St. Corona, Northern Italy

Yes, there’s actually a St. Corona! And her remains are in Northern Italy

Larry Peterson

Right in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic is the city of Anzu, Italy. There is a basilica in Anzu where the relics of St. Victor and St. Corona have been preserved since the 9th century. The word Corona is Latin for crown. Ironically, St. Corona is considered as one of the patron saints of pandemics.

The Coronavirus sweeping the globe is also named for “crown.” The Economist explains:

Little noticed by doctors, let alone the public, until the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) that began in Guangdong in 2002, the coronavirus family was first recognised by science in the 1960s. Its members got their name because, under the early electron microscopes of the period, their shape seemed reminiscent of a monarch’s crown. (It is actually, modern methods show, more like that of an old-fashioned naval mine.) There are now more than 40 recognised members of the family, infecting a range of mammals and birds, including blackbirds, bats and cats. Veterinary virologists know them well because of the diseases they cause in pigs, cattle and poultry.

Little is known about St. Corona, but she and the man she prayed for, St. Victor, are listed in the Roman martyrology and the Hagiography of the Church. There is ambiguity surrounding the dates and locations of  St. Victor’s and St. Corona’s martyrdom. Most sources say it was in Syria, which was under Roman rule. Some say Damascus; others, Antioch. Most agree they were put to death in the year 170 A.D. Most historians agree they died during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and that they were put to death by order of a Roman judge named Sebastian.

The story (legend) tells the tale of a Roman soldier named Victor. The Romans discovered that Victor was a Christian. The soldiers brought Victor before a judge, named Sebastian, who despised Christians. He decided to make an example out of Victor. He was bound to a pillar and summarily whipped until his skin was hanging from his body, and then Sebastian had his eyes gouged out. Through it all, Victor never denied Christ. 

Nearby was a 16-year-old girl name Corona. She was the wife of one of the soldiers, and she was also a Christian. (Corona’s husband did not know his wife was a Christian). As Victor was being brutalized, Corona decided she needed to help the slowly dying man. She chose to announce her Christianity to all present and hurried over to where they were torturing Victor. She knelt and began to pray for him, letting him know she was there for him. It did not take very long for the soldiers to bring her too before Sebastian. 

Sebastian was livid that this young woman had so disrespected his authority. He immediately had her put in the prison and tortured. Then, he ordered her tied to the tops of two palm trees, which had been pulled down to the ground. At his signal, the ropes holding the trees bent were cut. The trees sprang back away from each other to an upright position. The force was so great that Corona’s body was ripped apart. Then Sebastian ordered Victor beheaded.

The remains in the basilica have been there since the 9th century. 

In 1943 and again in 1981, they were examined, and the bones are from both a male and female. In the 1981 examination, they discovered cedar pollen, which was a typical plant from the Mediterranean basin during the time in question. Archeologists confirm that this pollen would have been present in Syria and Cyprus.

St. Victor and St. Corona are pre-congregation saints meaning that they were recognized as saints prior to Church canonization processes being standardized. (The first saint canonized by a pope was Ulrich, the bishop of Augsburg, who died in 973. He was canonized by Pope John XV at the Lateran Council of 993. Canonization became the general law of the church under Pope Gregory IX (1227-41)).

St. Corona’s feast day, along with St. Victor’s, is May 14. We ask both of them to pray for us all that this pandemic subsides.

https://aleteia.org/2020/03/14/yes-theres-actually-a-st-corona-and-shes-buried-in-the-middle-of-the-pandemic/

These saints know firsthand about surviving pandemics

But even more, they know about how a pandemic can become a way to serve God and neighbor..

Meg Hunter-Kilmer

Finding a saint who worked with victims of plagues and other epidemics can be a struggle—because there are too many to count!

During the 3rd-century Plague of Cyprian (famous for killing upwards of 5,000 people a day in Rome), Christians were reported running toward sufferers, eager to nurse them whatever the cost. In Alexandria (where two thirds of the population was lost to this plague) St. Dionysius wrote of the Christians, “Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains.” 

