I once knew a parish priest who didn’t believe in purgatory. He said so. From the pulpit. Another concedes that it exists — but not for the faithful, for whom apparently God is a glorified insurance agent, with Masses offered for them after death a celestial endowment fund delivering immediate admission to heaven.
Now what would Mother Seraphim of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart make of that?
Not much, I suspect, as at a Carmelite retreat at Ngakuru recently she visited our dinner table with a small book that made our hair stand on end, the tales it tells.
Hungry Souls — Supernatural Visits, Messages and Warnings from Purgatory, by renowned psychotherapist Gerard van den Aardweg, has many scholarly annotations, a bibliography and photographs. Photographs? Of purgatory? No; of the church of the Sacred Heart of Suffrage in Rome, its glass and marble images of saints who promoted devotion to the holy souls, including Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and Margaret Mary Alacoque, and a mural Benedict XV called “a visual compendium of Catholic doctrine on purgatory”.
More tellingly, the church has a museum giving evidence of visits from holy souls, among them scorch marks left by fiery fingerprints on clothing or prayer books. . . . Hold on. How can spiritual beings leave physical marks? Immaterial spirits, Dr van den Aardweg says, take on material form to make themselves visible, a form expressing essential features of their spiritual state.
If we Carmelites were thinking ourselves exempt, we had another think coming. The “theologian of purgatory”, St Catherine of Genoa, insists that even the smallest imperfections must be burned away. How many NZ Catholic readers would believe that a pious, cloistered nun, who took two painful years to die of tuberculosis, could find herself in purgatory? But there’s her fingerprint, burned into the pillow of a fellow religious, to prove she’d sinned against faith by wanting to die, and therefore had need of suffrage.
So we Carmelites’ nearest and dearest should take heed. If our obsequies turn out to be occasions for eulogising and celebrating, assuming we’re in heaven and lulling everyone into a sense of false security, they could be in for hauntings too.
St Catherine describes the fire of purgatory as the fire of the love of God, enkindled in the soul imediately after death. “At . . . a glance (God), so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God . . . the soul feels itself melting in the fire of that love of its sweet God. . . . The greatest suffering of the souls in purgatory . . . is the awareness that they have deliberately gone against his great goodness . . . the soul feels within it a fire like that of hell.”
How wise, then, to pre-empt that fire by learning to love God now in meditation and contemplative prayer, in the knowledge that patient suffering and prayer, especially in the Mass where our beloved dead pray with us, accelerate not only their journey to ineffable joy , but our own.

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WELLINGTON — The newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Rt Hon David Carter, is the second St Bede’s College old boy to hold this office.

One of his predecessors was Sir Gerard Wall, a St Bede’s old boy and a Labour Party MP, who was speaker from 1985 to 1987.

Mr Carter, who attended St Bede’s in Christchurch from 1965-69 and is a National Party MP, told Parliament of the link after being elected on January 31.

He said Speaker Wall was highly regarded by MPs, but had a propensity to deal with disorder by expelling MPs from the house.

“On two separate occasions he expelled both the then Prime Minister, David Lange, and the then Leader of the Opposition, Jim Bolger, from the House on the same day,” Mr Carter told Parliament.

“I certainly do not want to be in a position to emulate that record.

“Above all, I intend to strive to maintain the dignity of this House, and in an unbiased fashion.”

Mr Carter said that between 2005 and 2008, there were six members of Parliament who had been educated at St Bede’s.

He told NZ Catholic that “as I read the prayer before the start of Parliament each day, it will be a meaningful privilege to me as a person with a strong Catholic background”.

“My parents were strong practising Catholics and therefore the Catholic philosophy was fundamental to our family way of life,” Mr Carter said.

“I was the middle of five children and we all attended Catholic primary and secondary schools.

“When I think about the ethos of my Catholic education, it only reinforced the basic principles that were the foundation of my family life.

“A work ethic was paramount, treating people fairly and with dignity, knowing what was right and what was wrong, and being prepared to live with the consequences of your actions: These became second nature for us all.”

Mr Carter said his years at St Bede’s were a time he recalls with “satisfaction and fondness”.

“St Bede’s extended my horizons and helped me transition as a young adult with my life before me, that I had full responsibility for.”

In a personal vote in Parliament last year, Mr Carter voted for Jacqui Dean’s bill to liberalise Easter trading in Waitaki district, which was defeated at first reading.

He also voted for a bill to legalise same sex “marriage”, at the first reading. It has been considered by the Government Administration Select Committee, which reported back to the House last month.

n Prayer read by the speaker of the House at the beginning of each days proceedings.

Almightly God, humbly acknowledging our need for thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private and personal interest, we beseech thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this house and of our country to the glory of thy Holy Name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace and tranquility of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ Our Lord. 

Amen. 

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