(From a book by the author entitled “ Purgatory” written in 1893)
Faith does not teach us the precise duration of the pains of Purgatory. We know, in general, that they are measured by Divine Justice, and that for each one, they are proportioned to the number and gravity of the faults which he has not yet expiated. God may, however, without prejudice in His Justice, abridge those sufferings by augmenting their intensity; the Church Militant also may obtain their remission by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and other suffrages offered for the departed.
According to the common opinion of the doctors, the expiatory pains are of long duration. “There is no doubt”, says (St. Robert) Bellarmine, “that the pains of Purgatory are not limited to ten or twenty years, and that they last,in some cases, entire centuries. But allowing it to be true that their duration did not extend ten or twenty years, can we account it as nothing to have to endure for ten or twenty years, the most excruciating sufferings without the least alleviation? If a man was assured that he should suffer some violent pain in his feet, or his head, or teeth for the space of twenty years, and that without ever sleeping or taking the least repose, would he not a thousand times rather die than live in such a state. If the choice were given to him between a life thus miserable, and the loss of all his temporal goods, would he hesitate to make the sacrifice of his fortune to be delivered from such a torment? Shall we then find any difficulty in embracing labor and penance to free ourselves from the most painful exercises: vigils, fasts, almsgiving, long prayers and especially contrition, accompanied with sighs and tears.
These words comprise the whole doctrine of the saints and theologians.