In fact, so many Christians died nursing the sick in Alexandria, the group of unnamed heroes was awarded a feast day (February 28) and venerated as martyrs.

As coronavirus spreads around the globe, leaving many sick and many more frightened, we would do well to ask the intercession of those who fought plagues and epidemics and won halos in the process.

St. Godeberta of Noyon (c. 700) cared for the sick in a less direct way that many others. An abbess with great influence over the people who lived near her abbey, Godeberta encouraged them to pray for the end of a plague. After they spent three days fasting in sackcloth and ashes, the plague ended quite suddenly.

St. Roch (1295-1327) embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome when he was 20, begging all the way. When he arrived in Italy, he discovered a country ravaged by the plague. Roch set about caring for the sick strangers he came upon (often curing them miraculously) until he himself contracted the disease. Knowing nobody, Roch dragged himself to the forest to die, but a local dog brought him food and licked his wounds until Roch recovered.

St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) was a cardinal when famine and plague struck Milan. Though most nobles fled the city, Cardinal Borromeo organized the religious who remained to feed and care for the hungry and sick. They fed over 60,000 people a day, the bill largely footed by the Cardinal, who went into personal debt to feed the hungry. He also personally visited those suffering from plague and bathed their sores, having first written his will and prepared himself for death. But the good Cardinal was spared, living another six years after what would eventually be called “the Plague of St. Charles.”

St. Henry Morse (1595-1645) was born an English Protestant but became a Jesuit priest and returned to England to serve covertly. Much of his work consisted in serving victims of the plague, both in the 1624 outbreak and again (after he had been banished from England but secretly returned) in 1635. In 1635-1636, Morse contracted the plague three times but recovered each time. When he was later captured, his work with plague victims was considered and he was released. The next time he was captured, there was no such clemency, and Morse was martyred.

St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli (1587-1651) was a wealthy widow when a plague broke out in Genoa. She housed many of the sick in her home; running out of space, she rented a vacant convent, then built more housing. Though the plague ended, Virginia’s hospital continued serving hundreds of sick people, and the religious order Virginia founded in the midst of all this continues to this day.

Bl. Peter Donders (1809-1887) was a Dutch Redemptorist priest who served in Suriname for 45 years. He fought for the rights of enslaved people, evangelized indigenous people, and nursed the sick during an epidemic (to which he briefly succumbed). He spent his last three decades serving in a leper colony and advocating with the authorities to obtain better care for his people. 

St. Jose Brochero (1840-1914) was an Argentinean priest. Immediately after his ordination, Fr. Jose nursed the sick through a cholera epidemic and emerged unscathed. Then, to serve his parishioners, he built 125 miles of roads and connected his parish with mail and telegraph services and a railway line. Eventually, he contracted leprosy and began to go blind, after which he retired both from active ministry and from single-handedly building the infrastructure of the region. He had spent over 40 years serving as priest, nurse, lobbyist, carpenter, and construction worker.

St. Marianne Cope (1838-1918) answered the call of the king of Hawaii to bring her Sisters to Hawaii and serve the lepers alongside St. Damien of Molokai. Though many feared the disease then thought to be extremely contagious, Marianne assured her Sisters that not one of them would contract it. Through strict hygiene practices and a good amount of grace, the Sisters worked with the lepers of Molokai for nearly a century without one of them contracting the terrible disease.

https://aleteia.org/2020/03/12/these-saints-know-firsthand-about-surviving-pandemics/

Our Lady of Victory Shrine prepares to celebrate 100 years

Church architect Duncan Stroik once said of the shrine, “The exterior is a beacon in the city, it’s a light on a hill,” and its interior “a precursor to heaven.”

