or give them to taste how sweet is the Lord and what they lose who run after the empty bubbles of the world. Oh all we could do or suffer for ages would be nothing to purchase so great a good. Oh that I could tell what I experience in Him who is all good, all powerful, all Wisdom. My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid.

 Mystical marriage of St. Catherine

“Oh my Father, you must pardon me. I do really wish and desire to make all clear to you, and I beg of Him, whom I know will not refuse my request, to teach you by experience and show you my soul as He sees it, that so you may know how to guide and take me with you to His eternal possession.

“Ah what a foretaste I have already of that eternal bliss, for the soul seems to have become one with God in such a close bond of union that all fear of losing Him seems out of the question, for it seems that the soul as a little drop of vapour is drawn up into the immeasurable ocean of God’s infinity. Here she feels to possess all and she cares not whether she lives or dies.

“I don't know but what those great impetuosities may return, but at present I feel as though I had not to run after God as it were, but that I possessed Him and was more closely united to Him than my soul is to my body, that He is the soul of my existence and that I feel and live in Him, that He does all and that I do nothing.

“He has taught me oh so clearly too, all that He has done for me and how miserable a wretch I should have been without Him, and when He shows me the beauty with which He has clothed me and the wonderful works He has accomplished in me, I am forced as it were to sink in the abyss of my own nothingness and praise Him for His mighty acts. And instead of trying to run away as it were at telling you, I feel as though I were robbing Him of that which is His if I did not try to tell you as I know things myself, for all is His and I am and have nothing, and it would seem to be a false humility that I have hitherto had – wishing to hide His favours, as though I considered they were in some way mine, or that I had anything to do with them.

“I seem to have become as a powerful eagle that can soar to and gaze on the midday sun, and as those who look at the sun can see nothing but it for some time, so now I see nothing but Him in all things and all things in Him. That great fear of death and desire of it are gone and I feel such a real disengagement from all created objects, and I feel to have gained such a great dominion over myself that I don’t think anyone can understand but those to whom our dear Lord my Spouse and only Love has given it, for I know too so well that I never could have acquired it no matter how I worked or exerted myself. It is all His work and I feel myself so freed out of this prison of death that I lie basking in peace in the light of His Truth. He has dug deep in the trench that so He might fill me with Himself. He has filled up the valleys on a level with the hills, and the mountains He has lowered that I may view their tops and look down on all things beneath. Oh my Father, I could never tell you all that in His goodness and mercy He has done for me, and it seems to take away from it rather than anything else when I try to express them in such cyphers as is the language of men, when trying to describe the truths and favours of Almighty God.

“Begging of you again and again to bless the Lord for all He has done for me, and offering His adorable Precious Blood in thanksgiving, I unite my voice with His, with Mary’s and the whole court of Heaven in praising and blessing our God who sitteth upon the throne, and the Lamb who redeemed us by His blood and made us to reign with Him for ever and ever. Amen.

“TERESA HIGGINSON              “Enfant de Marie”
 

CLITHEROE, FEAST OF ST. WINIFRED, 1887.

“Oh my Father it seems presumption almost on my part to attempt to describe the wonderful things our dear b. Lord has done for my poor soul, and yet I know I must endeavour that you may thoroughly understand His workings in me. Though it seems as if I could not comprehend at once all that His infinite goodness accomplishes, oh how clearly He has taught me in very truth the true estimate of all things here and to judge rightly of His gifts and graces. Here the soul becomes as it were a very queen of liberty, she has bound up all for Jesus and He sets His little captive free, she has sunk in the abyss of her own nothingness and He raises her to a most intimate union with Himself and the adorable Trinity. She has stripped herself of all things for His sake and He clothes her in His glory. She has tasted of the bitterness of life for His sake and He fills her with unutterable sweetness; and now she who was so afraid and weak is made strong and desires to fly to the heights and gaze on and bury herself in the centre of that sun at which sometimes she felt unable to look, for the light was too strong for her weakness. Now she desires to plunge deeper and deeper into that eternal Essence, to gaze into that sparkling crystal and there drink the waters of life and eat the food of the strong. Here she is taught that she is nothing and has nothing, that all is her divine Spouse’s, and she feels as though she could go to the tops of the mountains and proclaim His greatness, His wisdom, His love, and His goodness aloud to the whole world, that all might acknowledge that He is the Lord and praise and magnify His Holy Name.

