Rev. Fr. Frederick Faber - Purgatory (with Supplemental Reading: What Will Hell Be Like?) [Illustrated]

We approve highly of the republication of the work styled All for Jesus , by the Rev. F. W. Faber, which has been received so favorably by the Catholics of England.

Francis Patrick Kenrick
Archbishop of Baltimore
Baltimore
January 20, 1854

This book consists of Chapter IX, Purgatory, from Fr. Fabers book entitled All for Jesus . Retypeset from the TAN edition (1991), which was itself retypeset from the 23rd American edition, published by John Murphy & Co., 182 Baltimore St., Baltimore, Maryland, around 1854, with the sanction and corrections of the author. Punctuation has been slightly modernized, and chapter divisions and titles and subheadings have been added by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., in 2002.

ISBN 978-0-89555-728-5

Library of Congress Control No.: 2001-132407

Cover illustration: Holy Mass and Purgatory stained-glass window. Photo copyright Alan Brown 1993. Al Brown Photo, Bardstown, Kentucky.

Cover design: Pete Massari, Rockford, Illinois.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN Books

Charlotte, North Carolina

2002

Oh, what a wonderful thing is the life of a fervent Catholic! It is almost omnipotent, almost omnipresent, because it is not so much he who lives as Christ who liveth in him! Oh, what is it we are touching and handling every day of our lives, all so full of supernatural vigor, of secret unction, of divine forceand yet we consider not, but waste intentions and trifle time away in the midst of this stupendous supernatural system of grace, as unreflecting almost as stone embedded in the earth and borne round unconsciously in its impetuous revolutions day by day.

Pages 60-61

Father Frederick William Faber
1814-1863

Father Faber was born in Yorkshire, England in 1814. He was converted from the Anglican ministry to Catholicism in 1845. Ordained a priest in 1847, he joined the Oratorians in 1848 under John Henry Cardinal Newman. In addition to numerous fine hymns, Fr. Faber authored nine books: Spiritual Conferences , All for Jesus , Growth in Holiness , The Blessed Sacrament , The Foot of the Cross , The Precious Blood , Bethlehem , The Creator and the Creature and Notes on Doctrinal Subjects , plus a volume of poems, essays and other minor works. In addition, he published a series of 49 Lives of Modern Saints (the Oratorian Lives) which highlight the Saints growth in sanctity under the operation of grace. Fr. Faber died in London in 1863. He is considered a master of the theology of the spiritual life.

CONTENTS

The Thought of Hell

I T IS incredible how dear the glory of God becomes to those who are continually on the lookout for it. The very search gives them new senses whereby they can find it, while daily increasing love is perpetually sharpening their discernment. The earth is full of Thy glory. What a joy to a loving heart! But it is not enough that Heaven has overflowed and that the earth is filled with the blessed inundation of His glory. We would fain [wish] there should not be a nook of creation which is not full of it. Yet there is one place where that glory seems frustrated, one place from which there rises neither plaint of prayer, nor joy of praise, nor blessing of thanks, nor aspiration of desire. It is the house of those who have had their trial and lost their cause, and with it have lost God forever.

Here is grace which has not borne fruit, or whose fruits have rotted upon the tree. Here are Sacraments which have come to nought. The Cross has been a failure, and Gods loving purposes have been successfully resisted and direfully overthrown. Yet it is of faith that Gods harvest of glory out of that unutterable gloom is immense, for the lost soul is as much an unwilling worship of His justice as the converted soul is a willing worship of His love. Neither is Jesus without His own interests there; for the pains, unspeakable as they are, nay, even in the bare thought of them intolerable, are less than the merit of sin, less than the righteous measure of punishment, and are so because of Him. The Precious Blood, in some sense, has reached even there.

The Fear of Hell Saves Souls

Neither is that horrible place without a most blessed result on the salvation of many souls, through the holy and salutary fear which it breeds in them and the loose and low notions of God which it corrects in the unthinking. When Our Lord showed Sister Francesca of the Blessed Sacrament, a Spanish Carmelite, the loss of a soul, and several times in a vision compelled her positively to study the separate tortures of that place, He upbraided her for weeping: Francesca! Why weepest thou? She fell prostrate at His sacred feet and said, Lord! For the damnation of that soul, and the manner in which it has been damned. He vouchsafed to reply, Daughter! It hath chosen to damn itself; I have given it many helps of grace that it might be saved, but it would not profit by them. I am pleased with your compassion, but I would have you rather love My justice. And another time, when she was compelled to fix her gaze upon those pains, the Angels said to her, O Francesca! Strive hard after the holy fear of God! Who can doubt that there are, at this hour, thousands and tens of thousands in the bliss of Heaven who never would have been there if there had been no Hell. Alas for the reproach it is to the unloving hearts of men, but after all, the Cross of Christ has had no better help on earth than the unbearable fire of Hell.

Verily it is well for our own sakes to think sometimes of that horrid place! As truly as fair France lies across the Channel, as truly as the sun is shining on the white walls and gay bridges and bright gardens and many-storied palaces of its beautiful capital, as truly as that thousands of men and women there are living real lives and fulfilling various destinies, so truly is there such a place as Hell, all alive this hour with the multitudinous life of countless agonies and innumerable gradations of despair. Save the Blessed in Heaven, none live so keen or conscious a life as those millions of ruined souls. It is not impossible that we may go there too. It is not impossible that we may have sent some there already. When we pass along the streets, we must often see those who will inhabit there forever. There are some there now who were not there an hour ago. There are some now in the green fields, or in the busy towns, on comfortable beds, or on the sunshiny seas, who in another hour perhaps will have gone there. This is a dreadfully real truth.

It Is Good to Think of Hell

But what if more than all this be true? What if there was once a day when we should have gone thither if we had died? What if this hour it holds mere boys and girls, who have sinned far less than we have done, nay, perhaps have sinned but once, while we have sinned a thousand times? Oh, but we may humble ourselves still more. How long should we persevere in serving God if we were certified there was no Hell? Should we have left our sins if it had not been for Hell?