March 11, 2020 Jim Graves The Dispatch 4 Print

The Our Lady of Victory Basilica is a Catholic Church and National Shrine as well as a Minor Basilica in Lackawanna, New York. (Elizabeth Duggan | Wikipedia)

Our Lady of Victory National Shrine and Basilica in the Diocese of Buffalo, New York, one of the most magnificent churches in the United States, is approaching the 100th anniversary of its groundbreaking. The shrine was founded under the direction of Venerable Nelson Baker (1842-1936), a Union army soldier during the Civil War, businessman, diocesan priest, and, perhaps, a future canonized saint. The shrine is the nation’s second basilica, designated as such by Pope Pius XI in 1926, and it draws 40,000 visitors annually.

The shrine got its start in 1916, when the former St. Patrick’s Parish was severely damaged by fire. Father Baker, age 74 at the time, began repairs, but one day announced at a parish meeting his vision of building a shrine to rival the great cathedrals of Europe. In 1921, Father celebrated his last Mass at St. Patrick’s; the parish made way for the construction of a shrine that would cost a staggering $4 million (in 1920s dollars). Father Baker was an able fundraiser, and by the time of its completion in 1925, had completely paid for the entire edifice.

The shrine has a marble exterior—46 types and colors of marble are used throughout—with twin towers and a huge copper dome measuring 165 feet high and 80 feet in diameter. Around the dome are four, 18-foot copper angels blowing trumpets. Other key external features include a large statue of Our Lady of Victory at the main entrance. The building has 134 stained glass windows, and an interior with many beautiful works of art and magnificent architecture (a 3D tour is available online).

Commenting on the shrine, well-known church architect Duncan Stroik once noted, “The exterior is a beacon in the city, it’s a light on a hill,” and its interior “a precursor to heaven.”

“It is meant to lift you up, it’s meant to dazzle and also a sense of mystery,” Stroik said (a short film on the shrine, for which Stroik was intereviewed, can be viewed online).

Father Baker was born and raised in Buffalo. He was baptized in the Lutheran faith, the faith of his father, and rebaptized at age 10 a Catholic, the faith of his mother. He served in the 74th New York regiment during the Civil War, and afterwards ran a successful grain and feed business. He entered the seminary in Niagara Falls, and was ordained a priest in 1876. He was a parish priest, and was active in a variety of apostolates, including an orphanage, school, and home for unwed mothers.

He brought his business prowess with him to the priesthood. In order to help fund his ministries, for example, he authorized drilling for natural gas on church property, eventually discovering it in 1891. Despite his advanced age, he embarked on the building of the shrine in the 1920s, sending letters to Catholics nationwide asking them to send needed funds.

The institutions he established still exist today, and since his death, many miracles have been reported through his intercession (a film on Father Baker’s life can be viewed here).

Our Lady of Victory is both a national shrine and diocesan parish. Msgr. David LiPuma has served as pastor of the shrine since 2019. In residence is Msgr. Paul Burkard, retired pastor of 12 years, who is vice postulator of Father Baker’s cause for canonization.

Both priests recently spoke with CWR about the shrine and its founder.

CWR: What buildings will visitors see when they arrive at the shrine?

Msgr. David LiPuma: The first thing they’ll notice is the beautiful basilica. Directly across from the church there is the original orphanage, once cared for by the Sisters of St. Joseph. It predates Father Baker’s arrival, although he expanded it when he got here. Today, the building houses Our Lady of Victory (OLV) charities.

A second building you’ll see is a former home for unwed mothers, once providing pregnant women with a safe place to give birth to their children. Today, it houses OLV human services, providing more than 4,000 services in various programs to families.

A third building is a former hospital founded by Father Baker, which is today a senior living facility. Next to the rectory is Baker Hall, which houses a program for troubled youth in grades 7 to 12. It takes in young people from 40 different school districts; this is a ministry in which Father Baker was involved which we still operate today. It is one of our most challenging, yet rewarding ministries.

Behind the basilica is an elementary school for grades pre-K to 8. The whole property takes up two city blocks.

CWR: What is the significance of the shrine to the Diocese of Buffalo and to the United States?

Msgr. LiPuma: When Father Baker entered seminary, he went on pilgrimage to Rome. He stopped at Our Lady of Victories Parish in Paris, and was taken by a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Victory. He decided he would dedicate his entire priestly ministry to her. As life went on, whenever he was complimented for his good work, he’d give the credit to her.

