many souls who had lived in religion, and who, on account of their lack of union and charity with their brethren, were deprived of their suffrages and received no alleviation."
If it is true that God punishes thus severely those that have failed in Charity, He will be infinitely merciful towards those who have practised this virtue so dear to His Heart. But before all things. He says to us by the mouth of His Apostle, St. Peter, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves, for charity covereth a multitude of sins.[1]
Let us hear Monseigneur Languet again in the Life of Margaret Mary. It is Mother Greffier, he says, who, in the memoir she wrote after the death of the blessed sister, attests the following fact. " I cannot omit the cause of certain particular circumstances which manifest the truth of a revelation made on this occasion to the servant of God. The father of one of the novices was the cause of it. This gentleman had died some time previous, and had been recommended to the prayers of the community. The charity of Sister Margaret, then Mistress of Novices, urged her to pray more especially for him.
"Some days later the novice went to recommend him to her prayers. 'My daughter,' said her holy mistress, 'be perfectly tranquil; your father is rather in a condition to pray for us. Ask your mother what was the most generous action your father performed before his death; this action has obtained for him from God a favourable judgment.'
" The action to which she alluded was unknown to the novice; no one in Paray knew the circumstance of a death which had happened so far away from that town. The novice did not see her mother until long afterwards, on the day of her profession. She then asked what was that generous Christian action which her father had performed before dying. 'When the Holy Viaticum was brought to him,' replied her mother, ' the butcher joined those who accompanied the Blessed Sacrament, and placed
- ↑ Peter iv. 8.
