Penance Purifies Souls

"Penance is the rampart protecting chastity.

Penitence appeases God's justice and transforms it into graces.

It purifies souls,

extinguishes the fires of purgatory

and receives in heaven a most sublime recompense.

 Penance pays for personal faults and those of others.

Penance is the sister of mortification. Both work together hand in hand.

Penance helps the soul rise above things of the earth.

Penance cooperates with the Redemption of the world.

Penance humbles man,

it penetrates him with an inner feeling of his baseness and his wretchedness.

Penance brings light to the soul.

 It consumes and causes to disappear all in it that is purely material.

It raises him higher and higher above the earth,

making him taste of delights hitherto unknown and pure.

But this penance should be the daughter of reverence and exist in the soul,

hidden from all humans"

~ Jesus to Venerable Concepcion Cabrera de Armida,
from Conchita, A Mother's Spiritual Diary, Sept. 24, 1895).

Cardinal Arinze: What is Purgatory?

"In my infinite Wisdom I formed my Church: and do they know of what material? From the substance of love, and in all its fibers, and in all its arteries, and in all its dispositions, they will see love and only love. And consequently, I became man, to unite the divine and the human, and to bring to heaven souls WITHOUT DUST.

"Purgatory itself is Love."

~ Jesus to Venerable Concepcion Cabrera de Armida ~

Jesus Requests Prayers and Suffrages for Priests in Purgatory

"I do not want to exclude priests who have died.
They also need prayers and suffrages
so that they may return to my arms from purgatory to heaven.
Even there, the mission of faithful souls lasts,
to free priests from that place of purification,
to gain for Me the joy of seeing them finally in the bosom of My glory.
This will be an act of charity for them
and a joy they will give Me.

~ Jesus to Venerable Concepcion Cabrera de Armida, from To My Priests ~

Priest Souls in Purgatory Wait for Help From Charitable Souls

Jesus revealed to Venerable Concepcion Cabrera de Armida how justice prevents Him from releasing priest souls from Purgatory until charitable souls of the Church Militant come to their aid:

"In my infinite Wisdom I formed my Church: and do they know of what material? From the substance of love, and in all its fibers, and in all its arteries, and in all its dispositions, they will see love and only love. And consequently, I became man, to unite the divine and the human, and to bring to heaven souls WITHOUT DUST.

"Purgatory itself is Love."

"These priestly souls, straying and sunken in abominable vices, when they are repentant and saved, they have an incalculable purgatory, and they give Me grief and my Heart of love is moved when seeing them suffer. I am not able according to the laws established by Me, I, WHO CAN DO EVERYTHING, to diminish their purgatory, if the militant Church does not apply my infinite merits to them.

"I have here another pain for my Heart that no one sees, nor knows of it, nor grasps all its extension and it is this: seeing myself as idle, without being able in a certain sense, with the devouring flames of my love, to sweeten their pains, to diminish their time of purification, to draw them out of the flames and to transport them within my Heart to heaven.

"This same justice impedes love; and as I myself am love, mercy and justice, this last attribute comes as a deterrent to love on this point--who would believe it!--I am eager and yearning because souls on earth can do what I am not able to do in heaven.

"This is another secret that I disclose today of the thousands of martyrdoms of love that I bear in my Heart of the Savior God. I struggled with divine and human means--how many times, years upon years!--to save souls of fallen priests, unfaithful to the church, renegades, apostates, schismatics etc. etc.: I succeeded in saving them with my very Blood, with tears from my soul, with pleading groans to the Father, with my infinite merits; and they arise from the world contrite and pardoned.

"Then, when they are in purgatory, alas! now nothing is possible for them to do , but WAIT, wait that there are charitable souls that ransom them, lessen their pain and time."

~ Jesus to Venerable Concepcion Cabrera de Armida, from To My Priests ~

Venerable Concepcion--a wife, mother of nine children, grandmother, mystic, foundress of the Works of the Cross, and spiritual mother to priests--reached the heights of spiritual union with God while fulfilling the duties of her vocation. Our Lord told her, "You married in view of My great designs for your personal holiness, and to be an example for many souls who think that marriage is incompatible with holiness."

To learn more about Venerable Concepcion, lovingly called Conchita, click here to read Conchita, A Mother's Spiritual Diary.