He also promised to build Our Lady of Victory a shrine. So, late in life, when many people are only thinking of retiring, this elderly man decided to build a basilica. Everyone was in amazement of the magnificent result, and people still are today. I just met a pilgrim in the church, and he was in awe. He said, “I just can’t believe Father Baker did all this.” Father Baker has been recognized as the City of Buffalo’s most influential person. He is a testament to what a man of faith can accomplish.

God gave Father Baker the grace and strength to establish the shrine, and his work still goes on today. We have more than 1,000 employees, and each is committed to Father Baker’s legacy of caring for the poor and vulnerable.

CWR: What are some features of the shrine that catch your eye?

Msgr. LiPuma: The angels. There are at least 2,004 depictions of angels throughout the church. When you look up, Father Baker wanted you to see angels. It raises you up spiritually, as if you’re looking up into heaven.

There are many other impressive features, such as the 18-foot tall statue of Our Lady of Victory over the main altar.

CWR: What is the best way for visitors to enjoy the shrine?

Msgr. LiPuma: We have tours on Sundays at 1 and 2 pm. At other times of the week, people can call the shrine and set up a tour. For those unable to physically come, they can tour the site virtually online.

CWR: What needs does the shrine have?

Msgr. LiPuma: We’re always in need of funding. In 2021, we’ll celebrate the 100th anniversary of our groundbreaking and the laying of our cornerstone. We’re looking forward to building a preservation society with people from throughout the country. In a nearly 100-year-old building there are always things in need of fixing. We recently had a serious drainage problem we had to spend $100,000 to fix. We won’t be doing anything to change the interior—it is beautiful as it is—but it does need to be maintained. Other upcoming projects, as we raise the money, include renovation of our back lot entrance.

CWR: What major annual events do you have at the shrine?

Msgr. LiPuma: On the Sunday closest to July 29, we celebrate Father Baker Day with a Mass and reception. July 29, 1936 is the date of Father Baker’s death. We also have an observance on February 16, Fr. Baker’s birthday, and October 7, the feast day of Our Lady of Victory, which is now the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

CWR: What is the status of Fr. Baker’s cause for canonization?

Msgr. Paul Burkard: His cause was accepted by Rome in 1988, and he was named Venerable in 2011. If a miracle worked through his intercession is accepted by Rome he can be beatified, and if another miracle is accepted, he can move on to being declared a saint.

People coming to the shrine today can visit Father Baker’s tomb, and we’ve built a museum that walks you through his life, talks about his ministries and has information on his canonization.

CWR: Why do you think he’s a good candidate for sainthood?

Msgr. Burkard: As documents presented to Rome indicate, he is a man of outstanding virtue. He was exceedingly kind to the poor and disadvantaged, especially children, at a time when his help was particularly needed. He took care of orphans and children in trouble, and expanded other ministries.

We still have people living in the parish who took First Communion from him. They talk about his kindness. I’ve met people who were once residents of OLV’s orphanage, and describe him as the only father they ever knew. That’s where we derived the title of our biography of Father Nelson, Father of the Fatherless, by Father Richard Gribble. That’s the way they thought of him: kind, caring, and concerned about their future.

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/03/11/our-lady-of-victory-shrine-prepares-to-celebrate-100-years/

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A Battle Between Life and Death

There are many differences of opinion between America’s two political parties, but it’s the primary difference that’s the most crucial. This difference revolves around a fact, not an opinion.

This fact is made evident in the Republican Party platform…

“The Constitution’s guarantee that no one can “be deprived of life, liberty or property” deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that “all” are “endowed by their Creator” with the inalienable right to life. Accordingly, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”

— Republican Platform, 2016, The Fifth Amendment: Protecting Human Life. p. 13.

