This article is the fifteenth part of a series about Purgatory, a topic that is rarely discussed today. A knowledge of Purgatory is essential if souls are to avoid the pains of this place of expiation. The previous article can be found here.
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As he begins the second part of his magnificent book, Purgatory, Father F. X. Schouppe, S.J., makes a somewhat startling statement: “Goodwill! That is everything.”
This statement is even more confusing when considering that Father Schouppe spent the first part of his book discussing the rigors of Purgatory. He warns that many people who led good lives suffered the punishments of Purgatory for long years because of sins that appear, to modern eyes, relatively minor.
What Makes Goodwill Good?
Then, suddenly, the good father shifts focus, saying that the most important capacity is goodwill. How can such a shift be reconciled?
In truth, the apparent change does not require reconciliation but redefinition.
In modern parlance, the word goodwill has two definitions. One relates to the business world and is not relevant to this topic. The other is “a kindly feeling of approval and support: benevolent interest or concern, cheerful consent, or willing effort.”
Thus, it is reasonable to ask for Father Schouppe’s definition of goodwill. Here, he is very direct when he says, “Be of goodwill, submit to the Will of God, place His Holy Law above all else, serve the Lord with all your heart, and He will give you such powerful assistance that you will enter Paradise with an astonishing facility.”1
Adopting God’s Will as One’s Own
In Father Schouppe’s world, goodwill isn’t some sort of weak-tea virtue. To have goodwill, Christians must submit to the source of all good—to God Himself. His Will must become their will. Notice that this last sentence does not contain the grammatically more correct phrase “their will.” God is One; therefore, His Will is One. Goodwill is not, in this context, a “do-it-yourself” effort.
Father Schouppe continues, “Goodwill consists, properly speaking, in submitting and conforming our will to that of God, who is the rule of all goodwill; and this goodwill attains its highest perfection when we embrace the Divine Will as the sovereign good, even then when it imposes the greatest sacrifices, the most acute suffering. Oh, admirable state!”
Christians attain this “admirable state” when they seem “to lose the sensation of pain, and this because the soul is animated with the spirit of love; and, as Saint Augustine says, when we love we suffer not, or, if we suffer, we love the suffering. Aut si laboratur, labor ipse amatur” (If one works, the work itself is loved).
Saint Claude de la Colombière
Father Schouppe explains this idea by bringing up the example of Saint Claude de la Colombière (1641-1682).
At first, Saint Claude’s career as a priest was rather normal. He taught at a Jesuit school in Lyon and developed a reputation for his preaching. However, in 1675, he was appointed rector of the Jesuit community. In that position, his duties included spiritual direction to the nearby Visitation Sisters. One of those sisters was the visionary Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, best known for promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Only one year later, he was sent to England to minister to the Duchess of York, a devout Catholic whose father was an Italian duke. As a Catholic in the Protestant court of her brother-in-law, Charles II, the Duchess’s life—and that of her confessor—were the subjects of intrigue. As such, Saint Claude was arrested for membership in the fictitious “Popish Plot” to assassinate the King. Consigned to inhuman conditions at King’s Bench Prison, Saint Claude’s health broke before influence from the French Crown secured his return to Lyon. Over twenty of Saint Claude’s Jesuit companions in the prison died there.
No Need for Dread
As Father Schouppe pointed out, Saint Claude did not fear Purgatory. His only regret was that he could not have earned Purgatory without displeasing God. “But,” the Saint continued, “as I have merited to go there, I am delighted to go and satisfy His Justice in the most rigorous manner it is possible to imagine, and that even to the Day of Judgment. I know that the torments there endured are horrible, but I know that they honor God, and cannot prove an injury to the souls.”
Incredibly, Saint Claude found at least one great comfort as he contemplated Purgatory. “[T]here we are certain never to oppose the will of God; that we shall never resent His severity; that we shall even love the rigors of His justice, and await with patience until it shall be entirely appeased.”
Not only did Saint Claude accept this punishment, but he willingly transferred any prayers by which he might benefit to others. “Therefore, I have given with my whole heart all my satisfactions to the souls in Purgatory, and even bequeath to others all the suffrages which shall be offered for me after my death, in order that God may be glorified in Paradise by souls who shall have merited to be raised to a higher degree of glory than myself.”
“Let us therefore,” Father Schouppe concludes the chapter, “have great love for God, great Charity, and we shall have little fear of Purgatory. The Holy Ghost bears testimony in the depths of our hearts that, being children of God, we have no need to dread the chastisements of a Father.”
Photo Credit: © jorisvo – stock.adobe.com
First published on TFP.org.
Footnotes
- All quotations in this article (unless another source is mentioned) use the 1905 version of Father F. X. Schouppe’s Purgatory, published in Great Britain by Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd. It is in the public domain and available through the Internet Archive. The spellings of certain words may have been Americanized.