“I feel as though I had no heart or soul but that God Himself is my soul and there He shines and rules all in such wonderful wisdom and peace. Oh my soul, bless the Lord and let all that is in thee praise His Holy Name. It would seem to me as though our dear Lord my divine Spouse and Mary my dear queen and my mother were keeping high court within my poor soul and allowing me to understand the glory that so many angels and saints are enjoying in His presence, for they are present with and seem to accompany me. Oh my Father, if it were only to witness the beauty of the stones in this circle of our union, to behold the gems that represent His sacred Wounds, I think it is more than human nature could endure, and it seems to fill my poor body even with a spiritual life and brightness that it seems buoyed up so to speak; but I do not now care what becomes of it, whether it is raised up before others or not. His glory and Holy Will are all I desire. I feel as though I could sing the Magnificat aloud with my more than Mother Mary.

“T. HIGGINSON.             
“Enfant de Marie.”

Teresa's account of her mystical marriage to Fr. Edward Powell

From the biography of Lady Anne Cecil Kerr.

The wonderful ceremony of her Mystical Marriage took place during the night of the 23rd of October, 1887, between the feast of the Holy Redeemer and that of St. Raphael. She wrote at once to Father Snow and a few days later sent a somewhat fuller account in reply to a request from Father Powell. Her eyes had beheld that which it is not given to man to utter and she speaks as one still dazed from the glory of that vision. Her very writing, wavering and almost illegible, betrays that she was trembling on the verge of ecstasy as she wrote. The following is what she wrote to Father Powell:

  Mystical marriage of St. Catherine of Alexandria

AMDG et in hon BVM et St J

“In the Name of the most august and blessed Trinity and in holy obedience I write of the unspeakable favours which Jesus Christ true God and true Man, my divine Spouse and only Treasure through the excess of His infinite Love has bestowed on me, the very least of His little ones. Oh my Father, how can I find words to express this wonderful mystery, this excess of His mercy and love which is more astounding to me than the great mystery of the Incarnation. Oh my Love, my Love, my beautiful One, My Jesus, my Own, my All, my God, my (the writing becomes illegible).

“Oh my Father it seems to me almost impossible to continue, or rather I should say I am unable to begin and describe what I would. This is the third paper I have spoiled; I am carried away at the recollection of His wonderful condescension. I have twice before written the four pages and when I read them over I found it full of little prayers, and now again I find myself like one only half awake, for my whole being seems lost in His infinite immensity, His wonderful Attributes, the unspeakable dignity to which He has raised this little nothing. And so prostrating myself before the thrice holy Trinity and before Jesus, my own Jesus, my spouse and my Treasure, I beg of Him to guide my hand and my understanding that I may write without these little wanderings and make clear to you all that you would wish to know, to the praise and glory of His Holy Name. Oh my soul bless the Lord and magnify, for He has regarded the nothingness of His handmaid and has had compassion on my weakness and misery. He has drawn up this little drop of water from the earth into the ocean of His infinity, into the Essence of the Unity and Trinity of the Almighty God of Wisdom and Love, the all-pure and uncreated One, and made me one with Himself in the most holy and solemn bond of marriage. He has really and truly united Himself to me in the presence of the whole court of heaven, presenting me as His beloved Spouse to the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, and His Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, the Cherubim and Seraphim, etc. etc. and making me feel and understand how this sacred alliance was as real and as true as the union of His divine and human Nature in the one Person of Himself, Jesus Christ the Coeternal Son and the Son of Mary since the moment of the Incarnation. And in His Name and with His help, I will tell the way as far as I can that all has been accomplished.

“Remember oh my Love and my Lord that I am all Thine and Thou art the God of Truth, the Word that is God, and that now I am one with Thee as the body and soul of man are one person, so my words must be a reflection of Thine, must be, as Thou hast said to me they shall be, Wisdom and Truth, as the honey that drips from the hive, pure and sweet, and all men may confess that these things are the works of Thy Wisdom and Love.

