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Show BLESSED MAKGAEET MARY AND THE HOLY SOULS. . Blessed Margaret Mary was always devoted to the Souls in Purgatory. In the beginning of her religious life our , Savior used to reveal to her the sufferings suffer-ings of these souls, and she used to i offer in their behalf her own trials of soul and body with the many self-inflicted penances permitted her by obedience. obedi-ence. Our. Lord was thus early penetrating pene-trating her with a spirit of His own lively compassion for His suffering members. To make her an apostle of His Sacred Heart, she must know by experience the. measure of Its love for every soul in need, whether still on earth and capable of self-help, or in Purgatory and past helping itself all the more pitiable to His love. With these reflections in mind we cannot call extravagant Blessed Margaret Mar-garet Mary's declaration in her first appeal ap-peal for the devotion to the Heart of Jesus. If the Holy Souls, she declared, rejoiced when our Lord descended into Limbo, now again would they exult in a devotion -which .would open anew to them every treasure of His mercy. Again, without these rellectkms we will utterly fail to appreciate how Jesus permitted and desired her to intervene in the liberation of many of the Holy Souls; perhaps, too, some would be scandalized at her constant and familiar famil-iar relations with the suffering departed. depart-ed. For Margaret Mary was so well known to have dealings with the Souls in Purgatory, that she was often consulted con-sulted by relatives or friends whose piety toward these poor souls she directed di-rected in many remarkable ways. By God's help His servant did .what the spiritualist medium presumptuously presumptuous-ly attempts to do; and her motive in telling the secrets of Purgatory was always al-ways in the interest of Him who had revealed them to her. She did .iot seek to satisfy curiosity, but to esicate pity for the sufferers; or to manifest the workings of God's justice. W'nether she had known the soul ornot on earth, when consulted she would speak of it by name, recount the iaults it was expiating, ex-piating, describe, the penalties it was paying for each of them, and tell the duration of its imprisonment. She spoke from actual knowledge, from seeing, hearing and conversing with the souls for whom she interceded. Her relations . with - them grew more and more close in .proportion to her fidelity to our Lord's' requests in their behalf. "I w-as given to the Souls in' Purgatory Holy Thursday night," she writes; "before the Blessed Sacrament. I was for awhile surrounded by these poor souls." with whom I contracted a j fast friendship, and our Savior told me He had given me to :them to do them whatever good I could. Since then they are often with me and I call them my suffering friends." And true friends they were, by no means selfish, so considerate that they once made her stop some penance which seemed trifling to her zeal for them, but which they thought in excess of what obedience permitted her. If they were importunate at times, she never complained. com-plained. She knew their pains so well that her compassion came to be in a way a very purgatory for her. Some 1 of them were the soula of religious: in every case religious were punished more severely than people of the world: they had neglected so many graces and opportunities. op-portunities. Their pains were determined deter-mined by the character of their faults. "They tear my heart with combs of fire," cried one, "for having murmured against superiors. My tongue is eaten by vermin for my unkind words, and my mouth ulcerated for having been too ready to talk." The remedies they always asked were acts of virtue which they had failed to. practice. Blessed Margaret Mary used to bid all who wished to help them to unite their thoughts, words, actions and sufferings with those of the Sacred Heart for the relief of her suffering friends. . Knowing the abandonment of these souls so clearly. Blessed Margaret Mary was not content to offer in their behalf ordinary trials and actions only. She became their victim, and when she could not secure some extra suffering from God, she inflicted painful penances upon herself.' The keen sense of the tortures of Purgatory, and the need of her friends were pain enough. Her j generosity was not unrewarded even in this life: her suffering friends when liberated lib-erated would always hasten to bid her rejoice at their deliverance, and impart to her, so far as they could, some foretaste fore-taste of the joys of heaven along with the assurance of their intermediation in her behalf. |