And this fact is clearly articulated in science…

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being”

— Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

As a nation founded on the idea that all are equal, we must learn from our past failings. The Democratic Party supported and enabled American slavery and segregation, and today this same political party supports and enables the targeted discrimination and destruction of another class of human beings — the preborn.

This fact is made evident in the Democratic Party platform…

“We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people. We will continue to oppose—and seek to overturn—federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.”

— Democratic Platform, 2016, Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice. p. 37.

As we consider our choice for President and the issues at stake, it’s clear that no issue holds the gravity of life and death like the issue of abortion. Even the use of the word ‘issue’ understates the magnitude of what abortion is and what it does to prenatal American children.

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We have transformed our nation from one that upholds human rights into one that views the destruction of humans as a right.

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When abortion is stripped of the euphemisms that shroud its reality, the stark truth of what we have allowed ourselves to become is repulsive. We have used our advancements in medical science to turn on the most vulnerable members of our human family. We have transformed our nation from one that upholds human rights into one that views the destruction of humans as a right.

Each one of us has a choice to make. We have the choice between a political party that enshrines the idea that some lives matter less and a political party that upholds the idea that all lives are equal. We must make a choice, like abortion itself, between life and death.

Which side of history will you be left standing on?

https://cultureshiftforlife.com/2016/10/09/presidential-debate/

Songs & Dances of Death: 10 Classical Works for the End of Time

Stephen M. Klugewicz

A song cycle for voice (usually bass or bass-baritone) and piano, Modest Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death is a setting of four poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov. The four sections each describe a different type of death: “Lullaby” (the death of a child in his mother’s arms); “Serenade” (the death of a young woman); “Trepak” (the death of a drunken man); “The Field Marshall” (the death of men in war). The cycle was orchestrated later by Mussorgsky’s friends Alexander Glazunov and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and again later by Dmitri Shostakovich, among others. The text of the poems may be found here.

2. The Masque of the Red Death, by André Caplet

André Caplet was a contemporary and friend of Claude Debussy. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story about the plague, Caplet composed this chilling piece for string orchestra (later arranged for string quartet and harp). When the red-robed figure “knocks” near the piece’s end, you may well jump out of your seat!

3. Songs on the Death of Children, by Gustav Mahler

Between 1901 and 1904, Gustav Mahler set to music five of the 428 poems that Friedrich Rückert had written in the aftermath of the death of two of his children from scarlet fever. Mahler began work on Kindertotenlieder, scored for solo voice and orchestra, after he had been seriously ill with the flu, and he continued working on the project as he worried about the health of his daughter, Maria, who appeared at first to be stillborn. Tragically, little Maria would die at the age of four, after Mahler had finished Kindertotenlieder. Lyrics can be found here.

4. Masonic Funeral Music, by W.A. Mozart

Though Wolfgang Mozart was a devout Roman Catholic, he was also a devoted Freemason—and he saw no contradiction in being both. He wrote the powerful, brief Masonic Funeral Music, scored for strings and woodwind instruments (including three basset horns, two oboes, two horns, a clarinet,  and a contrabassoon), for two friends of his lodge who died in 1785.

5. Danse Macabre, by Camille Saint-Saëns

The dance of death was a medieval notion, in which death would come to us like a terrifying lover, ready to embrace us and take our souls to the next world. Perhaps the best-known classical piece using this model is Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre.

6. Death and Transfiguration, by Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss wrote the tone poem for orchestra Tod und Verklärung in 1888-1889. Strauss wrote that the music describes “the dying hours of a man who had striven towards the highest idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist.” And on his deathbed, the composer offered this: “Dying is exactly as I composed it sixty years ago in Tod und Verklärung.”

7. Valse Triste, by Jean Sibelius

In 1903, Sibelius composed six pieces as the incidental music for the play Kuolema (Death), written by his brother-in-law, Arvid Järnefelt. He revised one piece to become the popular Valse Triste (Sad Waltz).

8. Pavane for a Dead Princess, by Maurice Ravel

Originally for solo piano, Ravel later orchestrated this gentle piece for strings and winds. Ravel wrote that the music was “an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court.”