“Since the feast of our holy Father St. Francis, when my divine Spouse gave me the general absolution (as I complained to Him that I had not been able to receive it from the hands of a priest and we had no Franciscans here), He caressed my soul as it were and told me that He would give me the absolution, not to take away sins from which He had preserved me, but to saturate me with His most Precious Blood and make me more like Himself. And He let me feel that my soul (through His presence and the holy Sacraments) gave great glory to the adorable Trinity and was a reflection of Themselves in the powers in which He had and they had taken up their abode and which was glistening and saturated with His adorable precious Blood. He told me frequently that, as I had given myself wholly to Him to be His entirely, so He would be all mine, and that He would glorify me in the sight of the angels and saints, because I had emptied myself and become as naught to myself and had gladly clothed myself with the sins of others for the price they had cost Him and for the love of His image and likeness. And because I desired Him with a longing nigh unto death, He would unite Himself to me in the closest union possible and clothe me with the brightness of His glory, and because I had rejoiced and united myself to Him when I was reviled by men and had clothed myself in the fool’s garment (as it were), as He was during His bitter Passion, so He was about to clothe me with the wedding garment of Purity, Charity and Truth.

He also shot those fiery darts of love from His Sacred Heart into the very centre of my poor soul so frequently that I felt as though my breast was a liquid fire: a boiling seemed to be going on in and through my entire being, and the pain it caused was so excessive that I continually cried aloud to Him for pity and told Him again and again that He knew how I loved and desired Him and begged of Him to burn away all that was not Himself and so unite me and make me all His own, though never for one moment dreaming of the unutterable favour which His love has accomplished. In this fire which burns very clearly for there is no smoke or wet fuel – in this consuming flame all is brightness, and the light thereof is very pure so that the soul sees very clearly what God is and what He has done for her and that she has nothing of her own, all being the gift of her great and wise Creator and Redeemer, and she knows and understands how the Holy Spirit has sanctified her, and seeing what she is and what God is, she is as it were annihilated in His sacred presence. Oh how He has taught me what I am and what I owe Him and His excessive love!

 St. Raphael with Tobias

“Well, on Sunday the 23rd, the feast of our Holy Redeemer, I thought of the holy Sacrifice being offered for me, I tried to make the same act of oblation to God of myself as my divine Spouse made to His Eternal Father during His most bitter Passion, and I felt that He graciously accepted the offering I made. Then in the evening I begged of the angel Raphael to guide me to my divine Spouse as he did of old the young Tobias, and I sent the angel of the Incarnation to present my soul to Him with all its affections, my body with all its senses to be all His forever, and I begged him to present me through the hands of Mary His Queen and my Mother as a clean oblation in His sight. Then I repeated several times: ‘Oh Wisdom of the Sacred Head, guide me in all my ways, oh love of the Sacred Heart consume me with Thy fire’, when I found my soul fluttering on my lips almost and my spirit softly stealing through the gates of death and I was fainting away with desire, and yet such a calm sweet peace was in my soul that it seemed to check the throbbing of my poor heart that tried to break, because it was overwhelmed with His goodness and love and yearned to be united with Him whom it loves with all its affections.

Oh how I hunger and thirst after Him for He alone can satisfy! And as I was thus literally dying I think of desire of Him, He appeared holding the b. Sacrament before me and I thought He had come as He so frequently does to feed me with His adorable Body and refresh me with His most precious Blood, but refrained for some time (it seemed an age to me) and stood gazing into the very centre of my poor trembling soul, which would have left this poor prison of the flesh if it could to fly to and rest in Him, her only Good.

