According to the writings of the Fathers, the pain of loss is the greatest of all the pains of purgatory. Together with the bitter remembrance of having done evil and omitted to do good, is the consciousness of being deprived of the beatific vision, than which there can be no greater pain. St. Alphonsus says: “Far greater than the pains of the senses are the pains of loss arising from the deprivation of the presence of God.” Because the poor souls are inflamed with not only the natural, but the supernatural love of God, they are almost violently drawn towards Him, their supreme good; and because they have the consciousness of being debarred from perfect union with God by their own sins and imperfections, they feel such exceeding great pain that it would kill them were it possible for them to die. “Therefore,” says St. Chrysostom, “is this pain of loss greater than that of sense, and the greatest of all pains. A thousand fires of hell could not produce greater pain than that which is caused by the fully realized loss of God.” Here on earth, while confined in their bodies of sin, their souls could not enjoy the beatific vision; but once delivered from their mortal bodies, the time is come when they are able to see God, Who would be their everlasting joy were it not for their own fault. It is this pain of separation that makes the pain of purgatory a cleansing fire in the fullest sense of the word. Prayer. Release, O Lord, etc., etc. Twentieth Day. In this valley of tears the sighs of holy persons are full of pain and sorrow, of pining after God and heaven. How painful must have been this burning love and yearning desire in such souls as St. Paul’s, St. Augustine’s and St. Teresa’s! Yet what was their suffering compared to the consuming fire of yearning in the souls of purgatory? For, however much we may pine after God, our only good, still while on earth we have many things that comfort us and deaden our pain. The very burden of our body, the distracting events of life, the possibility of great age, or larger store of merit, all these things are so many means of comfort to us. But the poor souls in purgatory have none of these consolations; there is nothing to assuage their pain of yearning and unfulfilled desire. More than the panting hart do they thirst after the fountain of eternal light and life. This unspeakable thirst is, in their case, all pure pain, unmingled with any soothing alloy. Oh, what a burning sea of sorrow those poor souls are plunged into! Flames within, flames without, flames all around them! Were it not that God’s omnipotent hand upheld them, their spirit would almost be consumed by those flames of fire. As you have noticed I have left you to draw from the proofs, as also from the description of the flames of purgatory, your own pious deductions and resolutions. But now I ask is there a doctrine in the Church which calls for more serious and pious consideration than this belief in purgatory,