9. The Death of Aase, by Edvard Grieg

Written in 1875, The Death of Aase is one of the movements of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s music for Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt.

10. Quartet for the End of Time, by Oliver Messiaen

Oliver Messiaen wrote this piece, scored for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, in 1940 when he was being held as a prisoner of war by the Nazis. Based on a passage from the Book of Revelation, the work is divided into eight movements. It was premiere by Messiaen and three fellow prisoners, who played broken-down instruments in the rain, for an audience made up of their fellow inmates and their German guards. “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension,” recalled Messiaen. The camp newsletter reported afterwards: “It was our good fortune to have witnessed in this camp the first performance of a masterpiece.”

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/03/songs-and-dances-of-death-ten-classical-music-stephen-klugewicz.html
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An Exorcist Describes Death, Judgement, and Our Everlasting Life

Heaven, the Kingdom of Love

I wish to include some basic notions of Christian eschatology, which, because of the Resurrection of Christ give a reason for great hope to everyone — in particular, to those who suffer from evil spells. Our life, our earthly pilgrimage, and our suffering are not the fruit of a blind randomness; rather, they are ordered for our greater good and definitive friendship with God.

Let us begin, then, precisely from paradise, the final goal and the reason for which we have been created. “Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they ‘see him as he is,’ face to face,” (CCC 1023).

Our Faith guarantees that in paradise we shall enjoy the vision of God; that is, we shall become participants in that same happiness that the divine Persons enjoy among themselves:

“The life of the blessed consists in the full and perfect possession of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He makes partners in his heavenly glorification those who have believed in him and remained faithful to his will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ” (CCC, no. 1026).

A question arises spontaneously: What need did the Trinity have for creatures, for men and angels, when It was already perfect and absolutely sufficient in Itself? The Trinity did it solely out of love, gratuitous and unconditional love for us. The advantage is solely ours: love, joy, and happiness, for all, in paradise.

There are degrees of participation in the joy and love of God. This degree of rank is given according to the level of sanctity each person has reached during his lifetime: the joy of St. Francis of Assisi, for example, will be different from that of the good thief. There is a difference between men on earth, and there will be a difference in paradise.

It is similar to what happens with the stars in heaven: there are those that shine brighter and those that shine a little less. So also it will be with men in the glorious resurrection: all of us shall be resplendent, but each one with a different proportion. Each one will have that maximum of splendor and happiness that he is personally capable of, based on how he has lived his life. Some will have a greater capacity and others less, but without envy or jealousy toward each other.

Indeed, each one will know complete joy. A verse from Dante’s Divine Comedy comes to mind: “In his will is our peace.” In paradise there is no jealousy; each one is in the will of God, and in His will there is peace. Eternal peace is definitive, where each tear, each sorrow, and all envy will be wiped away.

The Souls in Purgatory

Purgatory is the place, or, better, the state to which come the souls that have need of a purification and therefore have not been immediately admitted to contemplate the face of God. This purification is necessary in order to arrive at sanctity, the condition that heaven requires. The Catechism speaks of the souls in purgatory: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (no. 1030).

This article is from a chapter in An Exorcist Explains the Demonic.

We can understand that there are gradations or diverse states in purgatory; each one accommodates the situation of the soul that arrives there. There are the lower strata, more terrible because they are closer to hell, and the more elevated that are less terrible because they are much closer to the happiness of paradise. The level of purification is linked to this state.

The souls in purgatory are in a state of great suffering. We know, in fact, that they can pray for us and that they can obtain many graces for us, but they can no longer merit anything for themselves. The time for meriting graces finishes with death.

Purged souls can, however, receive our help in order to abbreviate their period of purification. This occurs in a powerful way through our prayers, with the offering of our sufferings, paying attention at Mass, specifically at funerals or at Gregorian Masses, celebrated for thirty consecutive days.