Then He gave me Himself in Holy Communion and the Sacred Host liquified and I seemed to drink of the Precious Blood till I was saturated through and through. And it changed all into Itself, and my divine Spouse spoke to my soul and said He would now fulfil the promise He had made to me so often and present me to the adorable Trinity, and unite Himself to me in presence of the whole court of heaven. I felt annihilated at these words, for I felt my nothingness and unworthiness and I think I would really have died if He had not supported me by a new miracle of power and love. Then He said, ‘Arise my Beloved that I may glorify the triune God in Unity and espouse thee in Their adorable presence.’ And turning then to His blessed Mother, He gave me to her as her daughter, and Mary taking hold of my hand gave it to Jesus and He withdrew the ring that He had before placed upon it and then replaced it on the same finger, saying: ‘I espouse thee in the Name and in the presence of the uncreated Trinity and in presence of My Immaculate Mother, and I give you to her as a daughter and my Spouse for ever.’

Mystical marriage of St. Catherine of Siena

“I was wrapped in the Essence of the Eternal Godhead and I heard and saw things which it is not given to man to utter, and when I began to come to myself I beheld the ring (which encircled the finger next the little finger of my left hand) which was a circle of thorns as it were, set with seven beautiful crystals more beautiful than diamonds which looked like liquid gems, the centre representing the Holy Soul of my divine Spouse in which the adorable Trinity is represented by the three powers, and are as it were a reflecting glass in which They behold their Unity in Essence. Then to the right is represented the Sacred Head as the Seat of divine Wisdom, and on the other side the Sacred Heart is represented, and the other four are to represent the Wounds in His sacred Hands and Feet. Oh what brightness and beauty issues from this little ring; what glory it gives, that I could not behold it I think and live if it were not that He who gave it sustains me with His power. Then He allowed me to see the soul I have often seen before but now more beautiful than ever, and He told me, as I sang with the angels hymns of praise, that was the soul of His beloved Spouse, that that glory was my nuptial robe and that He with the Father and Holy Spirit were glorified in me and that I should dwell with them and His Blessed Mother and St. Joseph for ever. He also told me to remember that I was His, that He was Almighty God and I like Him must be about my Father’s business. I understand I have a great deal to do for souls and many difficulties will surround me, but I must take courage and have great confidence in Him. Since then it seems to me that so many saints are with me, and the angels as a guard of honour watch in admiring wonder the mercies of the adorable Trinity to this very least of His little ones, and I could and do continually unite with my dear Mother Mary in singing the Magnificat and singing praises to the Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ my Divine Spouse.

“DEAR REV. FATHER,

“I could not describe what God has taught me while held in His infinite and divine Essence, for it seems to me that no form is represented to the understanding, but that the soul is in God’s Immensity, and she sees and knows mysteries which are hidden in God and which it is not given to her to utter, and she enjoys without actually knowing what she enjoys. The secrets of God are made known, but the understanding, being lost in God, cannot comprehend what He has taught her.

“But when I see you I will try and tell you more.

“Begging your prayers and blessing and promising to do all I can for you and yours, I remain dear rev. Father

“Your obedient and devoted child                
“In the S. Head and loving Heart    
“TERESA HIGGINSON
“Enfant de Marie.”

Teresa Higginson's experience of the fires of purgatory Part I

From the letters to Fr. Edward Powell

Bootle, March 4th 1883

In the Holy Name of Jesus and in obedience I write of that fire which seems to burn me so excessively and which it has pleased our dear Blessed Lord I should experience.  It seems to me to be in the very centre of the soul and to be a liquid fire, or at least it seems to melt with its heat even the body.  I know that you will say at once that such a thing cannot be, nor do I say that it actually takes place, but that is the best explanation of that which I feel, for it seems to me through every pore of the body the fire evaporates.  And this fire is I feel is of great advantage to the soul, for it breaks every tie which binds the will and the affections to the earth.  It gives a steady clear light to see all things as they are in God, and although the agony is great which it causes, yet the soul is consumed for a desire for it, for the more we burn the more we understand of God's infinite and holy purity.  O, my divine Spouse, I beg of Thee to burn me ever more and more...

The fire of which I was writing is not the same as that fire of divine love of which I have before written, though I think it is something of that nature, though in this fire we learn more and in it the flame of love seems to rise higher and to be more perfect.  These two fires are very different to the wrath of God or that fire of divine justice into which God draws the soul at times.  Oh dear Rev. Father, I feel such a dreadful fear of that which I know is before me.  Oh pray our dear beloved Lord Jesus to have mercy on us through His Precious Blood.  I know this will be the hardest Lent I have yet had, and so feel I have good reason to fear.

