Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
The Franciscan rule orders us to pray for the dead, and today's Mass is one of the ways we fulfill that precept.
Besides deceased friars and sisters, we also pray for deceased relatives and benefactors.
One might think that friars and sisters lived a holy life, and so would have little or nothing to atone for in purgatory.
But consider the case of Sister Teresa Margherita Gesta.
She was born in 1797 in Bastia, on the island of Corsica.
She became a nun in Foligno, on the Italian mainland, and experienced ecstasies already during her novitiate.
She was a perfect model of virtue, and in the 33 years that the Servant of God lived in that monastery, she successively served in all the offices.
She died on November 4, 1859, and after her death mournful cries were heard from her cell.
After a couple of weeks, another nun recognized the deceased sister's voice in those cries.
When asked about the reason for her suffering, the soul explained that she was condemned to 40 years in purgatory for failings regarding poverty, for although she had observed it perfectly in her own regard, while she was superior, she had been too lenient in granting dispensation to the other sisters.
The nuns of the monastery prayed for her and managed to greatly shorten her time in purgatory.
Why such a severe judgment?
Because of this principle expressed by Jesus, everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him whom they entrusted much they will demand the more.
Therefore that servant who knew his master's will, but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.
But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating.
Each of us is obliged to live his level in the life that God has made possible for him by his grace.
Anyone who fails to do this, even if he saves his soul, will never get out of purgatory until he has paid the last penny.
God does not ask the impossible of anyone, but he makes much possible by our grace and asks each of us to do what we reasonably can with his grace.
This includes praying to obtain more grace, especially when we're tempted by sin.
Those who go to purgatory will pay dearly for their tepidity because they can no longer merit.
Even after our sins are forgiven, we still have a debt to pay, called temporal punishment.
In this life, the merit of voluntarily offering sacrifices or accepting suffering greatly increases the value of our suffering to pay the debt that we owe.
We can also merit by works of mercy and by prayer.
But only those who are alive and in a state of grace can merit.
The dead can no longer merit, so the only coin left to them with which to pay their debts is pure suffering.
This is why their sufferings are much more intense than anything known on earth.
Saint Veronica Giuliani experienced these sufferings.
She wrote, we mortals don't know what the fire of purgatory is like.
It's called fire for lack of a better word, but it is so scorching, so penetrating, so powerful that it instantly destroys, annihilates, and consumes.
It has such great ardor that it would destroy the entire world in an instant.
Two years later, she wrote that purgatory was like hell, except that the holy souls know their sufferings will have an end.
Despite this, to those pure souls, their pains seem like an eternity at every moment.
In this suffering, I seem to feel a continuous renewal of pain.
There is no rest, no compassion.
A few months later, she wrote again, these pains I cannot describe with words.
I could never say enough.
And she goes on to say that even if all the souls that are or ever were in purgatory were to come and to try to explain it, no matter how long they spoke, at the end they would have to admit that they hadn't said anything of what it's really like.
Because the holy souls can't merit, they can't do anything to shorten or alleviate their sufferings.
But we who are still alive and in a state of grace can help them.
Sister Mary Frances of the Five Wounds was heroic in offering her sufferings for the holy souls.
She was a Franciscan tertiary who lived in Naples in the 1700s.
She dedicated almost all of her fasts to helping them.
She also tried to acquire as many indulgences as she could and had masses offered for them and encouraged others to offer masses.
Hardly a week went by without her scourging herself until she bled in order to offer this terrible sacrifice for the holy souls.
But even this wasn't enough for her charity.
She asked God to load upon her the sufferings that were due for particular souls.
God heard her prayer and she was confined to bed in terrible pain for hours, days, weeks or even a month after making this offering, seeming more dead than alive.
She especially tried to do purgatory, as she said, for the souls of priests and for the souls of those who had opposed or persecuted her.
Her spiritual director kept a register of the souls that she had freed from purgatory and they numbered in the thousands.
Some appeared to her to ask her for specific suffrages, the Way of the Cross, the Portiuncula indulgence, or masses.
Souls from purgatory also appeared to St. Pio of Pietrelcina to ask for his help, for he too had a great compassion upon them.
He offered himself as a victim for them, and when he celebrated Mass, he habitually paused for about ten minutes at the memento of the dead.
Apart from Mass, his preferred means of helping the souls in purgatory was the Holy Rosary.
He would tell his spiritual children, the souls in purgatory are helped by the rosary and works of charity.
Let us turn to Our Lady, so that she may come to their aid, reducing the intensity of their pains and the fire that torments them.
To another soul giving her a rosary, he said, I entrust you with a treasure.
Learn to treasure it.
Let's empty a corner of purgatory.
Let us, too, take pity on these poor souls who cannot help themselves.
We may not feel capable of making the great sacrifices, the heroic ones of the saints, but each of us can and should do something to relieve their pains.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.