This last practice was introduced by St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century, inspired by a vision he had of a confrere who died without confessing himself and, having gone to purgatory, appeared to him, asking him to celebrate some Masses in his favor. The pope celebrated them for thirty days. At that point, the deceased appeared to him again, happy for having been admitted to paradise. One must take care: this does not mean that it will always work this way: that would be a magical attitude, unacceptable and erroneous toward a sacrament. In fact, it is solely God who decides these matters when He wills it through His divine mercy.

On the subject of Masses, it is necessary to say that they can be applied to a particular deceased, but, at the last moment, it is God who destines them to those who have a real need. For example, I often celebrate Masses for my parents, whom I believe in my conscience are already in paradise. Only God in His mercy will destine the benefits of my Masses to those who have more need, each one according to the criteria of justice and goodness reached during his life.

Regarding all that I have said, I wish warmly to advise that it is better to expiate suffering in this life and become a saint than, in a minimalist way, to aspire to purgatory, where the pains are long-lasting and heavy.

The Pains of Hell

The book of Revelation says that “the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Rev. 12:9).

Why were they hurled down to the earth? Because the punishment they were given is that of persecuting men, trying to lead them to eternal hell, rendering them their unfortunate companions for an eternity of suffering and torment.

How can this drama, which involves everyone, enter into the plans of God? As we have said, the next reason is the liberty granted by God to His creatures. Certainly we know that the mission of Satan and his acolytes is to ruin man, to seduce him, to lead him toward sin, and to distance him from the full participation in divine life, to which we have all been called, which is paradise.

Then there is hell, the state in which the demons and the condemned are distanced from the Creator, the angels, and the saints in a permanent and eternal condition of damnation. Hell, after all, is self-exclusion from communion with God. As the Catechism states: “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves” (no. 1033). The one who dies in mortal sin without repenting goes to hell; in an impenitent way, he has not loved. It is not God who predestines a soul to hell; the soul chooses it with the way [the person] has lived his life.

We have some stories about hell that, because they are taken from private revelations or experiences, do not bind the faithful, but, nevertheless, have a notable value. I have spoken on more occasions in my books and in my interviews of the experience of St. Faustina Kowalska, who in her diary writes of her spiritual journey to hell.

It is shocking.

Stories and visions like these have to make us reflect. For this reason Our Lady of Fatima said to the seers: “Pray and offer sacrifices; too many souls go to hell because there is no one to pray and offer sacrifices for them.”

Being in the kingdom of hate, damned souls are subjected to the torment of the demons and to the sufferings they reciprocally inflict on one another. In the course of my exorcisms I have understood that there is a hierarchy of demons, just as there is with angels. More than once I have found myself involved with demons who were possessing a person and who demonstrated a terror toward their leaders.

One day, after having done many exorcisms on a poor woman, I asked the minor demon who was possessing her: “Why don’t you go away?” And he replied: “Because if I go away from here, my leader, Satan, will punish me.” There exists in hell a subjugation dictated by terror and hatred. This is the abysmal contrast with paradise, the place where everyone loves one another and where, if a soul sees someone holier, that soul is immensely happy because of the benefit it receives from the happiness of another.

Some say that hell is empty. The response to this affirmation is found in chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel, where it speaks of the Last Judgment: the upright will go to eternal life and the others, the cursed, will go to the eternal fire. We can certainly hope that hell is empty, because God does not wish the death of a sinner but that he convert and live (see Ezek. 33:11). For this He offers His mercy and saving grace to each one. In the Gospel of John Jesus says: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23); thus He insists on our continuous conversion supported by the grace of the sacraments, in particular the sacrament of Penance.

Returning to the question of hell, whether it is empty or not: unfortunately, I fear that many souls go there, all those who per­severe in their choice of distancing themselves from God to the end. Let us meditate often on this. Pascal said it well: “Meditation on hell has filled paradise with saints.”

The Judgment on Life

The Catechism speaks of the particular judgment: “The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith” (no. 1021).

And further on it adds: “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven — through a purification or immediately — or immediate and everlasting damnation” (no. 1022). Then it adds the criterion with which this judgment will occur, taken from the writings of St. John of the Cross: “At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.”