Teresa Higginson on judgement and purgatory: Part IV

Continuing from the previous letter to Fr. Powell on purgatory:

Bootle, December 19th 1880

In reference to what I stated concerning a person not dying in unconsciousness I mean that after the senses of the body are incapable of action the powers of the soul are quite collected, and in that final moment she sees represented to her her true condition before God and also what is revealed of God, so that she is capable of making for the last time in this transitory world an act of faith, hope, charity and contrition.  Every soul certainly has not the same amount of grace, but in many the indulgence and prayers of the Church, and more especially the Sacraments, supply for defectiveness in this respect; and then as all things are present with God He accepts in anticipation the act of charity and detestation of sin and the patient endurance of suffering, etc., which she will undergo in purgatory to atone for sin (through the infinite merits of Jesus Christ) for no guilt of sin is remitted in purgatory.

If the will is found to detest sin at the moment of death she is worthy of love, but if there exists an affection for sin, or in other words, if the will is opposed to the holy will of God at death, they are found worthy of hate, and for them there is no remission of sin, and such souls go to hell by God's appointment.  And if it were otherwise they would be forced to endure a hell as infinite in pain as it is in duration, but as it is, through the Death and bitter Passion and infinite merits of the Redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, the divine mercy is felt even in hell itself.  The reason I say much and yet so little about this point is because I feel it is do difficult to express what I mean.  I repeat again that when time is over with us, merit is impossible, and no guilt of sin is remitted after death, for then the will is fixed for eternity.

You will perhaps ask me: if God accepts the act of charity in anticipation, how is it that the soul is not freed at once from the punishment as well as the guilt of sin?  And it is this: it is an imperfection in the soul not to have made that act while it had the power of will to do so, I mean it should have paid the debt which was demanded by humbly craving pardon for the love of God alone, and it neglected to do so, and the shadow which passes over the soul in consequence leaves its trace behind...

Teresa Higginson on judgement and purgatory: Part III

Continuing from the previous letter to Fr. Powell on purgatory:

Bootle, December 19th 1880

In honour of the Seat of Divine Wisdom I will try to put clearly before you what I understand concerning those truths you told me to ask our dear Blessed Lord about.

In the two previous letters which I have written I appeared to contradict myself and thus raised a theological difficulty by saying in one that all guilt of sin was remitted by the last act of the will, and in the other that when a soul saw herself in God she then detested them, I mean her sins and imperfections, and by that act of perfect charity all the sin was remitted.  You told me also to ask our dear Lord Jesus Christ how in the cases of persons who die in an unconscious state and are not able to make an act of contrition.

And this is what I understand, that no person ever dies without having a full consciousness to detest sin, that when all the earth has faded away from the soul, before its entire separation from the body, sees its true position and knows all that is revealed of God, and in this knowledge (which light was purchased by the darkness our Lord endured in His last moments) she renounces sin which she sees is the only thing which can keep her from at once possessing and enjoying God, who alone is worthy to be loved and desired.

With time all merit so far as we are concerned ends; when the soul leaves the body the will has no more freedom: it is passive, it wills or desires nothing but what God ordains, but the act of sorrow and the desire of God is mostly excited through a selfishness, I mean because she sees her loss and mourns over the cause of it; and through the infinite merits of the Redemption these wounds are healed, and when healed God shows them to the soul that she may know and see on her entrance into eternity why she is to suffer, and after that she no more looks to herself or her sufferings nor the reasons of them, for if she were to behold them she would be driven to despair; but these imperfections and weaknesses which are in the soul are not sins but the effect of sins: they are as it were so much rust that covers over the real metal and which is burnt off it (the soul) in the furnace of divine love.

So in like manner through neglected graces and not trying really to know God here, the soul is enveloped in a mist or fog or veil, which prevents to light of God actually shining in the soul, and the soul being weak (as a person with sore eyes cannot look at the sun) so the soul feels her weakness and unfitness to enjoy God and stand in the light of His dazzling Beauty and awful Purity.  And if she were compelled to remain thus, a dreadful condition would be hers, for a pain more terrible than many purgatories would arise within her.

