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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I’m reading an interesting little book entitled “The Shepherd” by Hermas and in the chapter entitled “The trials of life”, mention is made of the angel of punishment; he is one of the righteous angels who is assigned to punishment, who takes those who have wandered away from God by walking in the way of the passions and pleasures of this world and punishes them, each one as he deserves, through various atrocious punishments. Some are punished with ailments, others with deprivations, others with various diseases, others with every kind of misfortune.

I am over seventy years old, and I know that I have made many mistakes in my life: I betrayed my wife and I sinned against God and men. I sincerely regret it. And I believe the angel of punishment has been visiting me for some years already and rightly so. I had lots of health problems and most recently I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.

I have always been a believer, although an on-again off-again one, but I have not attended church for many months because I am so depressed that I am accepting everything with a fatalistic hopelessness, and I cannot even ask the Lord for help.

Now I would like to have the strength to pray, not to ask for healing, but so that Jesus gives me the strength to bear with serenity all the sufferings of body and soul and especially that he does not make my loved ones suffer because of my fault.

I ask you:

1) Are the tribulations I am experiencing truly a divine punishment, or should they be understood as purification of the soul from the sins committed? Can this Purgatory on earth shorten the one after death?

2) how can I pray for forgiveness and relief from pain? And will prayers be of any use?

Thank you and God bless you!

Answer from the priest

Dear Son,

1. Hermas, the Christian writer from the first half of the second century, when speaking of the Angel of punishment is using anthropomorphic language.

In the very word “Angel”, which means “messenger”, we are invited to see the message that the Lord wants to send us through suffering.

2. To your first question: “are the tribulations I am experiencing truly a divine punishment, or should they be understood as purification of the soul from sins committed”, I like to respond with a few statements by John Paul II on suffering, which he experienced in a hard way during his life.

3. Suffering, the Pope says, contains a meaning of atonement because “it serves to repay the same objective evil of transgression with another evil” (Salvifici doloris 11).

4. But even before its atonement value, it intends to “lead to conversion” with the purpose of “rebuilding goodness” lost through sin.

“Suffering must serve for conversion, that is, for the rebuilding of goodness in the subject, who can recognize the divine mercy in this call to repentance” (SD 11).

In other words, it must serve to build sanctification.

According to this meaning we must read the words of Sacred Scripture: “These chastisements were meant not for the ruin but for the correction of our nation” (2 Mac 6:12).

5. It must be said, however, that in Christ, and even earlier in Job, suffering is also present in righteous, innocent people.

That is, it is not associated with the atonement for personal sins.

Here, then, a new meaning to suffering is revealed, because in Christ “it has been linked to love, to that love of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus, to that love which creates good, drawing it out by means of suffering, just as the supreme good of the Redemption of the world was drawn from the Cross of Christ, and from that Cross constantly takes its beginning. The Cross of Christ has become a source from which flow rivers of living water” (SD 18).

6. So much in sinners as in the righteous, suffering is intended to become a source of grace, of living water that pours into the world.

In Christ, suffering became “the price of the Redemption” (SD 18).

Through the experience of suffering, Christ calls on men to spread the treasures of his redemption through their flesh.

That is the reason why pain, when it is experienced in Christ, becomes redemptive, a source of living water.

7. You then ask me if suffering can shorten one’s time in Purgatory.

Well, not only can it shorten it, but even spare it altogether, because God does not purify twice for the same sins, as St. Catherine of Siena points out.

8. Finally, you ask, “Can I pray for forgiveness and relief from pain? And will prayers be of any use?”

Yes, but please note that this is not a penalty to be paid.

Everything is bound to charity, that is, loving God and one’s neighbour with the very heart of God.

It is charity that burns and purifies all our sins.

Even if you prayed a lot, but you had little charity, you would get little.

9. That is why I urge you to act like our Father Saint Dominic, who every day asked God to have greater and greater charity.

Therefore, do often revive your acts of charity towards those who made you suffer, by praying for them.

Constantly renew your forgiveness for the offenses you received.

Never speak ill of anyone.

Excuse everyone.

“Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pt 4:8).

I am close to you in prayer.

During the Mass, I will offer your pains and your sorrows.

I will gladly join them to the sacrifice of Christ, so that they become a source of living water for many.

I wish you well and I bless you.

Father Angelo