The first thing that I would emphasize is precisely this last: the final criterion of our judgment will be the love that we have had toward God and toward our brothers and sisters. How, then, will this particular judgment occur?

At times, I run into persons who are convinced that immediately after death they will meet Jesus in person and that He will give them a piece of His mind for some of their dolorous affairs. Frankly, I do not think that it will happen like this. Rather, I believe that, immediately after death, each of us will appear before Jesus, but it will not be the Lord who will review our lives and examine the good and the bad each of us has done. We ourselves shall do it, in truth and honesty.

Each one will have before himself the complete vision of his life, and he will immediately see the real spiritual state of his soul and will go where his situation will bring him. It will be a solemn moment of self-truth, a tremendous and definitive moment, as definitive as the place where we shall be sent. Let us consider the case of the person who goes to purgatory.

It will involve the sorrow of not immediately going to paradise that will make him understand that his purification on earth was not complete, and he will feel the immediate need of purifying himself. His desire of acceding to the vision of God will be strong, and the desire for liberation from the weight of the pains accumulated during his earthly life will be compelling.

The Last Judgment: It Will Be Love That Will Judge Us

Let us end with the universal judgment:

The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he de­termines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. (CCC, no. 1040)

This is one of the most difficult realities to understand. The Last Judgment coincides with the return of Christ; however we do not know the precise time it will occur. We know that it will be preceded immediately by the resurrection of the dead. In that precise moment, the history of the world will definitively and globally end. The Catechism again specifies: “In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare [cf. John 12:49]” (no. 1039).

The essential question is: What is the concrete rapport that each man has with God? As I have mentioned, the solemn response is found in the Gospel of Mathew. The saved and the damned will be chosen on the basis of their recognition or rejection of Christ in the infirm, in the hungry, and in the poor (Matt. 25:31–46). Two essential elements emerge from this. The first is a division, a schism, between those going to paradise and those going to hell, between the saved and the condemned. The second regards the manner in which this judgment will be accomplished — with love. God’s Commandments and every other precept are summarized solely in one commandment: “[L]ove one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

We can easily understand that this command is addressed to each human conscience in every age, including those who lived before Christ and those, who today, as in centuries past, never heard anyone speak of the Son of Man. Therefore, the finale of this stupendous passage is the beautiful passage from Mathew: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40).

If each man — apart from his religion, his culture, his epoch, and any other circumstance — has loved his neighbor, he has also loved the Lord Jesus in person. Any rapport with our brothers and sisters in any locality, any age, or any situation is, all in all, a rapport with Jesus Christ in person. Each human creature who achieves fulfillment in his human relationships is, at the same time, relating to God. For this reason, the love of neighbor is the fundamental precept of life. John the Evangelist helps us to understand that we cannot say that we love God, whom we cannot see, if we do not love our brother, whom we can see (cf. 1 John 4:20).

The love that will judge us will be the same love that we have (or have not) practiced toward others, the same love that Jesus lived in His earthly experience and taught us in the Gospels, the same love to which we are entitled through the sacraments, through prayer, and through a life of faith. The ability to love comes from grace, and it is much reduced in those who do not know Christ; and even more so in those who know Him but do not follow Him, a choice that assumes a serious sin. Indeed, Jesus said: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

On the other hand, in announcing the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis reminds us that the other fundamental aspect of the question is that the love with which we shall be judged will be the Love of mercy. “Mercy is the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us.” This mercy, he says, “is the bridge that connects God and man and opens our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.”

God’s compassionate glance and His desire to live in total communion with us opens our hearts to the hope that each sin and each failure inflicted on man by his great enemy, Satan, will be looked upon with the eyes of a loving and accepting Father. Therefore, let us live full of hope, because we know that, even in the difficulties of our life’s journey, God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes. On that day “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

https://catholicexchange.com/exorcist-describes-death-judgement-everlasting-life

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a chapter in Fr. Amorth’s An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.

Find more of Fr. Amorth’s work on Catholic Exchange by clicking here.