O how the holy souls admire the mercy and love of God in allowing them thus to suffer in the fire of purgatory, and the greater the knowledge and love of the good God, the more intense their longing and the greater their pain; yet these unutterable pangs do not prevent them enjoying a most holy peace and an excessive joy, which is not prevented by their suffering, and as the mist and rust is cleared off the soul and the light of God shines in more powerfully, the greater the impetuosity within the soul.  And the fire does not lesson their suffering, nor indulgences nor prayers nor alms nor even the Holy Sacrifice: it only diminishes the time of duration, if we may call it time beyond the grave.  For the purer the soul becomes the more clearly it see and knows and therefore enjoys God, and this love which consumes it is the great cause of pain, I mean the more it loves the greater it suffers.  O my Father there are not words to express what I would say.

Then with regard to the other question: how it is by the act of perfect Charity which the soul makes on beholding God in the essence of His infinite perfections it is not freed from all punishment, as our holy Mother the Church teaches in an act of perfect contrition remits not only sin but also punishment due to it.  So it does if it is made while we have the power of free will, that is before death; but after death we cannot merit, no more than we can sin.  And it is this very charity with the knowledge of imperfection in the soul that makes up its purgatory, and as soon as the impediment which hinders God from shining in the majesty of His glory into the soul is removed, then though she were left in purgatory it would cease to cause any pain, for she would have attained that purity which God had given her at Baptism.

If I have not answered all I will do so again...

The Feast of the Sacred Head

The Feast of the Sacred Head that was proposed by Teresa Higginson falls on the octave day of the Feast of the Sacred Heart, that is the Friday after that feast.  She was to state in a letter to Fr. Powell on June 2nd 1880:

“As I told you, our dear B. Lord expressly asked me to tell you from Him that He wished His most Sacred Head to be publicly worshipped and honoured as the Seat of Divine Wisdom, and said too that the Friday, octave day of the feast of the Sacred Heart, should be dedicated as a festival day in its honour, and special reparation and atonement be then offered to Him.

For He said, ‘See oh my beloved daughter, I am clothed and mocked as a fool m the house of my friends; I am crowned in derision, I who am the God of Wisdom and all Knowledge, I the King of Kings, the Almighty and All-powerful One am presented with a sham sceptre, and if thou wouldst make some return, thou canst not do better than tell my servant E. from me that I now wish the Devotion made known which I have so often communicated to you, and I wish the first Friday after the feast of my Sacred Heart to be set apart as a festive day in honour of my Sacred Head as the Seat of Divine Wisdom, and that public adoration be offered to Me for all the outrages and sins which are continually being committed against Me.’

He also said that you must not be disheartened at difficulties that may and will arise and crosses that will be numerous. He will be your support and your reward is great. ‘And anyone who shall assist in furthering this Devotion shall be blessed a thousand fold, but woe to him that shall reject or go against my wish in this respect, for they shall be scattered in my wrath and shall know their place no more, but to them that honour Me I will give of my might, and I will be their God and they shall be my children and I will place my sign upon their foreheads and my seal upon their lips.”

The Sacred Head devotion was intended to be the crowning of all devotions, and the completion of the one of Sacred Heart, as the Sacred Head, seat of Divine Wisdom, governs the motions of the Sacred Heart.   Hence it is a feast that completes the Sacred Heart Octave, and is the final one that is determined by Easter, and the completion of the liturgical cycle of the Paschal mystery.  In many respects it is similar to the Feast of the Divine Mercy, that falls on Low Sunday after Easter, and which is at the end of the Easter Octave.  The Divine Mercy Feast is the first to be determined by Easter, and the Sacred Head the last.  And likewise both spring from the great fount of Mercy the Sacred Heart, pierced by the lance from which flowed blood and water.

