Look at the progress of purgation here in Garrigou-Lagrange for the community. First, consolation, then chastisement, then condemnation.
We are rapidly approaching the time of chastisement. Some of us are experiencing this already individually through harsh trials.
Yet, all of these trials provide us with the opportunity to overcome selfishness and the ego.
We cannot move on into illumination and unity with God without this purgation.
In regard to the visits of the Lord, we must also remember that they often differ appreciably. There are visits of consolation, like the apparitions of Lourdes; but if people do not profit by them, the Lord comes to chastise; and if they do not profit by this divine correction, He may come to condemn.(4)
All that we have said shows what profit we should reap from the trials which the Lord sends us, particularly in this prolonged period of spiritual aridity of which we are speaking.
One of the most trying things about passive purgation is the realization of one's deeply rooted faults. To be freed of these and move on into the Light, one needs grace. God decides on the timing of this grace. But, it is not His Will that we go to purgatory.
It is His Will that we cooperate with grace now, on earth, for His Glory and the Glory of His Church.
If we bear it generously, many defects, which arrest the growth of the divine life in us, will be uprooted forever. Conquered self-love will then give place to the true love of God, to zeal for His glory and the salvation of souls.
To be continued.....
