Lumen 2018

He also told them to offer any merits, labors, fasts, mortifications, and other pious works for the souls, so that they might be freed from their unbearable punishments. 141 Father Papczynski’s contemporaries often recalled that he would lock himself up in a cell to pray and would, in ecstasy, descend to Purgatory. During these ecstasies, he was able to feel the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory. On such occasions, he would ask the Heav- enly Father: “O, God of infinite Mercy, give me more suffering and diminish their punishment” ( O Clementissime Deus, auge mihi do- lores, et ipsis poenas minue ). He formed his confreres in the same spirit. They would later recall affectionately how he was once very ill and, as he meditated upon the suffering of the souls in Purgatory, he remembered that he had a gold Hungarian coin. He asked Fr. Joseph of All Saints to take this coin as soon as possible and give it to the priests, so that they would say a Holy Mass for the souls suf- fering in Purgatory. 142 Sometimes the merciful God would reveal the special mysteries of His Divine Providence to this lover of the souls in Purgatory. One day, when he was praying with his confreres in choir, he saw one of the souls, judged harshly for its sins and trembling in fear of eternal damnation. Moved, he took pity on this soul, interrupted the silence, and said to his confreres: “Let us pray together for the soul that is being judged right now” ( Oremus ad invicem pro anima, quae modo iudicatur ). Even though he did not reveal whose soul it was, it was supposed that it was King John III Sobieski, who died in Warsaw at that time. 143 Animated by love of the souls suffering in Purgatory, Fr. Papczyn- ski offered all his illnesses, sufferings, labors, persecutions, fasts, mor- tifications, penances, good deeds, and merits for them. He imposed the same duty on his confreres. 144 In order to encourage them to do so, he wrote in his testament of 1692 that whoever performs this act of heroic love, will be doubly rewarded by God: “I promise, he wrote, a double reward at God’s hands to all those who choose and 287 Foundation of a New Religious Order