The Feast and Octave of the Sacred Heart is a fairly recent addition to the calender: the liturgical propers of the mass and the office were compiled by St. Jean Eudes in around 1670, and feast only became celebrated in the universal church in 1856 by decree of Blessed Pope Pius IX.  Unfortunately the Octave of the Sacred Heart was abolished by Pius XII in the pre - Vatican II reforms of 1955 of the missal and breviary.  And for the Feast of the Sacred Head, there are still no official mass and divine office propers that can be used, as the church does not officially recognise the feast at present.  Hence the faithful currently can only celebrate it in a private capacity.  However in the future this will change, please God!

Teresa Higginson on judgement and purgatory: Part II

Continuing from the previous letter to Fr. Powell on purgatory:

Bootle, December 16th 1880

I trust you were able to understand all I wrote in my last.  I think I told you how the soul on leaving the body see herself as she really is, and in this one glance too she sees that through the precious merits of our dear Lord Jesus Christ all her wounds are healed, and when God has healed them He shows them to her, which causes such a fire of burning love to spring up within her that in it are consumed every imperfection and impediment, and in that glance she sees Him too in all the beauty of His infinite perfections; and she is so enamoured of Him that she entirely forgets herself and the reason why she suffers.  She knows it is God's holy will and she adores His infinite wisdom in a silence of unspeakable love.  His will is all she desires, and she could not but choose to be there.

O my Father, it is that very condition which I have told you that I experienced within myself and which those alone can understand whom it pleases God to instruct.  It is, I was going to say the loss, but I mean the separation from God or not being able at once to possess him eternally whom she loves with an unspeakable love that causes the great pain which I have often mentioned and which at times causes such impetuosity in the soul, and yet the whole while such a peace and a holy calm, such a desire to do God's holy will and enjoy Him eternally she would not wish but to remain here, so long as it is to His glory; and the more terrible is this excessive burning the more clearly she sees and desires Him, and the more clearly He shines upon the soul the more her joy increases, but the pain does not grow less, only the length of endurance, and the more the soul knows and loves Him the more terrible the pain.

How shall express the excess of torture that the soul endures?  It is precisely the torments of hell which are caused by the soul seeing in itself something which is displeasing to God whom it knows is infinite Goodness, Wisdom and Love, and as the soul is above the body, so the sufferings which she endures are beyond the comprehension of the body.  The sufferings the poor body can endure are but a painted shadow or as a picture of a fire compared to an immense and terrible furnace.  Yet when it pleases our dear God to send us this purgatory here the body also participates in these unutterable pains...

Teresa Higginson on Calvary

Another extract from the Passion of Our Lord that Teresa wrote to Fr. Edward Powell:

As Jesus is raised on the cross His Sacred Eye takes in at a glace every sinner from the first even to the last; then that the seamless robe is a figure of the unity of the Church, and Jesus saw every schism and heresy, every sin that should arise, every sacrilege that should be committed in or against His holy Catholic Church.  Then the vast numbers of souls lost to Him for ever, many and many of them often dyed deeply in that same most Precious Blood which He was shedding for them in vain...

Then an impetuous wave of infinite love swept over that sorrowful soul and rent it to pieces (as I may say) with an insatiable desire for souls...

...Then the sacred mind drank in that bitter torrent of doubt, caused by the sight of the impenitent thief and the incredulous Pharisees.  Will all this bitter Passion be of no avail?  Will all this love be in vain?  For so many?  And His Sacred Heart felt the keen smart of our cold indifference and ingratitude which pierced It far more deeply than the lance of Longinus.  Of course it was the human nature alone that was suffering or could suffer and His Holy Soul, Sacred Heart and adorable mind were all the time suffering an agony too awful for our puny minds to conceive..

...How can we picture the intense agony - the annihilation that Jesus suffered when He was forced as it were to cry aloud in anguish of soul: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"  This desolation commenced in the Garden of Olives and had been growing in intensity...

...This annihilation is the finger of God touching the soul and afflicting it beyond description.  Besides making atonement for mortal sins Jesus had to purchase grace to overcome temptations to each mortal sin.  He had an infinite atonement to make.  He had great heights of perfection to win, and each act of virtue must be purchased by distinct suffering of Jesus.  Here all consolations were cut off from the soul of our dear crucified Lord.  We speak of this as darkness, but it is not; the Light of lights could not for an instant be extinguished.  As we are blinded by looking at the sun, so it is here.  It is the perfect knowledge of clear light that is the cause of this excess of suffering...

Teresa Higginson on judgement and purgatory: Part I

Fr. Edward Powell asked Teresa to describe purgatory and judgement in December 1880, and she did so in a series of letters.  This is the first.

Bootle, December 14th 1880

In the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary I will endeavour to explain what you desire to know concerning those things that our dear Blessed Lord has made me understand are really done in the soul generally after its separation from the body, though sometimes the purgatory of which I am going to speak is permitted to exist here, but I will first say what I have seen and know relating to a soul departed this life.

I have clearly understood for some time that all things are in God: I mean that there is so such thing as going to be judged, that we really are in God, as the fish in the water, surrounded by him, actually in Him.  Now when the soul leaves the body, I mean in the very instant of its separation there she sees in Him (as we might behold ourselves in a mirror) at a glance the whole - every action of her life, the good she might have done, all good and evil works that have been done, all the love of the Blessed Trinity towards her.  There I understand Jesus Christ allows her to know God as He is and see herself as God sees her; there is no accusation brought against her by anyone; she sees all her misery and sin at a glance, and after this look she forgets herself for ever.

She is ravished with an unspeakable love and burning desire to enjoy Him who is the essence of beauty and infinite perfection.  She sees His infinite wisdom, mercy and love, and feeling His awful purity she buries herself in his justice, that in the scorching fire which love has enkindled she may consume the veil which as a mist encompasses her.  This is not the guilt of sin, for that is forgiven at death by the last act of the will: I mean, there is not sin but only the effect of sin in the soul, the weaknesses caused by the inperfections and venial sins and that shade (or scars as it were) which are left after mortal sins forgiven and which prevent the soul from receiving the fullness of light which God pours into it.  These shadows, whether they rise from commissions or omissions, are equally opposed to God's justice and dreadful purity.

Of course God could take away this mist or rub out the scars in an instant if He so pleased, but it is in the order of His infinite wisdom that as they were contracted by degrees so they should be remitted by little and little.  The soul which is separated from the body has no further power of free will.  She loves whatever God appoints and ordains for her, and loves this consuming flame, for she knows it is the fire which purifies her and enables to see and enjoy Him more and more.

I will write tomorrow, please God, what the soul suffers, and the joy which she experiences as the rays of God's light shine in more and more as the mist evaporates (as it were).  I do not mean to say I will be able to express the excess and anguish of extreme pain which punishes her: no, for words are, as have said before, as so many ciphers; but with His help and in honour of the Seat of Divine Wisdom I will say something of what goes on in the souls in purgatory.

O infinite Beauty, Youth and Love, most amiable and merciful Lord, quench the flames that surround me with your Most Precious Blood.  Break, O my Spouse and my Treasure, this thread of mortal life that separates me from Thee.  O my Love, my Love, my Lord and my God, my Jesus, my God and my All.  O Jesus, Jesus, my dear Jesus.  Holy, pure and everlasting Lord.  O Mary help.

I will not read what I have written, but will try to continue in the morning.  Begging you prayers and your blessing, etc.

Teresa Higginson on Our Lord's Agony in Gethsemane

This is an extract from a complete account Teresa wrote of Our Lord's Sacred Passion, which she wrote at the request of her director Fr. Edward Powell in Bootle.

How can I find words to express the overwhelming agony of soul, the anguish of heart and mental suffering, as mortal sin after mortal sin was presented to Thy gaze, and with Thy unsullied light of intellect Thou didst see each separate sin in all its filthy foulness, know all the horrors and the insult offered to the Almighty Creator, and feel the punishment to the full of each and every sin?

How couldst Thou bear them thus, knowing the ungrateful return that would be made Thee for loving us too much, and being thus clothed, Thou wert obliged to stand in the ineffable light of God?  For thou couldst not separate Thy human nature for an instant from the divine, hence this annihilation which forced the Precious Blood through every pore in Thy Sacred Body and laid Thee writhing on the ground.  For what human soul could stand in the awful purity of God with the light of the divinity shining on it revealing horrible mortal sins in all their heinous malice?